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PMID: 9157250 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Interspecies recombination, and phylogenetic distortions, within the glutamine synthetase and shikimate dehydrogenase genes of Neisseria meningitidis and commensal Neisseria species.

Molecular microbiology ·Vol. 23 ·No. 4 ·1997-02-00 ·Pages 799-812

Zhou J, Bowler LD, Spratt BG

Abstract

Visual inspection showed clear evidence of a history of intraspecies recombinational exchanges within the neighbouring meningococcal shikimate dehydrogenase (aroE) and glutamine synthetase (glnA) genes, which was supported by the non-congruence of the trees constructed from the sequences of these genes from different meningococcal strains, and by statistical tests for mosaic structure. Many examples were also found of highly localized interspecies recombinational exchanges between the meningococcal aroE and glnA genes and those of commensal Neisseria species. These exchanges appear to have inflated the sequence variation at these loci, and have resulted in major distortions of the phylogenetic trees constructed from the sequences of the aroE and glnA genes of human pathogenic and commensal Neisseria species. Statistical tests for sequence mosaicism, and for anomalies within the Neisseria species trees, strongly supported the view that frequent interspecies recombination has occurred within aroE and glnA. The high levels of sequence variation, and intra- and interspecies recombination, within aroE and glnA did not appear to be due to a 'hitch-hiking' effect caused by positive selection for variation at a neighbouring gene. Our results suggest that interspecies recombinational exchanges with commensal Neisseria occur frequently in some meningococcal 'housekeeping' genes as they can be observed readily even when there appears to be no obvious selection for the recombinant phenotypes.

MeSH Terms

Alcohol Oxidoreductases/genetics Base Sequence DNA Primers/genetics DNA, Bacterial/genetics Genes, Bacterial Genetic Variation Glutamate-Ammonia Ligase/genetics Humans Molecular Sequence Data Neisseria/enzymology,genetics,isolation & purification Neisseria meningitidis/enzymology,genetics,isolation & purification Phenotype Phylogeny Recombination, Genetic Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid Species Specificity

Chemicals

DNA Primers DNA, Bacterial Alcohol Oxidoreductases Shikimate dehydrogenase Glutamate-Ammonia Ligase

Authors & Affiliations

3 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID

Zhou J

School of Biological Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.

Bowler L D

Spratt B G

Article Info

Journal

Molecular microbiology

Abbr.

Mol Microbiol

ISSN

0950-382X

DOI

10.1046/j.1365-2958.1997.2681633.x

Published

1997-02-00

Pages

799-812

Language

English

Region

England

NLM ID

8712028

Subset

Grants

Wellcome Trust · United Kingdom

Databases

GENBANK

U82700, U82701, U82834, U82835, U82836, U82837, U82838, U82839, U82840, U82841, U82842, U82843, U82844, U82845, U82846, U82847, U82848, U82849, U82850, U82851, U82852, U82853, U82854, U82855, U82856, U82857, U82858, U82859, U82860, U82861

External Links

PubMed source DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2958.1997.2681633.x View journal details

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Interspecies recombination, and phylogenetic distortions, within the glutamine synthetase and shikimate dehydrogenase genes of Neisseria meningitidis and commensal Neisseria species.

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