scholarly journals Robustness encoded across essential and accessory replicons in an ecologically versatile bacterium

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C diCenzo ◽  
Alex B Benedict ◽  
Marco Fondi ◽  
Graham C Walker ◽  
Turlough M Finan ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTBacterial genome evolution is characterized by gains, losses, and rearrangements of functional genetic segments. The extent to which genotype-phenotype relationships are influenced by large-scale genomic alterations has not been investigated in a high-throughput manner. In the symbiotic soil bacteriumSinorhizobium meliloti,the genome is composed of a chromosome and two large extrachromosomal replicons (pSymA and pSymB, which together constitute 45% of the genome). Massively parallel transposon insertion sequencing (Tn-seq) was employed to evaluate contributions of chromosomal genes to fitness in both the presence and absence of these extrachromosomal replicons. Ten percent of chromosomal genes from diverse functional categories are shown to genetically interact with pSymA and pSymB. These results demonstrate the pervasive robustness provided by the extrachromosomal replicons, which is further supported by constraint-based metabolic modelling. A comprehensive picture of coreS. melilotimetabolism was generated through a Tn-seq-guidedin silicometabolic network reconstruction, producing a core network encompassing 726 genes. This integrated approach facilitated functional assignments for previously uncharacterized genes, while also revealing that Tn-seq alone misses over a quarter of wild type metabolism. This work highlights the strong functional dependencies and epistatic relationships that may arise between bacterial replicons and across a genome, while also demonstrating how Tn-seq and metabolic modelling can be used together to yield insights not obtainable by either method alone.

Author(s):  
Daniella F Lato ◽  
G Brian Golding

Abstract Increasing evidence supports the notion that different regions of a genome have unique rates of molecular change. This variation is particularly evident in bacterial genomes where previous studies have reported gene expression and essentiality tend to decrease, while substitution rates usually increases with increasing distance from the origin of replication. Genomic reorganization such as rearrangements occur frequently in bacteria and allow for the introduction and restructuring of genetic content, creating gradients of molecular traits along genomes. Here, we explore the interplay of these phenomena by mapping substitutions to the genomes of Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Streptomyces, and Sinorhizobium meliloti, quantifying how many substitutions have occurred at each position in the genome. Preceding work indicates that substitution rate significantly increases with distance from the origin. Using a larger sample size and accounting for genome rearrangements through ancestral reconstruction, our analysis demonstrates that the correlation between the number of substitutions and distance from the origin of replication is often significant but small and inconsistent in direction. Some replicons had a significantly decreasing trend (E. coli and the chromosome of S. meliloti), while others showed the opposite significant trend (B. subtilis, Streptomyces, pSymA and pSymB in S. meliloti). dN, dS and ω were examined across all genes and there was no significant correlation between those values and distance from the origin. This study highlights the impact that genomic rearrangements and location have on molecular trends in some bacteria, illustrating the importance of considering spatial trends in molecular evolutionary analysis. Assuming that molecular trends are exclusively in one direction can be problematic.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Antonio Moreira Lima

This paper is concerned with the planning, implementation and some results of the Oceanographic Modeling and Observation Network, named REMO, for Brazilian regional waters. Ocean forecasting has been an important scientific issue over the last decade due to studies related to climate change as well as applications related to short-range oceanic forecasts. The South Atlantic Ocean has a deficit of oceanographic measurements when compared to other ocean basins such as the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean. It is a challenge to design an ocean forecasting system for a region with poor observational coverage of in-situ data. Fortunately, most ocean forecasting systems heavily rely on the assimilation of surface fields such as sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) or sea surface temperature (SST), acquired by environmental satellites, that can accurately provide information that constrain major surface current systems and their mesoscale activity. An integrated approach is proposed here in which the large scale circulation in the Atlantic Ocean is modeled in a first step, and gradually nested into higher resolution regional models that are able to resolve important processes such as the Brazil Current and associated mesoscale variability, continental shelf waves, local and remote wind forcing, and others. This article presents the overall strategy to develop the models using a network of Brazilian institutions and their related expertise along with international collaboration. This work has some similarity with goals of the international project Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment OceanView (GODAE OceanView).


Toxins ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 467
Author(s):  
Aina Ichihara ◽  
Hinako Ojima ◽  
Kazuyoshi Gotoh ◽  
Osamu Matsushita ◽  
Susumu Take ◽  
...  

The infection caused by Helicobacter pylori is associated with several diseases, including gastric cancer. Several methods for the diagnosis of H. pylori infection exist, including endoscopy, the urea breath test, and the fecal antigen test, which is the serum antibody titer test that is often used since it is a simple and highly sensitive test. In this context, this study aims to find the association between different antibody reactivities and the organization of bacterial genomes. Next-generation sequences were performed to determine the genome sequences of four strains of antigens with different reactivity. The search was performed on the common genes, with the homology analysis conducted using a genome ring and dot plot analysis. The two antigens of the highly reactive strains showed a high gene homology, and Western blots for CagA and VacA also showed high expression levels of proteins. In the poorly responsive antigen strains, it was found that the inversion occurred around the vacA gene in the genome. The structure of bacterial genomes might contribute to the poor reactivity exhibited by the antibodies of patients. In the future, an accurate serodiagnosis could be performed by using a strain with few gene mutations of the antigen used for the antibody titer test of H. pylori.


