title: Frequent gene fissions associated with human pathogenic bacteria.
abstract: Gene fusion and fission events are important for evolutionary studies and for predicting protein-protein interactions. Previous studies have shown that fusion events always predominate over fission events and, in their majority, they represent singular events throughout evolution. In this project, the role of fusion and fission events in the genome evolution of 104 human bacterial pathogens was studied. 141 protein pairs were identified to be involved in gene fusion or fission events. Surprisingly, we find that, in the species analyzed, gene fissions prevail over fusions. Moreover, while most events appear to have occurred only once in evolution, 23% of the gene fusion and fission events identified are deduced to have occurred independently multiple times. Comparison of the analyzed bacteria with non-pathogenic close relatives indicates that this impressive result is associated with the recent evolutionary history of the human bacterial pathogens, and thus is probably caused by their pathogenic lifestyle.
authors: Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens, Soranou Efesiou 4, 115 27 Athens, Greece. Electronic address: ikaramichali@gmail.com.
authors: Ioanna
authors: I
authors: Karamichali
authors: Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens, Soranou Efesiou 4, 115 27 Athens, Greece. Electronic address: vkoumandou@bioacademy.gr.
authors: V Lila
authors: VL
authors: Koumandou
authors: Department of Botany, Microbiology Group, Faculty of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 15781 Athens, Greece. Electronic address: akar@biol.uoa.gr.
authors: Amalia D
authors: AD
authors: Karagouni
authors: Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens, Soranou Efesiou 4, 115 27 Athens, Greece. Electronic address: skossida@bioacademy.gr.
authors: Sophia
authors: S
authors: Kossida
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005787:Gene Frequency; D050939:Gene Fusion; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D011995:Recombination, Genetic
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins
keywords: Domain fusion; Gene fission; Gene fusion; Human bacterial pathogens; Phylogenetic profiling; Protein evolution; Protein–protein interactions; Rosetta Stone analysis