Transcription Factors Exhibit Differential Conservation in Bacteria with Reduced Genomes

The description of transcriptional regulatory networks has been pivotal in the understanding of operating principles under which organisms respond and adapt to varying conditions. While the study of the topology and dynamics of these networks has been the subject of considerable work, the investigation of the evolution of their topology, as a result of the adaptation of organisms to different environmental conditions, has received little attention. In this work, we study the evolution of transcriptional regulatory networks in bacteria from a genome reduction perspective, which manifests itself as the loss of genes at different degrees. We used the transcriptional regulatory network of Escherichia coli as a reference to compare 113 smaller, phylogenetically-related γ-proteobacteria, including 19 genomes of symbionts. We found that the type of regulatory action exerted by transcription factors, as genomes get progressively smaller, correlates well with their degree of conservation, with dual regulators being more conserved than repressors and activators in conditions of extreme reduction. In addition, we found that the preponderant conservation of dual regulators might be due to their role as both global regulators and nucleoid-associated proteins. We summarize our results in a conceptual model of how each TF type is gradually lost as genomes become smaller and give a rationale for the order in which this phenomenon occurs.