Paper: Widespread Lateral Gene Transfer from Intracellular Bacteria to Multicellular Eukaryotes

Published Online August 30, 2007
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1142490

Submitted on March 13, 2007
Accepted on July 2, 2007

Widespread Lateral Gene Transfer from Intracellular Bacteria to
Multicellular Eukaryotes

Julie C. Dunning Hotopp, Michael E. Clark, Deodoro C. S. G. Oliveira, Jeremy
M. Foster, Peter Fischer, Mónica C. Muñoz Torres, Jonathan D. Giebel, Nikhil
Kumar, Nadeeza Ishmael, Shiliang Wang, Jessica Ingram, Rahul V. Nene,
Jessica Shepard, Jeffrey Tomkins, Stephen Richards, David J. Spiro, Elodie
Ghedin, Barton E. Slatko 3, Hervé Tettelin, John H. Werren

Abstract:
Although common among bacteria, lateral gene transfer-the movement of genes
between distantly related organisms-is thought to occur only rarely between
bacteria and multicellular eukaryotes. However, the presence of
endosymbionts, such as Wolbachia pipientis, within some eukaryotic germlines
may facilitate bacterial gene transfers to eukaryotic host genomes. We
therefore examined host genomes for evidence of gene transfer events from
Wolbachia bacteria to their hosts. We found and confirmed transfers into the
genomes of 4 insect and 4 nematode species that range from nearly the entire
Wolbachia genome (>1 megabase) to short (<500 base pairs) insertions.
Potential Wolbachia to host transfers were also detected computationally in
three additional sequenced insect genomes. We also show that some of these
inserted Wolbachia genes are transcribed within eukaryotic cells lacking
endosymbionts. Therefore, heritable lateral gene transfer occurs into
eukaryotic hosts from their prokaryote symbionts, potentially providing a
mechanism for acquisition of new genes and functions.

Source: Science
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1142490v1?etoc

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


.