ArticleeLife2020
Slightly beneficial genes are retained by bacteria evolving DNA uptake despite selfish elements.
Article in eLife, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Viral Lifecycle Dynamics and Spatial Structure Explain Why Accessory Genes Are Associated With Temperate Phages.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- The heterogeneous selection landscape of genome evolution in prokaryotes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Spatial structure: shaping the ecology and evolution of microbial communities.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- The heterogeneous selection landscape of genome evolution in prokaryotes.Research square · 2025Article
- Silicon versus Superbug: Assessing Machine Learning's Role in the Fight against Antimicrobial Resistance.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Metacommunity structure preserves genome diversity in the presence of gene-specific selective sweeps under moderate rates of horizontal gene transfer.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Identifying and tracking mobile elements in evolving compost communities yields insights into the nanobiome.ISME communications · 2023Article
- Catch me if you can: capturing microbial community transformation by extracellular DNA using Hi-C sequencing.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2023Article
- Tackling the Pangenome Dilemma Requires the Concerted Analysis of Multiple Population Genetic Processes.Genome biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Evolution of genome fragility enables microbial division of labor.Molecular systems biology · 2023Article
- Investigating and Modeling the Regulation of Extracellular Antibiotic Resistance Gene Bioavailability by Naturally Occurring Nanoparticles.Environmental science & technology · 2022Article
- Transposable elements promote the evolution of genome streamlining.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Inferring microbiota functions from taxonomic genes: a review.GigaScience · 2022Review
- Genic Selection Within Prokaryotic Pangenomes.Genome biology and evolution · 2021Review
- Article
- Environmental hotspots for antibiotic resistance genes.MicrobiologyOpen · 2021Review
- Evolutionary mechanisms that determine which bacterial genes are carried on plasmids.Evolution letters · 2021Article
- The ecology of plasmid-coded antibiotic resistance: a basic framework for experimental research and modeling.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2021Review
- Mathematical Models of Plasmid Population Dynamics.Frontiers in microbiology · 2021Review
- Can mobile genetic elements rescue genes from extinction?Current genetics · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) and gene loss result in rapid changes in the gene content of bacteria. While HGT aids bacteria to adapt to new environments, it also carries risks such as selfish genetic elements (SGEs). Here, we use modelling to study how HGT of slightly beneficial genes impacts growth rates of bacterial populations, and if bacterial collectives can evolve to take up DNA despite selfish elements. We find four classes of slightly beneficial genes: indispensable, enrichable, rescuable, and unrescuable genes. Rescuable genes - genes with small fitness benefits that are lost from the population without HGT - can be collectively retained by a community that engages in costly HGT. While this 'gene-sharing' cannot evolve in well-mixed cultures, it does evolve in a spatial population like a biofilm. Despite enabling infection by harmful SGEs, the uptake of foreign DNA is evolutionarily maintained by the hosts, explaining the coexistence of bacteria and SGEs.
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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.