Patterns and architecture of genomic islands in marine bacteria.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Genomic Islands (GIs) have key roles since they modulate the structure and size of bacterial genomes displaying a diverse set of laterally transferred genes. Despite their importance, GIs in marine bacterial genomes have not been explored systematically to uncover possible trends and to analyze their putative ecological significance.

Results

We carried out a comprehensive analysis of GIs in 70 selected marine bacterial genomes detected with IslandViewer to explore the distribution, patterns and functional gene content in these genomic regions. We detected 438 GIs containing a total of 8152 genes. GI number per genome was strongly and positively correlated with the total GI size. In 50% of the genomes analyzed the GIs accounted for approximately 3% of the genome le

SUBMITTER: Fernandez-Gomez B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3478194 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature