Extensive cotransformation of natural variation into chromosomes of naturally competent Haemophilus influenzae.

ABSTRACT: Naturally competent bacterial species actively take up environmental DNA and can incorporate it into their chromosomes by homologous recombination. This can bring genetic variation from environmental DNA to recipient chromosomes, often in multiple long "donor" segments. Here, we report the results of genome sequencing 96 colonies of a laboratory Haemophilus influenzae strain, which had been experimentally transformed by DNA from a diverged clinical isolate. Donor segments averaged 6.9 kb (spanning several genes) and were clustered into recombination tracts of ~19.5 kb. Individual colonies had replaced from 0.1 to 3.2% of their chromosomes, and ~1/3 of all donor-specific single-nucleotide variants were present in at least one recombinant. We found that nucleotide divergence did not obviousl

SUBMITTER: Mell JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4059242 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature