scholarly journals Genome size distributions in bacteria and archaea are strongly linked to phylogeny

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank O. Aylward ◽  
Carolina Alejandra Martinez-Gutierrez

The evolutionary forces that determine genome size in bacteria and archaea have been the subject of intense debate over the last few decades. Although the preferential loss of genes observed in prokaryotes is explained through the deletional bias, factors promoting and preventing the fixation of such gene losses remain unclear. Moreover, statistical analyses on this topic have typically been limited to a narrow diversity of bacteria and archaea without considering the potential bias introduced by the shared recent ancestry of many lineages. In this study, we used a phylogenetic generalized least-squares (PGLS) analysis to evaluate the effect of different factors on the genome size of a broad diversity of bacteria and archaea. We used dN/dS to estimate the strength of purifying selection, and 16S copy number as a proxy for ecological strategy, which have both been postulated to play a role in shaping genome size. After model fit, Pagels lambda indicated a strong phylogenetic signal in genome size, suggesting that the diversification of this trait is strongly influenced by shared evolutionary histories. As a predictor variable, dN/dS showed a poor predictability and non-significance when phylogeny was considered, consistent with the view that genome reduction can occur under either weak or strong purifying selection depending on the ecological context. Copies of 16S rRNA showed poor predictability but maintained significance when accounting for non-independence in residuals, suggesting that ecological strategy as approximated from 16S rRNA copies might play a minor role in genome size variation. Altogether, our results indicate that genome size is a complex trait that is not driven by any singular underlying evolutionary force, but rather depends on lineage- and niche-specific factors that will vary widely across bacteria and archaea.

Genome ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (6) ◽  
pp. 393-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas W. Jeffery ◽  
Kristin Hultgren ◽  
Solomon Tin Chi Chak ◽  
T. Ryan Gregory ◽  
Dustin R. Rubenstein

Although crustaceans vary extensively in genome size, little is known about how genome size may affect the ecology and evolution of species in this diverse group, in part due to the lack of large genome size datasets. Here we investigate interspecific, intraspecific, and intracolony variation in genome size in 39 species of Synalpheus shrimps, representing one of the largest genome size datasets for a single genus within crustaceans. We find that genome size ranges approximately 4-fold across Synalpheus with little phylogenetic signal, and is not related to body size. In a subset of these species, genome size is related to chromosome size, but not to chromosome number, suggesting that despite large genomes, these species are not polyploid. Interestingly, there appears to be 35% intraspecific genome size variation in Synalpheus idios among geographic regions, and up to 30% variation in Synalpheus duffyi genome size within the same colony.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Yuan ◽  
Yuan Huang ◽  
Ying Mao ◽  
Nan Zhang ◽  
Yimeng Nie ◽  
...  

Genomic size variation has long been a focus for biologists. However, due to the lack of genome size data, the mechanisms behind this variation and the biological significance of insect genome size are rarely studied systematically. The detailed taxonomy and phylogeny of the Ensifera, as well as the extensive documentation concerning their morphological, ecological, behavioral, and distributional characteristics, make them a strong model for studying the important scientific problem of genome size variation. However, data on the genome size of Ensifera are rather sparse. In our study, we used flow cytometry to determine the genome size of 32 species of Ensifera, the smallest one being only 1C = 0.952 pg with the largest species up to 1C = 19.135 pg, representing a 20-fold range. This provides a broader blueprint for the genome size variation of Orthoptera than was previously available. We also completed the assembly of nine mitochondrial genomes and combined mitochondrial genome data from public databases to construct phylogenetic trees containing 32 species of Ensifera and three outgroups. Based on these inferred phylogenetic trees, we detected the phylogenetic signal of genome size variation in Ensifera and found that it was strong in both males and females. Phylogenetic comparative analyses revealed that there were no correlations between genome size and body size or flight ability in Tettigoniidae. Reconstruction of ancestral genome size revealed that the genome size of Ensifera evolved in a complex pattern, in which the genome size of the grylloid clade tended to decrease while that of the non-grylloid clade expanded significantly albeit with fluctuations. However, the evolutionary mechanisms underlying variation of genome size in Ensifera are still unknown.


Crop Science ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 261 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Lane Rayburn ◽  
D. P. Biradar ◽  
R. L. Nelson ◽  
R. McCloskey ◽  
K. M. Yeater

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1307
Author(s):  
Sebastian Böttger ◽  
Silke Zechel-Gran ◽  
Daniel Schmermund ◽  
Philipp Streckbein ◽  
Jan-Falco Wilbrand ◽  
...  

