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MBE Advance Access originally published online on September 11, 2006
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2006 23(12):2379-2391; doi:10.1093/molbev/msl115
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Articles

Gene Gain and Gene Loss in Streptococcus: Is It Driven by Habitat?

Pradeep Reddy Marri1, Weilong Hao1 and G. Brian Golding

Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

E-mail: golding{at}mcmaster.ca.

Bacterial genomes can evolve either by gene gain, gene loss, mutating existing genes, and/or by duplication of existing genes. Recent studies have clearly demonstrated that the acquisition of new genes by lateral gene transfer (LGT) is a predominant force in bacterial evolution. To better understand the significance of LGT, we employed a comparative genomics approach to model species-specific and intraspecies gene insertions/deletions (ins/del among 12 sequenced streptococcal genomes using a maximum likelihood method. This study indicates that the rate of gene ins/del is higher on the external branches and varies dramatically for each species. We have analyzed here some of the experimentally characterized species-specific genes that have been acquired by LGT and conclude that at least a portion of these genes have a role in adaptation.

Key Words: adaptive evolution • Streptococcus • maximum likelihood analysis • adaptation • lateral gene transfer • gene gain • gene loss • phylogeny


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