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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Mapping Bacterial Functional Networks and Pathways in Escherichia Coli using Synthetic Genetic Arrays
Published on: November 12, 2012
Highways of gene sharing in prokaryotes
Robert G Beiko1, Timothy J Harlow, Mark A Ragan
1Institute for Molecular Bioscience and Australian Research Council Centre in Bioinformatics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia.
Abstract:
The extent to which lateral genetic transfer has shaped microbial genomes has major implications for the emergence of community structures. We have performed a rigorous phylogenetic analysis of >220,000 proteins from genomes of 144 prokaryotes to determine the contribution of gene sharing to current prokaryotic diversity, and to identify "highways" of sharing between lineages. The inferred relationships suggest a pattern of inheritance that is largely vertical, but with notable exceptions among closely related taxa, and among distantly related organisms that live in similar environments.
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