TY - JOUR
T1 - Contribution of lateral gene transfer to the gene repertoire of a gut-adapted methanogen
AU - Lurie-Weinberger, Mor N.
AU - Peeri, Michael
AU - Gophna, Uri
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Eugene Rosenberg for helpful suggestions. UG is supported by grants from the McDonnell Foundation , the German–Israeli Project Cooperation (DIP) and the Chief Scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Health . This study was supported in part by a fellowship from the Edmond J. Safra Bioinformatics program at Tel-Aviv University to MNLW. We Thank Ofir Cohen for critical reading of the manuscript.
PY - 2012/1
Y1 - 2012/1
N2 - Methanobrevibacter smithii is the most abundant archaeon in the human colon. As most of its neighbors are bacterial species, it is expected that lateral gene acquisition from bacteria might have contributed to the evolution and adaptation of this archaeon. We performed a tree-based genome-wide survey of putative lateral gene transfer products in M. smithii, using a phylogenetic pipeline. Over 15% of the coding genes of M. smithii are inferred to be bacterial in origin, based on this analysis. Laterally acquired genes have had the largest contribution to surface functions, and encode glycosyl-transferases and adhesin-like proteins. In addition, several important ABC transporters, especially metal transporters are of bacterial origin. Thus, bacterial genes contributed to the host-adaptation by allowing a larger variety of surface structures and increasing the efficiency of metal ion uptake in the competitive gut niche.
AB - Methanobrevibacter smithii is the most abundant archaeon in the human colon. As most of its neighbors are bacterial species, it is expected that lateral gene acquisition from bacteria might have contributed to the evolution and adaptation of this archaeon. We performed a tree-based genome-wide survey of putative lateral gene transfer products in M. smithii, using a phylogenetic pipeline. Over 15% of the coding genes of M. smithii are inferred to be bacterial in origin, based on this analysis. Laterally acquired genes have had the largest contribution to surface functions, and encode glycosyl-transferases and adhesin-like proteins. In addition, several important ABC transporters, especially metal transporters are of bacterial origin. Thus, bacterial genes contributed to the host-adaptation by allowing a larger variety of surface structures and increasing the efficiency of metal ion uptake in the competitive gut niche.
KW - Archaeal genomics
KW - Horizontal gene transfer
KW - Microbial evolution
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84855189641&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ygeno.2011.10.005
DO - 10.1016/j.ygeno.2011.10.005
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AN - SCOPUS:84855189641
SN - 0888-7543
VL - 99
SP - 52
EP - 58
JO - Genomics
JF - Genomics
IS - 1
ER -