The Landscape of Realized Homologous Recombination in Pathogenic Bacteria.

ABSTRACT: Recombination enhances the adaptive potential of organisms by allowing genetic variants to be tested on multiple genomic backgrounds. Its distribution in the genome can provide insight into the evolutionary forces that underlie traits, such as the emergence of pathogenicity. Here, we examined landscapes of realized homologous recombination of 500 genomes from ten bacterial species and found all species have "hot" regions with elevated rates relative to the genome average. We examined the size, gene content, and chromosomal features associated with these regions and the correlations between closely related species. The recombination landscape is variable and evolves rapidly. For example in Salmonella, only short regions of around 1 kb in length are hot whereas in the closely related species

SUBMITTER: Yahara K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4866539 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature