Lateral gene transfer and ancient paralogy of operons containing redundant copies of tryptophan-pathway genes in Xylella species and in heterocystous cyanobacteria

Authors

Gary Xie, University of Florida
Carol A. Bonner, University of Florida
Tom Brettin, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Raphael Gottardo, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Nemat O. Keyhani, University of Florida
Roy A. Jensen, CUNY City College

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

January 2003

Abstract

Tryptophan-pathway genes that exist within an apparent operon-like organization were evaluated. A seven-gene cluster in Xylella fastidiosa exhibits a sharply delineated low-GC content. This strongly implicates lateral gene transfer. In contrast, parametric studies and protein tree phylogenies did not support the origination of a gene block in the Anabaena/Nostoc lineage by lateral gene transfer.

Comments

This work was originally published in Genome Biology, available at doi:10.1186/gb-2003-4-2-r14.