ArticlePloS one2021
Genomic GC content drifts downward in most bacterial genomes.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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12 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Host-Specific Adaptation of Legionella pneumophila to Single and Multiple Hosts.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Genomic AT Bias Coupled with Amino Acid Metabolism Modulates Codon Usage.Journal of molecular evolution · 2025Article
- Molecular phylogenetic relationships based on chloroplast genomes of Zingiberaceae species: Insights into evolution and adaptation to extreme environments.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Article
- Novel Insights on Extracellular Electron Transfer Networks in theMicroorganisms · 2024Article
- Statistical analysis of synonymous and stop codons in pseudo-random and real sequences as a function of GC content.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Genome content predicts the carbon catabolic preferences of heterotrophic bacteria.Nature microbiology · 2023Article
- G-quadruplexes in the evolution of hepatitis B virus.Nucleic acids research · 2023Article
- Biosynthetic Gene Clusters in Sequenced Genomes of Four Contrasting Rhizobacteria in Phytopathogen Inhibition and Interaction with Capsicum annuum Roots.Microbiology spectrum · 2023Article
- A simple stochastic model describing the evolution of genomic GC content in asexually reproducing organisms.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Genomes of NovelApplied and environmental microbiology · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In every kingdom of life, GC->AT transitions occur more frequently than any other type of mutation due to the spontaneous deamination of cytidine. In eukaryotic genomes, this slow loss of GC base pairs is counteracted by biased gene conversion which increases genomic GC content as part of the recombination process. However, this type of biased gene conversion has not been observed in bacterial genomes, so we hypothesized that GC->AT transitions cause a reduction of genomic GC content in prokaryotic genomes on an evolutionary time scale. To test this hypothesis, we used a phylogenetic approach to analyze triplets of closely related genomes representing a wide range of the bacterial kingdom. The resulting data indicate that genomic GC content is drifting downward in bacterial genomes where GC base pairs comprise 40% or more of the total genome. In contrast, genomes containing less than 40% GC base pairs have fewer opportunities for GC->AT transitions to occur so genomic GC content is relatively stable or actually increasing. It should be noted that this observed change in genomic GC content is the net change in shared parts of the genome and does not apply to parts of the genome that have been lost or acquired since the genomes being compared shared common ancestor. However, a more detailed analysis of two Caulobacter genomes revealed that the acquisition of mobile elements by the two genomes actually reduced the total genomic GC content as well.
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