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Related Concept Videos

Horizontal Gene Transfer01:27

Horizontal Gene Transfer

1.1K
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a process where genetic material moves between organisms within the same generation, unlike vertical gene transfer, which occurs from parent to offspring. HGT plays a crucial role in microbial evolution, adaptation, and survival, particularly in shared environments like the human gut.Mobile genetic elements such as plasmids, prophages, integrons, insertion sequences, and transposons facilitate this process. HGT occurs through three primary mechanisms:...
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Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms02:18

Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms

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Genetic transfer occurs when genetic information is passed from one organism to another. It occurs via two mechanisms: vertical gene transfer and horizontal gene transfer. Vertical gene transfer occurs when genetic information is transferred from one generation to the next, which happens much more frequently than horizontal gene transfer. Both sexual and asexual reproduction are forms of vertical gene transfer, where one or more organisms pass some or all of their genome onto their progeny.
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Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms02:18

Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms

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Transduction01:16

Transduction

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Among the three main modes of HGT—transformation, conjugation, and transduction—transduction is unique in that it is mediated by bacteriophages, or bacterial viruses.Transduction occurs in two ways. Generalized transduction occurs during the lytic cycle of a bacteriophage infection. In this process, bacteriophages infect bacterial cells, replicate within them, and ultimately cause cell lysis, releasing newly assembled virions. Occasionally, random fragments of the bacterial genome...
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Conjugation01:19

Conjugation

1.7K
Conjugation is a form of horizontal gene transfer that primarily occurs in bacteria and some archaea, promoting genetic diversity and adaptation. Bacteria can acquire resistance genes through conjugative plasmids, allowing them to survive antibiotic treatments that would otherwise be lethal. This process involves direct contact between cells through specialized structures such as the sex pilus and is mediated by conjugative plasmids, including the F (fertility) factor.Conjugation requires...
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Genome Size and the Evolution of New Genes03:21

Genome Size and the Evolution of New Genes

8.9K
While every living organism has a genome of some kind (be it RNA, or DNA), there is considerable variation in the sizes of these blueprints. One major factor that impacts genome size is whether the organism is prokaryotic or eukaryotic. In prokaryotes, the genome contains little to no non-coding sequence, such that genes are tightly clustered in groups or operons sequentially along the chromosome. Conversely, the genes in eukaryotes are punctuated by long stretches of non-coding sequence.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 27, 2025

Detection of Horizontal Gene Transfer Mediated by Natural Conjugative Plasmids in E. coli
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Detection of Horizontal Gene Transfer Mediated by Natural Conjugative Plasmids in E. coli

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Detecting horizontal gene transfer: a probabilistic approach.

Gur Sevillya1, Orit Adato1, Sagi Snir2

  • 1Dept. of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology, University of Haifa, Haifa, 3498838, Israel.

BMC Genomics
|March 7, 2020
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

We developed an adaptive method to detect horizontal gene transfer (HGT) by analyzing gene synteny, improving accuracy for closely related species. This approach enhances the identification of genomic novelty and evolutionary events.

Keywords:
Gene orderHorizontal gene transferPhylogenetics

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Methodology for the Study of Horizontal Gene Transfer in Staphylococcus aureus
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Conjugative Mating Assays for Sequence-specific Analysis of Transfer Proteins Involved in Bacterial Conjugation
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Area of Science:

  • Genomics
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Bioinformatics

Background:

  • Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) drives prokaryotic evolution, genomic novelty, and the emergence of antibiotic resistance and virulent strains.
  • Detecting HGT is crucial, but challenging, especially between closely related species due to weak phylogenetic signals.
  • Existing HGT detection methods often struggle with closely related species, necessitating improved techniques.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop a more sensitive and specific method for detecting horizontal gene transfer (HGT).
  • To address the limitations of existing HGT detection techniques, particularly for closely related species.
  • To improve the understanding of HGT's role in bacterial evolution and pathogenicity.

Main Methods:

  • Developed a novel adaptive approach for HGT detection based on the loss of synteny around genes.
  • Introduced a new heuristic, the Synteny Index (SI), for measuring synteny.
  • Employed Chernoff bounds to determine HGT, adapting criteria based on species distance and gene length.

Main Results:

  • The novel technique demonstrated higher sensitivity compared to existing HGT detection methods in simulations and real data.
  • The adaptive approach improved specificity, particularly for closely related species, by adjusting detection criteria.
  • The method was validated using simulated data and real bacterial genomes from the EggNog database.

Conclusions:

  • The adaptive, synteny-based approach offers a more conservative HGT detection with a lower false positive rate.
  • This method is particularly effective for closely related species and across various genome parameters.
  • The findings enhance the ability to study HGT's impact on bacterial evolution and virulence.