ArticleGenome biology2008
The impact of the neisserial DNA uptake sequences on genome evolution and stability.
Article in Genome biology, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 53 papers.
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Who cites it
53 citing papers in PubMed, 88 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Origin, evolution, and maintenance of gene-strand bias in bacteria.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- DNA Transport through the Dynamic Type IV Secretion System.Infection and immunity · 2023Review
- Multisite transformation inFrontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Core genes can have higher recombination rates than accessory genes within global microbial populations.eLife · 2022Article
- Rapid Detection ofFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2022Article
- Rationally designedAnimal diseases · 2021Article
- The minimal meningococcal ProQ protein has an intrinsic capacity for structure-based global RNA recognition.Nature communications · 2020Article
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- Whole-genome sequencing and characterization of an antibiotic resistant Neisseria meningitidis B isolate from a military unit in Vietnam.Annals of clinical microbiology and antimicrobials · 2019Article
- A genomic view of experimental intraspecies and interspecies transformation of a rifampicin-resistance allele into Neisseria meningitidis.Microbial genomics · 2018Article
- Costs and benefits of natural transformation in Acinetobacter baylyi.BMC microbiology · 2017Article
- Article
- Steady at the wheel: conservative sex and the benefits of bacterial transformation.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Review
- The Impact of Selection, Gene Conversion, and Biased Sampling on the Assessment of Microbial Demography.Molecular biology and evolution · 2016Article
- Uncovering oral Neisseria tropism and persistence using metagenomic sequencing.Nature microbiology · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundEfficient natural transformation in Neisseria requires the presence of short DNA uptake sequences (DUSs). Doubts remain whether DUSs propagate by pure selfish molecular drive or are selected for 'safe sex' among conspecifics.
resultsSix neisserial genomes were aligned to identify gene conversion fragments, DUS distribution, spacing, and conservation. We found a strong link between recombination and DUS: DUS spacing matches the size of conversion fragments; genomes with shorter conversion fragments have more DUSs and more conserved DUSs; and conversion fragments are enriched in DUSs. Many recent and singly occurring DUSs exhibit too high divergence with homologous sequences in other genomes to have arisen by point mutation, suggesting their appearance by recombination. DUSs are over-represented in the core genome, under-represented in regions under diversification, and absent in both recently acquired genes and recently lost core genes. This suggests that DUSs are implicated in genome stability rather than in generating adaptive variation. DUS elements are most frequent in the permissive locations of the core genome but are themselves highly conserved, undergoing mutation selection balance and/or molecular drive. Similar preliminary results were found for the functionally analogous uptake signal sequence in Pasteurellaceae.
conclusionAs do many other pathogens, Neisseria and Pasteurellaceae have hyperdynamic genomes that generate deleterious mutations by intrachromosomal recombination and by transient hypermutation. The results presented here suggest that transformation in Neisseria and Pasteurellaceae allows them to counteract the deleterious effects of genome instability in the core genome. Thus, rather than promoting hypervariation, bacterial sex could be regenerative.
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