ArticlePLoS genetics2012
Patterns of evolutionary conservation of essential genes correlate with their compensability.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 93 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis of dispensable essential genes and their interactions with bypass suppressors.Life science alliance · 2024Pooled it
- Genome-wide identification and expression profiling of the bHLH transcription factor family under salt stress and hormonal treatments in cowpea (Vigna unguiculata).Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Population Genetic Study ofEcology and evolution · 2026Article
- A genome-scale single-cell CRISPRi map of trans gene regulation across human pluripotent stem cell lines.Cell genomics · 2026Article
- Comparative functional and evolutionary analysis of essential germline stem cell genes across the genus Drosophila and two outgroup species.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- Comparative genomics uncovers adaptive and biotechnological potential of Enterobacter xiangfangensis MDMC82 isolated from desert, and highlights putative core Enterobacteriaceae functions.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Regulatory roles of long non-coding RNAs in minipigs revealed by cross-breed and cross-tissue transcriptomic analyses.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Human essential gene identification based on feature fusion and feature screening.IET systems biology · 2024Article
- Differentially used codons among essential genes in bacteria identified by machine learning-based analysis.Molecular genetics and genomics : MGG · 2024Article
- Cofitness network connectivity determines a fuzzy essential zone in open bacterial pangenome.mLife · 2024Article
- Recent advances in the characterization of essential genes and development of a database of essential genes.iMeta · 2024Review
- Transposon sequencing reveals the essential gene set and genes enabling gut symbiosis in the insect symbiontISME communications · 2024Article
- Modular Assembly of Synthetic Secondary Chromosomes.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- Unrealized targets in the discovery of antibiotics for Gram-negative bacterial infections.Nature reviews. Drug discovery · 2023Review
- Phylogenetic analysis of the MCL1 BH3 binding groove and rBH3 sequence motifs in the p53 and INK4 protein families.PloS one · 2023Article
- Gradients in gene essentiality reshape antibacterial research.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2022Review
- Transposon insertional mutagenesis of diverse yeast strains suggests coordinated gene essentiality polymorphisms.Nature communications · 2022Article
- A Unifying Framework for Understanding Biological Structures and Functions Across Levels of Biological Organization.Integrative and comparative biology · 2022Article
- Histone H3K27 Methylation Perturbs Transcriptional Robustness and Underpins Dispensability of Highly Conserved Genes in Fungi.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Bacterial genome reductions: Tools, applications, and challenges.Frontiers in genome editing · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Essential genes code for fundamental cellular functions required for the viability of an organism. For this reason, essential genes are often highly conserved across organisms. However, this is not always the case: orthologues of genes that are essential in one organism are sometimes not essential in other organisms or are absent from their genomes. This suggests that, in the course of evolution, essential genes can be rendered nonessential. How can a gene become non-essential? Here we used genetic manipulation to deplete the products of 26 different essential genes in Escherichia coli. This depletion results in a lethal phenotype, which could often be rescued by the overexpression of a non-homologous, non-essential gene, most likely through replacement of the essential function. We also show that, in a smaller number of cases, the essential genes can be fully deleted from the genome, suggesting that complete functional replacement is possible. Finally, we show that essential genes whose function can be replaced in the laboratory are more likely to be non-essential or not present in other taxa. These results are consistent with the notion that patterns of evolutionary conservation of essential genes are influenced by their compensability-that is, by how easily they can be functionally replaced, for example through increased expression of other genes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.