Tuller Tamir
Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Molecular Genetics; Weizmann Institute of Science; Rehovot, Israel.
Mob Genet Elements. 2011 May;1(1):75-77. doi: 10.4161/mge.1.1.15400.
Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) is a major force in bacterial evolution. Bacteria are under a strong selection to optimize their growth rate by improving features related to their codon usage. In a recent study we have shown that these two forces are coupled: (1) the codon bias of transferred genes has a strong influence on the probability that they will become fixed in the new genome and (2) frequent HGTs may increase the similarity in the tRNA pools of organisms within the same community. Thus, methods for inferring HGTs probably underestimate their number.We believe that that the principles that affect microorganisms may also apply to mobile genetic elements (including plasmids, viruses and transposons).
水平基因转移(HGT)是细菌进化中的一股主要力量。细菌面临着强大的选择压力,需要通过改善与密码子使用相关的特征来优化其生长速度。在最近的一项研究中,我们表明这两种力量是相互关联的:(1)转移基因的密码子偏好性对它们在新基因组中固定下来的概率有很大影响;(2)频繁的水平基因转移可能会增加同一群落中生物体tRNA库的相似性。因此,推断水平基因转移的方法可能低估了其数量。我们认为,影响微生物的原理可能也适用于移动遗传元件(包括质粒、病毒和转座子)。