Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics of Episomes among Ecologically Cohesive Bacterial Populations.

ABSTRACT:

Unlabelled

Although plasmids and other episomes are recognized as key players in horizontal gene transfer among microbes, their diversity and dynamics among ecologically structured host populations in the wild remain poorly understood. Here, we show that natural populations of marine Vibrionaceae bacteria host large numbers of families of episomes, consisting of plasmids and a surprisingly high fraction of plasmid-like temperate phages. Episomes are unevenly distributed among host populations, and contrary to the notion that high-density communities in biofilms act as hot spots of gene transfer, we identified a strong bias for episomes to occur in free-living as opposed to particle-attached cells. Mapping of episomal families onto host phylogeny shows that, with the exception of al

SUBMITTER: Xue H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4436056 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature