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Selfish operons: the evolutionary impact of gene clustering in prokaryotes and eukaryotes
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, 15260, USA. jlawrenc+@pitt.edu
Current Opinion in Genetics & Development
|December 23, 1999
Abstract:
The Selfish Operon Model postulates that the organization of bacterial genes into operons is beneficial to the constituent genes in that proximity allows horizontal cotransfer of all genes required for a selectable phenotype; eukaryotic operons formed for very different reasons. Horizontal transfer of selfish operons most probably promotes bacterial diversification.