ArticlePLoS genetics2018
Analysis of bacterial genomes from an evolution experiment with horizontal gene transfer shows that recombination can sometimes overwhelm selection.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2018. 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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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Causes and consequences of bacterial local adaptation via MGEs in the plant microbiome.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- Unraveling the tempo and mode of horizontal gene transfer in bacteria.Trends in microbiology · 2025Review
- The Abundance of Viroid-Like RNA Obelisk-S.s in Streptococcus sanguinis SK36 May Suffice for Evolutionary Persistence.Journal of molecular evolution · 2025Article
- Distinguishing among evolutionary and ecological processes shaping microbiome dynamics.The ISME journal · 2025Review
- Horizontal gene transfer facilitates the molecular reverse-evolution of antibiotic sensitivity in experimental populations of H. pylori.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Revisiting the Design of the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli.Journal of molecular evolution · 2023Review
- Horizontal Gene Transfer, Fitness Costs and Mobility Shape the Spread of Antibiotic Resistance Genes into Experimental Populations of Acinetobacter Baylyi.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Horizontal gene transfer and adaptive evolution in bacteria.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2022Review
- Whole genome phylogenies reflect the distributions of recombination rates for many bacterial species.eLife · 2021Article
- Horizontal gene transfer potentiates adaptation by reducing selective constraints on the spread of genetic variation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Experimental Evolution ofGenetics · 2020Article
- AcGI1, a novel genomic island carrying antibiotic resistance integron In687 in multidrug resistant Achromobacter xylosoxidans in a teaching hospital in Thailand.FEMS microbiology letters · 2020Article
- Article
- Microbial Experimental Evolution - a proving ground for evolutionary theory and a tool for discovery.EMBO reports · 2019Review
- A genomic view of experimental intraspecies and interspecies transformation of a rifampicin-resistance allele into Neisseria meningitidis.Microbial genomics · 2018Article
- Experimental Design, Population Dynamics, and Diversity in Microbial Experimental Evolution.Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2018Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Few experimental studies have examined the role that sexual recombination plays in bacterial evolution, including the effects of horizontal gene transfer on genome structure. To address this limitation, we analyzed genomes from an experiment in which Escherichia coli K-12 Hfr (high frequency recombination) donors were periodically introduced into 12 evolving populations of E. coli B and allowed to conjugate repeatedly over the course of 1000 generations. Previous analyses of the evolved strains from this experiment showed that recombination did not accelerate adaptation, despite increasing genetic variation relative to asexual controls. However, the resolution in that previous work was limited to only a few genetic markers. We sought to clarify and understand these puzzling results by sequencing complete genomes from each population. The effects of recombination were highly variable: one lineage was mostly derived from the donors, while another acquired almost no donor DNA. In most lineages, some regions showed repeated introgression and others almost none. Regions with high introgression tended to be near the donors' origin of transfer sites. To determine whether introgressed alleles imposed a genetic load, we extended the experiment for 200 generations without recombination and sequenced whole-population samples. Beneficial alleles in the recipient populations were occasionally driven extinct by maladaptive donor-derived alleles. On balance, our analyses indicate that the plasmid-mediated recombination was sufficiently frequent to drive donor alleles to fixation without providing much, if any, selective advantage.
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