Mamuka Kotetishvili
University of Georgia, Georgia
Title: The unusual pattern of bacterial evolution: Genomes of Clostridium botulinum and some other bacterial species carry eukaryotic genetic loci involved in coding for 18S and 28S ribosomal subunits
Biography
Biography: Mamuka Kotetishvili
Abstract
Recent findings, elucidating genetic recombination between prokaryotic endosymbionts and their eukaryotic hosts, suggest that interdomain gene transfer may appear to be unexpectedly frequent (Woolfit et al., 2009, Mol Biol Evol. Feb;26[2]:367-74.). It has been also suggested that eukaryotic genes horizontally transferred to bacteria can provide new gene functions leading to improved metabolic plasticity and facilitated adaptation to new environments (Li et al. 2019, Nucleic Acids Res. Jul 9;47[12]:6351-6359).
Here, we provide strong evidence for the presence of certain eukaryotic genetic loci in the genome of Clostridium botulinum, the species that has the ability to produce a botulinum neurotoxin leading to the neuroparalytic foodborne disease called botulism. In this study, we also elucidate evidence for the presence of these genetic loci as well across the genomes of some other bacterial species and genera. In the in-silico experiments, we analyzed the genomes of two strains of C. botulinum (MFBjulcb1 and MAP 5) recovered from a retail fish marker in the city of Cochin, India. The strains MFBjulcb1 and MAP 5 were recovered in the summer seasons (June) of 1992 and 2005 respectively. The DNA sequences of the above strains genomes (GenBank IDs: CP027775.1 and CP027781.1 respectively) were available in the GenBank database of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/).