Units of plasticity in bacterial genomes: new insight from the comparative genomics of two bacteria interacting with invertebrates, Photorhabdus and Xenorhabdus.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Flexible genomes facilitate bacterial evolution and are classically organized into polymorphic strain-specific segments called regions of genomic plasticity (RGPs). Using a new web tool, RGPFinder, we investigated plasticity units in bacterial genomes, by exhaustive description of the RGPs in two Photorhabdus and two Xenorhabdus strains, belonging to the Enterobacteriaceae and interacting with invertebrates (insects and nematodes).

Results

RGPs account for about 60% of the genome in each of the four genomes studied. We classified RGPs into genomic islands (GIs), prophages and two new classes of RGP without the features of classical mobile genetic elements (MGEs) but harboring genes encoding enzymes catalyzing DNA recombination (RGPmob), or with no remarkable featu

SUBMITTER: Ogier JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3091717 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature