Wisniewski-Dyé, F. et al., 2011. PLoS Genetics
Azospirillum Genomes Reveal Transition of Bacteria from Aquatic to Terrestrial Environments
Florence Wisniewski-Dyé, Kirill Borizak, Gurusahai Khalsa-Moyers, Gladys Alexandre, Leonid O. Sukharnikov, Kristin Wuichet, Gregory B. Hurst, W. Hayes McDonald, Jon S. Robertson, Valérie Barbe, Alexandra Calteau, Zoé Rouy, Sophie Mangenot, Claire Prignet-Combaret, Philippe Normand,Michaël Boyer, Patricia Siguier, Yves Dessaux, Claudine Elmerich, Guy Condemine, Ganisan Kirshnen, Ivan Kennedy, Andrew H. Paterson, Victor González, Patrick Mavingui, and Igor B. Zhulin
2011 December 22, PLoS Genetics 7(12): e1002430
Abstract
Fossil records indicate that life appeared in marine environments ~3.5 billion years ago (Gyr) and transitioned to terrestrial ecosystems nearly 2.5 Gyr. Sequence analysis suggests that “hydrobacteria” and “terrabacteria” might have diverged as early as 3 Gyr. Bacteria of the genus Azospirillum are associated with roots of terrestrial plants; however, virtually all their close relatives are aquatic. We obtained genome sequences of two Azospirillum species and analyzed their gene origins. While most Azospirillum house-keeping genes have orthologs in its close aquatic relatives, this lineage has obtained nearly half of its genome from terrestrial organisms. The majority of genes encoding functions critical for association with plants are among horizontally transferred genes. Our results show that transition of some aquatic bacteria to terrestrial habitats occurred much later than the suggested initial divergence of hydro- and terrabacterial clades. The birth of the genus Azospirillum approximately coincided with the emergence of vascular plants on land.
Highlights
A maximum-likelihood tree built from 16S rRNA sequences from members of Rhodospirillaceae. Acetobacter acetii, a member of the same order Rhodospirillales, but a different family, Acetobacteriaceae, is shown as an outgroup. Aquatic inhabitants are not highlighted; terrestrial are highlighted in brown and plant-associated Azospirillum is highlighted in green. See Table S1 for details
Figure 3: Scheme for detecting ancestral and horizontally transferred genes.
Citation
Wisniewski-Dyé F, Borziak K, Khalsa-Moyers G, Alexandre G, Sukharnikov LO, et al. (2011) Azospirillum Genomes Reveal Transition of Bacteria from Aquatic to Terrestrial Environments. PLoS Genet 7(12): e1002430. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002430
Outside Links
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21105907
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1002430
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