Conservative sex and the benefits of transformation in Streptococcus pneumoniae.

ABSTRACT: Natural transformation has significant effects on bacterial genome evolution, but the evolutionary factors maintaining this mode of bacterial sex remain uncertain. Transformation is hypothesized to have both positive and negative evolutionary effects on bacteria. It can facilitate adaptation by combining beneficial mutations into a single individual, or reduce the mutational load by exposing deleterious alleles to natural selection. Alternatively, it may expose transformed cells to damaged or otherwise mutated environmental DNA and is energetically expensive. Here, we examine the long-term effects of transformation in the naturally competent species Streptococcus pneumoniae by evolving populations of wild-type and competence-deficient strains in chemostats for 1000 generations. Half of the

SUBMITTER: Engelmoer DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3828180 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature