ArticleNature communications2023
Bacteria can maintain rRNA operons solely on plasmids for hundreds of millions of years.
Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prophage induction stimulates ribosomal RNA operon recombination and facilitates genome mobility.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- The selfish ribosome.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- The selfish ribosome.ArXiv · 2026Article
- Novel and diverse features identified in the genomes of bacteria isolated from a hydrothermal vent plume.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- The Spread of Antibiotic Resistance Is Driven by Plasmids Among the Fastest Evolving and of Broadest Host Range.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- The metabolic burden associated with plasmid acquisition: An assessment of the unrecognized benefits to host cells.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2025Review
- The overlooked evolutionary dynamics of 16S rRNA revises its role as the "gold standard" for bacterial species identification.Scientific reports · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
It is generally assumed that all bacteria must have at least one rRNA operon (rrn operon) on the chromosome, but some strains of the genera Aureimonas and Oecophyllibacter carry their sole rrn operon on a plasmid. However, other related strains and species have chromosomal rrn loci, suggesting that the exclusive presence of rrn operons on a plasmid is rare and unlikely to be stably maintained over long evolutionary periods. Here, we report the results of a systematic search for additional bacteria without chromosomal rrn operons. We find that at least four bacterial clades in the phyla Bacteroidota, Spirochaetota, and Pseudomonadota (Proteobacteria) lost chromosomal rrn operons independently. Remarkably, Persicobacteraceae have apparently maintained this peculiar genome organization for hundreds of millions of years. In our study, all the rrn-carrying plasmids in bacteria lacking chromosomal rrn loci possess replication initiator genes of the Rep_3 family. Furthermore, the lack of chromosomal rrn operons is associated with differences in copy numbers of rrn operons, plasmids, and chromosomal tRNA genes. Thus, our findings indicate that the absence of rrn loci in bacterial chromosomes can be stably maintained over long evolutionary periods.
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