Networks of gene sharing among 329 proteobacterial genomes reveal differences in lateral gene transfer frequency at different phylogenetic depths.

ABSTRACT: Lateral gene transfer (LGT) is an important mechanism of natural variation among prokaryotes. Over the full course of evolution, most or all of the genes resident in a given prokaryotic genome have been affected by LGT, yet the frequency of LGT can vary greatly across genes and across prokaryotic groups. The proteobacteria are among the most diverse of prokaryotic taxa. The prevalence of LGT in their genome evolution calls for the application of network-based methods instead of tree-based methods to investigate the relationships among these species. Here, we report networks that capture both vertical and horizontal components of evolutionary history among 1,207,272 proteins distributed across 329 sequenced proteobacterial genomes. The network of shared proteins reveals modularity structure

SUBMITTER: Kloesges T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3021791 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature