The Landscape of Realized Homologous Recombination in Pathogenic Bacteria
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Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Recombination enhances the adaptive potential of organisms by allowing genetic variants to be tested on multiple genomic backgrounds. Its distribution in the genome can provide insight into the evolutionary forces that underlie traits, such as the emergence of pathogenicity. Here, we examined landscapes of realized homologous recombination of 500 genomes from ten bacterial species and found all species have “hot” regions with elevated rates relative to the genome average. We examined the size, gene content, and chromosomal features associated with these regions and the correlations between closely related species. The recombination landscape is variable and evolves rapidly. For example in Salmonella, only short regions of around 1 kb in length are hot whereas in the closely related species Escherichia coli, some hot regions exceed 100 kb, spanning many genes. Only Streptococcus pyogenes shows evidence for the positive correlation between GC content and recombination that has been reported for several eukaryotes. Genes with function related to the cell surface/membrane are often found in recombination hot regions but E. coli is the only species where genes annotated as “virulence associated” are consistently hotter. There is also evidence that some genes with “housekeeping” functions tend to be overrepresented in cold regions. For example, ribosomal proteins showed low recombination in all of the species. Among specific genes, transferrin-binding proteins are recombination hot in all three of the species in which they were found, and are subject to interspecies recombination.
Date Issued
2015-10-29
Date Acceptance
2015-10-01
Citation
Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2015, 33 (2), pp.456-471
ISSN
1537-1719
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Start Page
456
End Page
471
Journal / Book Title
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Volume
33
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Sponsor
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
Grant Number
MR/K010174/1B
BB/L023458/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics & Heredity
recombination
selection
pathogenicity
population genomics
COMPLETE GENOME SEQUENCE
RESISTANT STAPHYLOCOCCUS-AUREUS
HAEMOPHILUS-INFLUENZAE RD
NEISSERIA-MENINGITIDIS
STREPTOCOCCUS-PNEUMONIAE
MEIOTIC RECOMBINATION
POPULATION GENOMICS
ESCHERICHIA-COLI
DISULFIDE OXIDOREDUCTASE
CLOSTRIDIUM-DIFFICILE
0604 Genetics
0603 Evolutionary Biology
0601 Biochemistry And Cell Biology
Publication Status
Published