Dresden 2020 – wissenschaftliches Programm
Die DPG-Frühjahrstagung in Dresden musste abgesagt werden! Lesen Sie mehr ...
Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe
BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 37: Systems Biology, Evolution and Neural Networks I
BP 37.6: Vortrag
Donnerstag, 19. März 2020, 16:45–17:00, ZEU 250
The effects of cross-species gene transfer on genome dynamics — •Mona Förster1, Isabel Rathmann1, Jeffrey Power2, Viera Kovacova1, Michael Lässig1, and Berenike Maier1 — 1Universität zu Köln, Deutschland — 2Universität Tübingen, Deutschland
Phylogenetic studies have provided strong evidence that gene transfer happens frequently and acts across species. However, the rate at which gene transfer occurs and its short-term effect on genome dynamics are poorly understood. To address the effect of intra- and inter-species gene transfer on genome dynamics we developed an evolution experiment and analysis method to detect horizontal gene transfer. To investigate mechanistic contributions to gene transfer probability, we ensured minimal selection by not allowing for population dynamics. We were able to detect a remarkably high gene transfer rate of 0.4 %h−1 across subspecies of Bacillus subtilis. This rate was lower by 125 times when gene transfer was probed between B. subtilis and Bacillus atrophaeus. Interestingly, the average sequence divergence of integrated segments is comparable between both donors with a mean of 6.7 %. In both experiments, gene transfer increased the number of mutations depending on replacement quantity. The fact that the fraction of replaced genome increases linearly throughout the 40 h of DNA uptake suggests that transfer of genes is not yet saturated. In future long term evolutionary experiments, it will be interesting to relate the rate of gene transfer across donor and recipient with the pattern of sequence divergence to better understand what sets species apart.