Severe odontogenic abscesses are regularly caused by bacteria of the physiological oral microbiome. However, the culture of these bacteria is often prone to errors and sometimes does not result in any bacterial growth. Furthermore, various authors found completely different bacterial spectra in odontogenic abscesses. Experimental 16S rRNA gene next-generation sequencing analysis was used to identify the microbiome of the saliva and the pus in patients with a severe odontogenic infection. The microbiome of the saliva and the pus was determined for 50 patients with a severe odontogenic abscess. Perimandibular and submandibular abscesses were the most commonly observed diseases at 15 (30%) patients each. Polymicrobial infections were observed in 48 (96%) cases, while the picture of a mono-infection only occurred twice (4%). On average, 31.44 (±12.09) bacterial genera were detected in the pus and 41.32 (±9.00) in the saliva. In most cases, a predominantly anaerobic bacterial spectrum was found in the pus, while saliva showed a similar oral microbiome to healthy individuals. In the majority of cases, odontogenic infections are polymicrobial. Our results indicate that these are mainly caused by anaerobic bacterial strains and that aerobic and facultative anaerobe bacteria seem to play a more minor role than previously described by other authors. The 16S rRNA gene analysis detects significantly more bacteria than conventional methods and molecular methods should therefore become a part of routine diagnostics in medical microbiology.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (9) ◽  
pp. 170862 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Ritchie ◽  
A. J. Jamieson ◽  
S. B. Piertney

Genome size varies considerably across taxa, and extensive research effort has gone into understanding whether variation can be explained by differences in key ecological and life-history traits among species. The extreme environmental conditions that characterize the deep sea have been hypothesized to promote large genome sizes in eukaryotes. Here we test this supposition by examining genome sizes among 13 species of deep-sea amphipods from the Mariana, Kermadec and New Hebrides trenches. Genome sizes were estimated using flow cytometry and found to vary nine-fold, ranging from 4.06 pg (4.04 Gb) in Paralicella caperesca to 34.79 pg (34.02 Gb) in Alicella gigantea . Phylogenetic independent contrast analysis identified a relationship between genome size and maximum body size, though this was largely driven by those species that display size gigantism. There was a distinct shift in the genome size trait diversification rate in the supergiant amphipod A. gigantea relative to the rest of the group. The variation in genome size observed is striking and argues against genome size being driven by a common evolutionary history, ecological niche and life-history strategy in deep-sea amphipods.


Caryologia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oriane Hidalgo ◽  
Joan Vallès ◽  
Angel Romo ◽  
Miguel-Ángel Canela ◽  
Teresa Garnatje

2008 ◽  
Vol 276 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 209-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Itayguara Ribeiro da Costa ◽  
Marcelo Carnier Dornelas ◽  
Eliana Regina Forni-Martins

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn E. Holt ◽  
Florent Lassalle ◽  
Kelly L. Wyres ◽  
Ryan Wick ◽  
Rafal J. Mostowy

Bacterial capsules and lipopolysaccharides are diverse surface polysaccharides (SPs) that serve as the frontline for interactions with the outside world. While SPs can evolve rapidly, their diversity and evolutionary dynamics across different taxonomic scales has not been investigated in detail. Here, we focused on the bacterial order Enterobacteriales (including the medically-relevant Enterobacteriaceae), to carry out comparative genomics of two SP locus synthesis regions, cps and kps, using 27,334 genomes from 45 genera. We identified high-quality cps loci in 22 genera and kps in 11 genera, around 4% of which were detected in multiple species. We found SP loci to be highly dynamic genetic entities: their evolution was driven by high rates of horizontal gene transfer (HGT), both of whole loci and component genes, and relaxed purifying selection, yielding large repertoires of SP diversity. In spite of that, we found the presence of (near-)identical locus structures in distant taxonomic backgrounds that could not be explained by recent exchange, pointing to long-term selective preservation of locus structures in some populations. Our results reveal differences in evolutionary dynamics driving SP diversity within different bacterial species, with lineages of Escherichia coli, Enterobacter hormachei and Klebsiella aerogenes most likely to share SP loci via recent exchange; and lineages of Salmonella enterica, Citrobacter sakazakii and Serratia marcescens most likely to share SP loci via other mechanisms such as long-term preservation. Overall, the evolution of SP loci in Enterobacteriales is driven by a range of evolutionary forces and their dynamics and relative importance varies between different species.


BMC Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. P. Stelzer ◽  
J. Blommaert ◽  
A. M. Waldvogel ◽  
M. Pichler ◽  
B. Hecox-Lea ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Eukaryotic genomes are known to display an enormous variation in size, but the evolutionary causes of this phenomenon are still poorly understood. To obtain mechanistic insights into such variation, previous studies have often employed comparative genomics approaches involving closely related species or geographically isolated populations within a species. Genome comparisons among individuals of the same population remained so far understudied—despite their great potential in providing a microevolutionary perspective to genome size evolution. The rotifer Brachionus asplanchnoidis represents one of the most extreme cases of within-population genome size variation among eukaryotes, displaying almost twofold variation within a geographic population. Results Here, we used a whole-genome sequencing approach to identify the underlying DNA sequence differences by assembling a high-quality reference genome draft for one individual of the population and aligning short reads of 15 individuals from the same geographic population including the reference individual. We identified several large, contiguous copy number variable regions (CNVs), up to megabases in size, which exhibited striking coverage differences among individuals, and whose coverage overall scaled with genome size. CNVs were of remarkably low complexity, being mainly composed of tandemly repeated satellite DNA with only a few interspersed genes or other sequences, and were characterized by a significantly elevated GC-content. CNV patterns in offspring of two parents with divergent genome size and CNV patterns in several individuals from an inbred line differing in genome size demonstrated inheritance and accumulation of CNVs across generations. Conclusions By identifying the exact genomic elements that cause within-population genome size variation, our study paves the way for studying genome size evolution in contemporary populations rather than inferring patterns and processes a posteriori from species comparisons.


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