title: Rates of Lateral Gene Transfer in Prokaryotes: High but Why?
abstract: Lateral gene transfer is of fundamental importance to the evolution of prokaryote genomes and has important practical consequences, as evidenced by the rapid dissemination of antibiotic resistance and virulence determinants. Relatively little effort has so far been devoted to explicitly quantifying the rate at which accessory genes are taken up and lost, but it is possible that the combined rate of lateral gene transfer and gene loss is higher than that of point mutation. What evolutionary forces underlie the rate of lateral gene transfer are not well understood. We here use theory developed to explain the evolution of mutation rates to address this question and explore its consequences for the study of prokaryote evolution.
authors.affiliation: European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK. Electronic address: m.vos@exeter.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Michiel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vos
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Matthijn C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Hesselman
authors.affiliation: Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Tim A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Te Beek
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands; Centre for Zoonoses and Environmental Microbiology, Centre for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Mark W J
authors.initials: MWJ
authors.lastname: van Passel
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Eyre-Walker
mesh_terms: D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D020745:Genome, Archaeal / Q000235:genetics; D016680:Genome, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D011387:Prokaryotic Cells / Q000378:metabolism*
keywords: accessory genome; distribution of fitness effects; gene content; gene loss; lateral gene transfer; mutation rate