Microbes dominate planetary biomass, play essential roles in nutrient recycling, can cause disease, and are an integral part of the healthy human body. Their genomes contain records of past evolutionary events, from which we can decipher how microbes evolve and adapt to their environments. Recent advances in DNA sequencing technologies brought us an avalanche of data: thousands of genomes and terabases of environmental DNA (metagenomes). We mine these data sets (1) to assess the impact of horizontal gene transfer on microbial populations; (2) to find new ways to characterize microbial communities; and (3) to track down genomic signatures of microbial adaptations.
What happened in the first 10 years (July 2012 – May 2022)
What has been happening since:
Horizontal (or lateral) gene transfer – an acquisition of genetic material not associated with theorganismal reproduction – is known to alter genomes of most, if not all, living organisms. Thereis …
By comparing rates of evolutionary change in GTA genes to the rates in gene families abundantly present across 293 alphaproteobacterial genomes, we detected 59 gene families that likely co-evolve with …
Using 64 bacteria from phylum Thermotogota as a model system, we correlated presence/absence of 68 genes with specific optimal growth temperature intervals. While some of these genes are poorly characterized, …
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