title: Highways of gene sharing in prokaryotes.
abstract: The extent to which lateral genetic transfer has shaped microbial genomes has major implications for the emergence of community structures. We have performed a rigorous phylogenetic analysis of >220,000 proteins from genomes of 144 prokaryotes to determine the contribution of gene sharing to current prokaryotic diversity, and to identify "highways" of sharing between lineages. The inferred relationships suggest a pattern of inheritance that is largely vertical, but with notable exceptions among closely related taxa, and among distantly related organisms that live in similar environments.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Bioscience and Australian Research Council Centre in Bioinformatics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Robert G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Beiko
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Harlow
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ragan
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal / Q000235:genetics*; D014644:Genetic Variation; D020745:Genome, Archaeal / Q000235:genetics*; D016680:Genome, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics*; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010802:Phylogeny; D011387:Prokaryotic Cells; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins