Abstract
Emerging bacterial pathogens threaten global health and food security, and so it is important to ask whether these transitions to pathogenicity have any common features. We present a systematic study of the claim that pathogenicity is associated with genome reduction and gene loss. We compare broad-scale patterns across all bacteria, with detailed analyses of Streptococcus suis, an emerging zoonotic pathogen of pigs, which has undergone multiple transitions between disease and carriage forms. We find that pathogenicity is consistently associated with reduced genome size across three scales of divergence (between species within genera, and between and within genetic clusters of S. suis). Although genome reduction is also found in mutualist and commensal bacterial endosymbionts, genome reduction in pathogens cannot be solely attributed to the features of their ecology that they share with these species, that is, host restriction or intracellularity. Moreover, other typical correlates of genome reduction in endosymbionts (reduced metabolic capacity, reduced GC content, and the transient expansion of nonfunctional elements) are not consistently observed in pathogens. Together, our results indicate that genome reduction is a consistent correlate of pathogenicity in bacteria.
Full Text
Topics from this Paper
Genome Reduction
Reduced Genome Size
Reduction In Pathogens
Host Restriction
Gene Loss
+ Show 5 more
Create a personalized feed of these topics
Get StartedTalk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Similar Papers
mBio
Sep 6, 2017
SSRN Electronic Journal
Jan 1, 2011
Journal of Advanced Agriculture & Horticulture Research
Jun 25, 2021
Gastronomica
Jan 1, 2022
Scientific Reports
Jun 2, 2020
Nature Sustainability
Feb 3, 2022
mBio
Feb 25, 2020
PLoS ONE
Mar 3, 2014
Food and Nutrition Sciences
Jan 1, 2014
Molecular Systems Biology
Jan 1, 2011
Environmental Microbiology Reports
Feb 1, 2015
International scientific journal "Internauka". Series: "Economic Sciences"
Jan 1, 2022
Bulletin of the World Health Organization
Dec 1, 2016
Current Biology
Oct 1, 2020
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nov 24, 2023
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nov 23, 2023
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nov 23, 2023
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nov 23, 2023
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nov 22, 2023
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nov 22, 2023
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nov 21, 2023
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nov 18, 2023
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nov 18, 2023
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nov 10, 2023