Abstract
Acquiring new DNA allows the emergence of drug resistance in bacteria. Some Pasteurellaceae and Neisseriaceae species preferentially take up specific sequence tags. The study of such sequences is therefore relevant. They are over-represented in the genomes of the corresponding species. I found similar sequences to be present only in, but not in all, the genomes of the Pasteurellaceae and Neisseriaceae families. The genomic densities of these sequences are different both between species and between families. Interestingly, the family whose genomes harbor more of such sequences also shows more sequence types. A phylogenetic analysis allowed inferring the possible ancestral Neisseriacean sequence and a nucleotide-by-nucleotide analysis allowed inferring the potential ancestral Pasteurellacean sequence based on its genomic footprint. The method used for this work could be applied to other sequences, including transcription factor binding and repeated DNAs.
Highlights
DNA acquisition by bacteria has significant clinical, epide miological and economical implications, it is of interest to different research areas including research on bacterial acquisition of drug resistance and virulence, recombination, genome dynamics and evolu tion, speciation, etc
Apart from few exceptions, specificity of the DNA uptake by naturally competent bacteria depends on the presence in the extracellular DNA of defined sequences, called DNA Uptake Enhancing Sequence (DUES)
Previous works demonstrated that mutations generate new “perfect” and mismatched DUESs that end-up accumu lating in the corresponding genome due to the biased uptake by competent bacteria of the DNAs that contain these sequences [3,6]
Summary
DNA acquisition by bacteria has significant clinical, epide miological and economical implications, it is of interest to different research areas including research on bacterial acquisition of drug resistance and virulence, recombination, genome dynamics and evolu tion, speciation, etc. When it was discovered by Griffith in 1928 [1], bacterial ability to acquire DNA provided the first proof of the physical nature of the hereditary material. Some of these bacteria seem constitutively competent, whereas others are competent only when certain conditions (generally stressful) are met
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