title: Analysis of bifidobacterial evolution using a multilocus approach.
abstract: Bifidobacteria represent one of the most numerous groups of bacteria found in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals. In man, gastrointestinal bifidobacteria are associated with health effects and for this reason they are often used as functional ingredients in food and pharmaceutical products. Such applications may benefit from or require a clear and reliable bifidobacterial species identification. The increasing number of available bacterial genome sequences has provided a large amount of housekeeping gene sequences that can be used both for identification of bifidobacterial species as well as for understanding bifidobacterial evolution. In order to assess their relative positions in the evolutionary process, fragments from seven conserved genes, clpC, dnaB, dnaG, dnaJ1, purF, rpoC and xfp, were sequenced from each of the currently described type strains of the genus Bifidobacterium. The results demonstrate that the concatenation of these seven gene sequences for phylogenetic purposes allows a significant increase in the discriminatory power between taxa.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Anthropology and Evolution, University of Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 11a, 43100 Parma, Italy.|Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre and Department of Microbiology, Bioscience Institute, National University of Ireland, Western Road, Cork, Ireland.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ventura
authors.affiliation: Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre and Department of Microbiology, Bioscience Institute, National University of Ireland, Western Road, Cork, Ireland.
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Canchaya
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento Scientifico e Tecnologico, University of Verona, Italy.
authors.forename: Antonio Del
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Casale
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento Scientifico e Tecnologico, University of Verona, Italy.
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dellaglio
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Anthropology and Evolution, University of Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 11a, 43100 Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Erasmo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Neviani
authors.affiliation: Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre and Department of Microbiology, Bioscience Institute, National University of Ireland, Western Road, Cork, Ireland.
authors.forename: Gerald F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Fitzgerald
authors.affiliation: Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre and Department of Microbiology, Bioscience Institute, National University of Ireland, Western Road, Cork, Ireland.
authors.forename: Douwe
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: van Sinderen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D001644:Bifidobacterium / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020459:Genes, rRNA; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S