Deciphering gene redundancy in prokaryotic genomes provides evolutionary insights for pathogenicity and its roles in clinical infections.

ABSTRACT: Gene redundancy, increasing gene dosage and functional diversity, remains understudied regarding its roles in evolution and clinical infections. Exploring 22,310 prokaryotic genomes with our custom pipeline, we found that redundant genes, though less frequent than in eukaryotes, are widespread and mainly linked to niche specialization. Evolutionary analyses delineated a propensity for gene redundancy expansion with increasing phylogenetic distance, with pathogens accumulating more redundancy than non-pathogens. Redundant genes are always co-duplicated with translation initiation signals and potentially preserve functionality. Time series examining 69 Acinetobacter baumannii isolates from multi-sites in severely infected patients, we identified redundant alcohol dehydrogenase genes and tran

SUBMITTER: Wang P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12669621 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature