title: Systematic identification and quantification of phase variation in commensal and pathogenic Escherichia coli.
abstract: Bacteria have been shown to generate constant genetic variation in a process termed phase variation. We present a tool based on whole genome sequencing that allows detection and quantification of coexisting genotypes mediated by genomic inversions in bacterial cultures. We tested our method on widely used strains of Escherichia coli, and detected stable and reproducible phase variation in several invertible loci. These are shown here to be responsible for maintaining constant variation in populations grown from a single colony. Applying this tool on other bacterial strains can shed light on how pathogens adjust to hostile environments by diversifying their genomes.
authors.affiliation: Racah Institute of Physics and the Sudarsky Center for Computational Biology, The Hebrew University, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem, 91904 Israel.
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Goldberg
authors.affiliation: Racah Institute of Physics and the Sudarsky Center for Computational Biology, The Hebrew University, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem, 91904 Israel.
authors.forename: Ofer
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Fridman
authors.affiliation: Racah Institute of Physics and the Sudarsky Center for Computational Biology, The Hebrew University, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem, 91904 Israel.
authors.forename: Irine
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ronin
authors.affiliation: Racah Institute of Physics and the Sudarsky Center for Computational Biology, The Hebrew University, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem, 91904 Israel.
authors.forename: Nathalie Q
authors.initials: NQ
authors.lastname: Balaban