An automated approach for the identification of horizontal gene transfers from complete genomes reveals the rhizome of Rickettsiales.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is considered to be a major force driving the evolutionary history of prokaryotes. HGT is widespread in prokaryotes, contributing to the genomic repertoire of prokaryotic organisms, and is particularly apparent in Rickettsiales genomes. Gene gains from both distantly and closely related organisms play crucial roles in the evolution of bacterial genomes. In this work, we focus on genes transferred from distantly related species into Rickettsiales species.

Results

We developed an automated approach for the detection of HGT from other organisms (excluding alphaproteobacteria) into Rickettsiales genomes. Our systematic approach consisted of several specialized features including the application of a parsimony method for inferring phyleti

SUBMITTER: Le PT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3575314 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature