Search results for "HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER"
showing 10 items of 74 documents
Evolutionary rescue of bacteria via horizontal gene transfer under a lethal β-lactam concentration
2013
β-Lactams are a commonly used class of bactericidal antibiotics. The number of β-lactam-resistant pathogens is constantly increasing in hospitals around the world. Interestingly, most of the β-lactam-resistant bacteria carry mobile genetic elements, such as conjugative plasmids, that render the pathogen resistant. These elements mediate their own transfer from one bacterium to another, producing new resistant strains via horizontal gene transfer. Here we investigated whether it is possible that transfer of the resistance element from another bacterium may evolutionarily rescue a susceptible bacterium exposed to a lethal concentration of the β-lactam ampicillin. Indeed, the rescuing occurs e…
Antibiotic Susceptibility Profile and Tetracycline Resistance Genes Detection in Salmonella spp. Strains Isolated from Animals and Food
2021
Salmonella spp. is among the leading causes of foodborne infections in humans and a large number of animals. Salmonella spp. is a pathogen involved in the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance because it can accumulate antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). In this study, the antibiotic resistance profile to 15 antibiotics, belonging to six different classes, of 60 strains of Salmonella spp. collected from pets, farm animals, wildlife, and food in Sicily (Italy) was investigated by the Kirby-Bauer method. Given that almost 33.3% of the Salmonella spp. strains were resistant to tetracycline, Real-Time PCR analysis was applied on all the 60 strains to detect the presence of eight selected te…
Molecular evidence for ongoing complementarity and horizontal gene transfer in endosymbiotic systems of mealybugs
2014
[EN] Intracellular bacterial supply of essential amino acids is common among sap-feeding insects, thus complementing the scarcity of nitrogenous compounds in plant phloem. This is also the role of the two mealybug endosymbiotic systems whose genomes have been sequenced. In the nested endosymbiotic system from Planococcus citri (Pseudococcinae), “Candidatus Tremblaya princeps” and “Candidatus Moranella endobia” cooperate to synthesize essential amino acids, while in Phenacoccus avenae (Phenacoccinae) this function is performed by its single endosymbiont “Candidatus Tremblaya phenacola.” However, little is known regarding the evolution of essential amino acid supplementation strategies in oth…
Class 1 integrons in environmental and clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
2011
The aims of this study were to ascertain the presence and spread of class 1 integrons amongst environmental and clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and to characterise their variable regions. A total of 76 isolates (56 clinical and 20 environmental) were studied. The presence of plasmids was explored, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used for integron detection. All amplicons were sequenced. PCR detected class 1 integrons in 26 of the 56 clinical isolates; environmental isolates were integron-free. No plasmids were found, thus all the integrons found are possibly on the chromosome. Most isolates presented one amplicon, except PA110514 and PA116136, which showed two PCR produc…
Deciphering the Rules Underlying Xenogeneic Silencing and Counter-Silencing of Lsr2-like Proteins Using CgpS of Corynebacterium glutamicum as a Model
2020
In actinobacteria, Lsr2-like nucleoid-associated proteins function as xenogeneic silencers (XS) of horizontally acquired genomic regions, including viral elements, virulence gene clusters in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and genes involved in cryptic specialized metabolism in Streptomyces species. Consequently, a detailed mechanistic understanding of Lsr2 binding in vivo is relevant as a potential drug target and for the identification of novel bioactive compounds. Here, we followed an in vivo approach to investigate the rules underlying xenogeneic silencing and counter-silencing of the Lsr2-like XS CgpS from Corynebacterium glutamicum. Our results demonstrated that CgpS distinguishes between…
Side-stepping secondary symbionts: widespread horizontal transfer across and beyond the Aphidoidea.
2003
To elucidate the co-evolutionary relationships between phloem-feeding insects and their secondary, or facultative, bacterial symbionts, we explore the distributions of three such microbes--provisionally named the R-type (or PASS, or S-sym), T-type (or PABS), and U-type--across a number of aphid and psyllid hosts through the use of diagnostic molecular screening techniques and DNA sequencing. Although typically maternally transmitted, phylogenetic and pairwise divergence analyses reveal that these bacteria have been independently acquired by a variety of unrelated insect hosts, indicating that horizontal transfer has helped to shape their distributions. Based on the high genetic similarity b…
Evidence for Natural Horizontal Transfer of the pcpB Gene in the Evolution of Polychlorophenol-Degrading Sphingomonads
2002
ABSTRACT The chlorophenol degradation pathway in Sphingobium chlorophenolicum is initiated by the pcpB gene product, pentachlorophenol-4-monooxygenase. The distribution of the gene was studied in a phylogenetically diverse group of polychlorophenol-degrading bacteria isolated from contaminated groundwater in Kärkölä, Finland. All the sphingomonads isolated were shown to share pcpB gene homologs with 98.9 to 100% sequence identity. The gene product was expressed when the strains were induced by 2,3,4,6-tetrachlorophenol. A comparative analysis of the 16S rDNA and pcpB gene trees suggested that a recent horizontal transfer of the pcpB gene was involved in the evolution of the catabolic pat…
Evolution of arginine deiminase (ADI) pathway genes
2002
We have analyzed the evolution of the three genes encoding structural enzymes of the arginine deiminase (ADI) pathway, arginine deiminase (ADI), ornithine transcarbamoylase (OTC), and carbamate kinase (CK) in a wide range of organisms, including Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya. This catabolic route was probably present in the last common ancestor to all the domains of life. The results obtained indicate that these genes have undergone a complex evolutionary history, including horizontal transfer events, duplications, and losses. Therefore, these genes are not adequate to infer organismal relationships at deep branching levels, but they provide an insight into how catabolic genes evolved and …
Better the devil you know? Guidelines for insightful utilization of nrDNA ITS in species-level evolutionary studies in plants.
2006
The internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of the nuclear ribosomal 18S–5.8S–26S cistron continue to be the most popular non-plastid region for species-level phylogenetic studies of plant groups despite the early warnings about their potential Xaws, which may ultimately result in incorrect assumptions of orthology. It has been gradually realized that the alternative target regions in the nuclear genome (lowcopy nuclear genes, LCNG) are burdened with similar problems. The consequence is that, to date, developing useful LCNG for nonmodel organisms requires an investment in time and eVort that hinders its use as a real practical alternative for many labs. It is here argued that ITS sequences, desp…
Impact of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) transgenic line H228.2A on substrate and rhizosphere microorganisms and the possibility of horizontal gene tran…
2013
Numerous investigations have been carried out to determine the impact of genetically modified plants, such as potato, maize, alfalfa and tobacco, on soil microorganisms and the results are contradictory. We applied classical microbiology methods to study quantitative changes of bacterial and fungal abundance in substrate and rhizosphere from barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) transgenic line H228.2A containing Rpg1 and bar genes, and its parent nontransgenic variety ‘Golden Promise’. In addition, molecular biology methods were used to determine, if horizontal gene transfer from barley transgenic line to soil bacteria has occurred under experimental conditions by screening bacterial genomes for the…