ArticleJournal of bacteriology2014
Phylogeny poorly predicts the utility of a challenging horizontally transferred gene in Methylobacterium strains.
Article in Journal of bacteriology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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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
16 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Aerobic Methoxydotrophy: Growth on Methoxylated Aromatic Compounds byFrontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
- The role of mobile genetic elements in organic micropollutant degradation during biological wastewater treatment.Water research X · 2020Review
- Genomic and Transcriptomic Analysis of Growth-Supporting Dehalogenation of Chlorinated Methanes inFrontiers in microbiology · 2017Article
- Benefit of transferred mutations is better predicted by the fitness of recipients than by their ecological or genetic relatedness.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2016Article
- Transfer of a Catabolic Pathway for Chloromethane in Methylobacterium Strains Highlights Different Limitations for Growth with Chloromethane or with Dichloromethane.Frontiers in microbiology · 2016Article
- Exploring the Ancestral Mechanisms of Regulation of Horizontally Acquired Nitrogenases.Journal of molecular evolution · 2015Article
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- Biotechnological and agronomic potential of endophytic pink-pigmented methylotrophic Methylobacterium spp.BioMed research international · 2015Review
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- Bacterial Strain Diversity Within Wounds.Advances in wound care · 2015Review
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- Probing the diversity of chloromethane-degrading bacteria by comparative genomics and isotopic fractionation.Frontiers in microbiology · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Horizontal gene transfer plays a crucial role in microbial evolution. While much is known about the mechanisms that determine whether physical DNA can be transferred into a new host, the factors determining the utility of the transferred genes are less clear. We have explored this issue using dichloromethane consumption in Methylobacterium strains. Methylobacterium extorquens DM4 expresses a dichloromethane dehalogenase (DcmA) that has been acquired through horizontal gene transfer and allows the strain to grow on dichloromethane as the sole carbon and energy source. We transferred the dcmA gene into six Methylobacterium strains that include both close and distant evolutionary relatives. The transconjugants varied in their ability to grow on dichloromethane, but their fitness on dichloromethane did not correlate with the phylogeny of the parental strains or with any single tested physiological factor. This work highlights an important limiting factor in horizontal gene transfer, namely, the capacity of the recipient strain to accommodate the stress and metabolic disruption resulting from the acquisition of a new enzyme or pathway. Understanding these limitations may help to rationalize historical examples of horizontal transfer and aid deliberate genetic transfers in biotechnology for metabolic engineering.
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