title: Ancient lateral gene transfer in the evolution of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus.
abstract: The recently sequenced genome of the predatory delta-proteobacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus provides many insights into its metabolism and evolution. Because its genes are reasonably uniform in G+C content, it was suggested that B. bacteriovorus actively resists recombination with foreign DNA and horizontal transfer of DNA from other bacteria. To investigate this further, we carried out a variety of phylogenetic and comparative genomics analyses using data from >200 microbial genomes, including several published delta-proteobacteria. Although there might be little evidence for the extensive recent transfer of genes, we demonstrate that ancient lateral gene acquisition has shaped the B. bacteriovorus genome to a great extent.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel. urigo@tauex.tau.ac.il
authors.forename: Uri
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Gophna
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Charlebois
authors.forename: W Ford
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Doolittle
mesh_terms: D001501:Bdellovibrio / Q000235:genetics*; D020564:Deltaproteobacteria / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid