The evolution of domain-content in bacterial genomes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Across all sequenced bacterial genomes, the number of domains nc in different functional categories c scales as a power-law in the total number of domains n, i.e. nc proportional n(alpha)c, with exponents alpha(c) that vary across functional categories. Here we investigate the implications of these scaling laws for the evolution of domain-content in bacterial genomes and derive the simplest evolutionary model consistent with these scaling laws.

Results

We show that, using only an assumption of time invariance, the scaling laws uniquely determine the relative rates of domain additions and deletions across all functional categories and evolutionary lineages. In particular, the model predicts that the rate of additions and deletions of domains of category c is propor

SUBMITTER: Molina N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2615428 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature