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Published online on May 5, 2005, 10.1073/pnas.0502757102
PNAS | May 17, 2005 | vol. 102 | no. 20 | 7332-7337


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From The Cover
MICROBIOLOGY
Global divergence of microbial genome sequences mediated by propagating fronts

Kalin Vetsigian, and Nigel Goldenfeld *

Department of Physics and Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801-3080

Communicated by Carl R. Woese, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, April 4, 2005 (received for review January 26, 2005)

We model the competition between homologous recombination and point mutation in microbial genomes, and present evidence for two distinct phases, one uniform, the other genetically diverse. Depending on the specifics of homologous recombination, we find that global sequence divergence can be mediated by fronts propagating along the genome, whose characteristic signature on genome structure is elucidated, and apparently observed in closely related Bacillus strains. Front propagation provides an emergent, generic mechanism for microbial "speciation," and suggests a classification of microorganisms on the basis of their propensity to support propagating fronts.

evolution | horizontal gene transfer | microbial speciation | recombination

Author contributions: K.V. and N.G. designed research; K.V. and N.G. performed research; K.V. and N.G. analyzed data; and K.V. and N.G. wrote the paper.

Abbreviations: HGT, horizontal gene transfer; DLMEM, distribution of lengths of maximal exact matches.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: nigel{at}uiuc.edu.

© 2005 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA


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