title: Prokaryote genome fluidity is dependent on effective population size.
abstract: Many prokaryote species are known to have fluid genomes, with different strains varying markedly in accessory gene content through the combined action of gene loss, gene gain via lateral transfer, as well as gene duplication. However, the evolutionary forces determining genome fluidity are not yet well understood. We here for the first time systematically analyse the degree to which this distinctive genomic feature differs between bacterial species. We find that genome fluidity is positively correlated with synonymous nucleotide diversity of the core genome, a measure of effective population size Ne. No effects of genome size, phylogeny or homologous recombination rate on genome fluidity were found. Our findings are consistent with a scenario where accessory gene content turnover is for a large part dictated by neutral evolution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science (BCA), University of Padova, Padua, Italy.|European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK.
authors.forename: Nadia Andrea
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Andreani
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK.
authors.forename: Elze
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hesse
authors.affiliation: European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK.
authors.forename: Michiel
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3917-8151
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vos
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D023281:Genomics; D011156:Population Density