ArticleBMC evolutionary biology2018
Assessing the benefits of horizontal gene transfer by laboratory evolution and genome sequencing.
Article in BMC evolutionary biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence and concentration of Campylobacter in faeces of dairy cows: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2022Pooled it
- Horizontal gene transfer in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and other Saccharomycotina yeasts: a review.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2026Review
- Hurdles to horizontal gene transfer: species-specific effects of synonymous variation and plasmid copy number determine antibiotic resistance phenotype.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2026Article
- Unraveling the tempo and mode of horizontal gene transfer in bacteria.Trends in microbiology · 2025Review
- Raiding nature's genetic toolbox for UV-C resistance by functional metagenomics.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The evolution of autonomy from two cooperative specialists in fluctuating environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- 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
- Incompatibility and Interchangeability in Molecular Evolution.Genome biology and evolution · 2023Review
- Distribution of fitness effects of cross-species transformation reveals potential for fast adaptive evolution.The ISME journal · 2023Article
- Recombination resolves the cost of horizontal gene transfer in experimental populations ofProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Small extracellular vesicle DNA-mediated horizontal gene transfer as a driving force for tumor evolution: Facts and riddles.Frontiers in oncology · 2022Review
- "Take It or Leave It"-Factors Regulating Competence Development and DNA Uptake inInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Antibiotic resistance in the environment: a critical insight on its occurrence, fate, and eco-toxicity.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2021Review
- Adaptive evolution of hybrid bacteria by horizontal gene transfer.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 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
- Horizontal 'gene drives' harness indigenous bacteria for bioremediation.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Experimental manipulation of selfish genetic elements links genes to microbial community function.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- The emergence of adaptive laboratory evolution as an efficient tool for biological discovery and industrial biotechnology.Metabolic engineering · 2019Review
- Reticulate evolution in eukaryotes: Origin and evolution of the nitrate assimilation pathway.PLoS genetics · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundRecombination is widespread across the tree of life, because it helps purge deleterious mutations and creates novel adaptive traits. In prokaryotes, it often takes the form of horizontal gene transfer from a donor to a recipient bacterium. While such transfer is widespread in natural communities, its immediate fitness benefits are usually unknown. We asked whether any such benefits depend on the environment, and on the identity of donor and recipient strains. To this end, we adapted Escherichia coli to two novel carbon sources over several hundred generations of laboratory evolution, exposing evolving populations to various DNA donors.
resultsAt the end of these experiments, we measured fitness and sequenced the genomes of 65 clones from 34 replicate populations to study the genetic changes associated with adaptive evolution. Furthermore, we identified candidate de novo beneficial mutations. During adaptive evolution on the first carbon source, 4-Hydroxyphenylacetic acid (HPA), recombining populations adapted better, which was likely mediated by acquiring the hpa operon from the donor. In contrast, recombining populations did not adapt better to the second carbon source, butyric acid, even though they suffered fewer extinctions than non-recombining populations. The amount of DNA transferred, but not its benefit, strongly depended on the donor-recipient strain combination.
conclusionsTo our knowledge, our study is the first to investigate the genomic consequences of prokaryotic recombination and horizontal gene transfer during laboratory evolution. It shows that the benefits of recombination strongly depend on the environment and the foreign DNA donor.
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