title: Evolution of bacterial diversity and the origins of modularity.
abstract: A characteristic feature of all organisms is modular organisation: the tendency for groups of genes to interact in such a way as to limit the extent of pleiotropic effects among characters belonging to different functional complexes. While the implications of modularity for the evolution of variability have been much discussed the evolutionary origins remain obscure. Here we develop a model, with special reference to signal transduction cascades of bacteria, which predicts that in the face of ecological opportunity and lateral gene transfer, selection will favour modular genome architectures because such architectures minimise the pleiotropic effects associated with accommodation of potentially beneficial foreign DNA.
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand. p.rainey@auckland.ac.nz
authors.forename: Paul B
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Rainey
authors.forename: Tim F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Cooper
mesh_terms: D001482:Base Composition; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal / Q000235:genetics; D005798:Genes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D008954:Models, Biological; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics; D010957:Plasmids / Q000235:genetics; D011549:Pseudomonas / Q000235:genetics; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid / Q000235:genetics; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000235:genetics*