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The transfer of genetic materials across species (lateral genetic transfer, LGT) contributes to genomic and physiological innovation in prokaryotes. The extent of LGT in prokaryotes has been examined in a number of studies, but the unit of…
In phylogenetic studies, the evolution of molecular sequences is assumed to have taken place along the phylogeny traced by the ancestors of extant species. In the presence of lateral gene transfer (LGT), however, this may not be the case,…
Lateral gene transfer (LGT) is a common mechanism of non-vertical evolution where genetic material is transferred between two more or less distantly related organisms. It is particularly common in bacteria where it contributes to adaptive…
Although the role of lateral gene transfer is well recognized in the evolution of bacteria, it is generally assumed that it has had less influence among eukaryotes. To explore this hypothesis we compare the dynamics of genome evolution in…
Horizontal gene transfer is an important factor in bacterial evolution that can act across species boundaries. Yet, we know little about rate and genomic targets of cross-lineage gene transfer, and about its effects on the recipient…
Pathogenic bacteria present a large disease burden on human health. Control of these pathogens is hampered by rampant lateral gene transfer, whereby pathogenic strains may acquire genes conferring resistance to common antibiotics. Here we…
In a short article submitted to ArXiv [1], Maddamsetti et al. argue that the variation in the neutral mutation rate among genes in Escherichia coli that we recently reported [2] might be explained by horizontal gene transfer (HGT). To…
Martincorena et al. estimated synonymous diversity ({\theta}s = 2N{\mu}) across 2,930 orthologous gene alignments from 34 Escherichia coli genomes, and found substantial variation among genes in the density of synonymous polymorphisms. They…
Background. Models of ancestral gene order reconstruction have progressively integrated different evolutionary patterns and processes such as unequal gene content, gene duplications, and implicitly sequence evolution via reconciled gene…
Evolutionary events such as incomplete lineage sorting and lateral gene transfer constitute major problems for inferring species trees from gene trees, as they can sometimes lead to gene trees which conflict with the underlying species…
The current picture of bacterial evolution is based largely on studies of 16S rRNA. However, this is just one gene. It is known that horizontal gene transfer can occur between bacterial species, although the frequency and implications of…
The complex pattern of presence and absence of many genes across different species provides tantalising clues as to how genes evolved through the processes of gene genesis, gene loss and lateral gene transfer (LGT). The extent of LGT,…
Genomes evolve as modules. In prokaryotes (and some eukaryotes), genetic material can be transferred between species and integrated into the genome via homologous or illegitimate recombination. There is little reason to imagine that the…
Adaptation of bacteria occurs predominantly via horizontal gene transfer (HGT). While it is widely recognized that horizontal acquisitions frequently encompass multiple genes, it is unclear what the size distribution of successfully…
The bioinformatical methods to detect lateral gene transfer events are mainly based on functional coding DNA characteristics. In this paper, we propose the use of DNA traits not depending on protein coding requirements. We introduce several…
Given a set of species whose evolution is represented by a species tree, a gene family is a group of genes having evolved from a single ancestral gene. A gene family evolves along the branches of a species tree through various mechanisms,…
Positive selection drives the emergence of adaptive mutations in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, shaping drug resistance, transmissibility, and virulence. Phylogenetic trees capture evolutionary relationships among isolates and provide a…
Several implicit methods to infer Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) focus on pairs of genes that have diverged only after the divergence of the two species in which the genes reside. This situation defines the edge set of a graph, the…
Bacteria and phages have been in an ongoing arms race for billions of years. To resist phages bacteria have evolved numerous defense systems, which nevertheless are still overcome by counter-defense mechanisms of specific phages. These…
High-throughput molecular screening is required to investigate the origin and diffusion of antimicrobial resistance in pathogen outbreaks. The most frequent cause of human infection is Escherichia coli, which is dominated by sequence type…