Genetics ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 159 (4) ◽  
pp. 1765-1778
Author(s):  
Gregory J Budziszewski ◽  
Sharon Potter Lewis ◽  
Lyn Wegrich Glover ◽  
Jennifer Reineke ◽  
Gary Jones ◽  
...  

Abstract We have undertaken a large-scale genetic screen to identify genes with a seedling-lethal mutant phenotype. From screening ~38,000 insertional mutant lines, we identified >500 seedling-lethal mutants, completed cosegregation analysis of the insertion and the lethal phenotype for >200 mutants, molecularly characterized 54 mutants, and provided a detailed description for 22 of them. Most of the seedling-lethal mutants seem to affect chloroplast function because they display altered pigmentation and affect genes encoding proteins predicted to have chloroplast localization. Although a high level of functional redundancy in Arabidopsis might be expected because 65% of genes are members of gene families, we found that 41% of the essential genes found in this study are members of Arabidopsis gene families. In addition, we isolated several interesting classes of mutants and genes. We found three mutants in the recently discovered nonmevalonate isoprenoid biosynthetic pathway and mutants disrupting genes similar to Tic40 and tatC, which are likely to be involved in chloroplast protein translocation. Finally, we directly compared T-DNA and Ac/Ds transposon mutagenesis methods in Arabidopsis on a genome scale. In each population, we found only about one-third of the insertion mutations cosegregated with a mutant phenotype.


2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Johnsson ◽  
Andrew Whalen ◽  
Roger Ros-Freixedes ◽  
Gregor Gorjanc ◽  
Ching-Yi Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Meiotic recombination results in the exchange of genetic material between homologous chromosomes. Recombination rate varies between different parts of the genome, between individuals, and is influenced by genetics. In this paper, we assessed the genetic variation in recombination rate along the genome and between individuals in the pig using multilocus iterative peeling on 150,000 individuals across nine genotyped pedigrees. We used these data to estimate the heritability of recombination and perform a genome-wide association study of recombination in the pig. Results Our results confirmed known features of the recombination landscape of the pig genome, including differences in genetic length of chromosomes and marked sex differences. The recombination landscape was repeatable between lines, but at the same time, there were differences in average autosome-wide recombination rate between lines. The heritability of autosome-wide recombination rate was low but not zero (on average 0.07 for females and 0.05 for males). We found six genomic regions that are associated with recombination rate, among which five harbour known candidate genes involved in recombination: RNF212, SHOC1, SYCP2, MSH4 and HFM1. Conclusions Our results on the variation in recombination rate in the pig genome agree with those reported for other vertebrates, with a low but nonzero heritability, and the identification of a major quantitative trait locus for recombination rate that is homologous to that detected in several other species. This work also highlights the utility of using large-scale livestock data to understand biological processes.


Author(s):  
Lina Kloub ◽  
Sean Gosselin ◽  
Matthew Fullmer ◽  
Joerg Graf ◽  
J Peter Gogarten ◽  
...  

Abstract Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is central to prokaryotic evolution. However, little is known about the “scale” of individual HGT events. In this work, we introduce the first computational framework to help answer the following fundamental question: How often does more than one gene get horizontally transferred in a single HGT event? Our method, called HoMer, uses phylogenetic reconciliation to infer single-gene HGT events across a given set of species/strains, employs several techniques to account for inference error and uncertainty, combines that information with gene order information from extant genomes, and uses statistical analysis to identify candidate horizontal multi-gene transfers (HMGTs) in both extant and ancestral species/strains. HoMer is highly scalable and can be easily used to infer HMGTs across hundreds of genomes. We apply HoMer to a genome-scale dataset of over 22000 gene families from 103 Aeromonas genomes and identify a large number of plausible HMGTs of various scales at both small and large phylogenetic distances. Analysis of these HMGTs reveals interesting relationships between gene function, phylogenetic distance, and frequency of multi-gene transfer. Among other insights, we find that (i) the observed relative frequency of HMGT increases as divergence between genomes increases, (ii) HMGTs often have conserved gene functions, and (iii) rare genes are frequently acquired through HMGT. We also analyze in detail HMGTs involving the zonula occludens toxin and type III secretion systems. By enabling the systematic inference of HMGTs on a large scale, HoMer will facilitate a more accurate and more complete understanding of HGT and microbial evolution.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1310
Author(s):  
Hajer Azaiez ◽  
Hakim Gabtni ◽  
Mourad Bédir

