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Gene inversion potentiates bacterial evolvability and virulence

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  • Christopher N. Merrikh

    (University of Washington)

  • Houra Merrikh

    (University of Washington
    University of Washington)

Abstract

Most bacterial genes are encoded on the leading strand, co-orienting the movement of the replication machinery with RNA polymerases. This bias reduces the frequency of detrimental head-on collisions between the two machineries. The negative outcomes of these collisions should lead to selection against head-on alleles, maximizing genome co-orientation. Our findings challenge this model. Using the GC skew calculation, we reveal the evolutionary inversion record of all chromosomally encoded genes in multiple divergent bacterial pathogens. Against expectations, we find that a large number of co-oriented genes have inverted to the head-on orientation, presumably increasing the frequency of head-on replication-transcription conflicts. Furthermore, we find that head-on genes, (including key antibiotic resistance and virulence genes) have higher rates of non-synonymous mutations and are more frequently under positive selection (dN/dS > 1). Based on these results, we propose that spontaneous gene inversions can increase the evolvability and pathogenic capacity of bacteria through head-on replication-transcription collisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher N. Merrikh & Houra Merrikh, 2018. "Gene inversion potentiates bacterial evolvability and virulence," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-07110-3
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07110-3
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    Cited by:

    1. Haoxuan Liu & Jianzhi Zhang, 2022. "Testing the adaptive hypothesis of lagging-strand encoding in bacterial genomes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-4, December.
    2. Houra Merrikh & Christopher Merrikh, 2022. "Reply to: Testing the adaptive hypothesis of lagging-strand encoding in bacterial genomes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-5, December.
    3. James S. Horton & Louise M. Flanagan & Robert W. Jackson & Nicholas K. Priest & Tiffany B. Taylor, 2021. "A mutational hotspot that determines highly repeatable evolution can be built and broken by silent genetic changes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.

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