Evolution of mosaic operons by horizontal gene transfer and gene displacement in situ.docVIP

Open Access Re rch 2003OmelchenkoetVoal.lumesea4, Issue 9, Article R55 Evolution of mosaic operons by horizontal gene transfer and gene displacement in situ Marina V Omelchenko*?, Kira S Makarova?, Yuri I Wolf?, Igor B Rogozin? and Eugene V Koonin? Addresses: *Department of Pathology, FE Hebert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD 20814-4799, USA. ?National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA. Correspondence: Eugene V Koonin. E-mail: koonin@ Published: 29 August 2003 Received: 22 April 2003 Revised: 26 June 2003 Accepted: 17 July 2003 Genome Biology 2003, 4:R55 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2003/4/9/R55 ? 2003 Omelchenko et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the articles original URL. EvolutionToasphpeeerdcotinscsootfrvofuepcrtymosaiceurorfenipnervsooioperonsvtluiudtgeieosnnfoeardbyreeisvsphorizontaleelnlaftcissehimn, ewpnritohgeneskhaoorpyweorstransfertoitcnheainvtotcelougmandtriibotyningenemtahtaiaiotnn,displacementtaaoipfnrreiadomrbip,yaspnuetmrhiinfoyirmiisitunzontalpgrsoeblaebcgenetlieo.nThatransfertestheefionrdgwithianngissselectionmalsloeveeml phforasipreservationze that not alofl Abstract Background: Shuffling and disruption of operons and horizontal gene transfer are major contributions to the new, dynamic view of prokaryotic evolution. Under the selfish operon hypothesis, operons are viewed as mobile genetic entities that are constantly disseminated via horizontal gene transfer, although their retention could be favored by the advantage of coregulation of functionally linked genes. Here we apply comparative genomics and phylogenetic analysis