Electric resistivity sounding and tomography, as well as electromagnetic sounding, are the classical methods frequently used for hydrogeological studies. In this work, we propose the development and implementation of an original integrated approach using the unconventional hydro–geophysical methods of gravity and seismic reflection for the fast, large–scale characterization of hydrogeological potential using the Ain El Beidha plain (central Tunisia) as an analogue. Extending the values of vintage petroleum seismic reflection profiles and gravity data, in conjunction with available geological and hydrogeological information, we performed an advanced analysis to characterize the geometry of deep tertiary (Oligocene and Eocene) aquifers in this arid area. Residual and tilt angle gravity maps revealed that most gravity anomalies have a short wavelength. The study area was mainly composed of three major areas: the Oued Ben Zitoun and Ain El Beidha basins, which are both related to negative gravity trends corresponding to low–density subsiding depocenters. These basins are separated by an important NE–SW trend called “El Gonna–J. El Mguataa–Kroumet Zemla” gravity high. Evaluation of the superposition of detected lineaments and Euler deconvolution solutions’ maps showed several NE–SW and N–S relay system faults. The 3D density inversion model using a lateral and vertical cutting plane suggested the presence of two different tectonic styles (thin VS thick). Results from the gravity analysis were in concordance with the seismic analysis. The deep Oligocene and Eocene seismic horizons were calibrated to the hydraulic wells and surrounding outcrops. Oligocene and Eocene geological reservoirs appear very fractured and compartmented. The faulting network also plays an important role in enhancing groundwater recharge process of the Oligocene and Eocene aquifers. Finally, generated isochron maps provided an excellent opportunity to develop future comprehensive exploration surveys over smaller and more favorable areas’ sub–basins.


mSystems ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Olm ◽  
Alexander Crits-Christoph ◽  
Spencer Diamond ◽  
Adi Lavy ◽  
Paula B. Matheus Carnevali ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Longstanding questions relate to the existence of naturally distinct bacterial species and genetic approaches to distinguish them. Bacterial genomes in public databases form distinct groups, but these databases are subject to isolation and deposition biases. To avoid these biases, we compared 5,203 bacterial genomes from 1,457 environmental metagenomic samples to test for distinct clouds of diversity and evaluated metrics that could be used to define the species boundary. Bacterial genomes from the human gut, soil, and the ocean all exhibited gaps in whole-genome average nucleotide identities (ANI) near the previously suggested species threshold of 95% ANI. While genome-wide ratios of nonsynonymous and synonymous nucleotide differences (dN/dS) decrease until ANI values approach ∼98%, two methods for estimating homologous recombination approached zero at ∼95% ANI, supporting breakdown of recombination due to sequence divergence as a species-forming force. We evaluated 107 genome-based metrics for their ability to distinguish species when full genomes are not recovered. Full-length 16S rRNA genes were least useful, in part because they were underrecovered from metagenomes. However, many ribosomal proteins displayed both high metagenomic recoverability and species discrimination power. Taken together, our results verify the existence of sequence-discrete microbial species in metagenome-derived genomes and highlight the usefulness of ribosomal genes for gene-level species discrimination. IMPORTANCE There is controversy about whether bacterial diversity is clustered into distinct species groups or exists as a continuum. To address this issue, we analyzed bacterial genome databases and reports from several previous large-scale environment studies and identified clear discrete groups of species-level bacterial diversity in all cases. Genetic analysis further revealed that quasi-sexual reproduction via horizontal gene transfer is likely a key evolutionary force that maintains bacterial species integrity. We next benchmarked over 100 metrics to distinguish these bacterial species from each other and identified several genes encoding ribosomal proteins with high species discrimination power. Overall, the results from this study provide best practices for bacterial species delineation based on genome content and insight into the nature of bacterial species population genetics.


2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 442-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Espeseth ◽  
Andrea Christoforou ◽  
Astri J. Lundervold ◽  
Vidar M. Steen ◽  
Stephanie Le Hellard ◽  
...  

Data collection for the Norwegian Cognitive NeuroGenetics sample (NCNG) was initiated in 2003 with a research grant (to Ivar Reinvang) to study cognitive aging, brain function, and genetic risk factors. The original focus was on the effects of aging (from middle age and up) and candidate genes (e.g., APOE, CHRNA4) in cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, with the cognitive and MRI-based data primarily being used for this purpose. However, as the main topic of the project broadened from cognitive aging to imaging and cognitive genetics more generally, the sample size, age range of the participants, and scope of available phenotypes and genotypes, have developed beyond the initial project. In 2009, a genome-wide association (GWA) study was undertaken, and the NCNG proper was established to study the genetics of cognitive and brain function more comprehensively. The NCNG is now controlled by the NCNG Study Group, which consists of the present authors. Prominent features of the NCNG are the adult life-span coverage of healthy participants with high-dimensional imaging, and cognitive data from a genetically homogenous sample. Another unique property is the large-scale (sample size 300–700) use of experimental cognitive tasks focusing on attention and working memory. The NCNG data is now used in numerous ongoing GWA-based studies and has contributed to several international consortia on imaging and cognitive genetics. The objective of the following presentation is to give other researchers the information necessary to evaluate possible contributions from the NCNG to various multi-sample data analyses.


2012 ◽  
Vol 160 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 72-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamás Fehér ◽  
Valerie Burland ◽  
György Pósfai

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