High level of intergenera gene exchange shapes the evolution of haloarchaea in an isolated Antarctic lake

Horizontal gene exchange across species boundaries is considered infrequent relative to vertical inheritance that maintains species coherence. However, haloarchaea living in hypersaline environments take a more relaxed approach to gene exchange. Here we demonstrate that in Deep Lake, Antarctica, hal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Main Authors: DeMaere, Matthew Z., Williams, Timothy J., Allen, Michelle A., Brown, Mark V., Gibson, John A. E., Rich, John, Lauro, Federico M., Dyall-Smith, Michael, Davenport, Karen W., Woyke, Tanja, Kyrpides, Nikos C., Tringe, Susannah G., Cavicchioli, Ricardo
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: National Academy of Sciences 2013
Subjects:
Biological Sciences
Antarctic
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3801024
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24082106
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1307090110
Description
Summary:Horizontal gene exchange across species boundaries is considered infrequent relative to vertical inheritance that maintains species coherence. However, haloarchaea living in hypersaline environments take a more relaxed approach to gene exchange. Here we demonstrate that in Deep Lake, Antarctica, haloarchaea exchange DNA between distinct genera, not just species, with some of the DNA being long (up to 35 kb) and virtually 100% conserved. With extremely low cell division rates in the cold (e.g., six generations per year), the remarkable extent of lateral exchange could conceivably homogenize the population. It is therefore equally notable that despite the demonstrated capacity for exchange, different genera are maintained, their coexistence being linked to genomic differences conferring ecotype distinctions that enable niche adaptation.

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