Computing prokaryotic gene ubiquity: Rescuing the core from extinction

Table 4.

Mean number of orthologs (reciprocal best matches, RBM) shared among genomes from X different bacterial phyla (12 currently available*).




Mean number shared (genome combinationsa)

n

Mean number shared (phylum combinationsb)

n
X = 2 609 (sd 267) [169-1721] 6.02e+3 599 (sd 143) [326-861] 66
X = 3 362 (sd 128) [132-835] 1.30e+5 380 (sd 76) [237-523] 220
X = 4 272 (sd 82) [118-596] 1.52e+6 294 (sd 52) [201-419] 495
X = 5 225 (sd 58) [109-477] 1.04e+7 246 (sd 39) [182-360] 792
X = 6 197 (sd 44) [107-398] 4.34e+7 215 (sd 29) [168-315] 924
X = 7 179 (sd 34) [105-357] 1.14e+8 193 (sd 22) [157-280] 792
X = 8 166 (sd 28) [103-324] 1.92e+8 177 (sd 17) [151-244] 495
X = 9 157 (sd 23) [102-297] 2.06e+8 164 (sd 12) [145-217] 220
X = 10 149 (sd 20) [101-274] 1.37e+8 153 (sd 8) [142-185] 66
X = 11 143 (sd 17) [100-253] 5.10e+7 145 (sd 5) [139-155] 12
X = 12
138 (sd 15) [100-178]
8.18e+6
138 (sd 0) [138-138]
1
  • * Bacterial phyla for which sequenced genomes were available at the time of constructing this table are as follows: Aquificales (1), Bacteroidetes (2), Chlamydiales (7), Chlorobi (1), Cyanobacteria (8), Thermus/Deinococcus group (1), High-G+C Firmicutes (12), Low-G+C Firmicutes (35), Planctomycetes (1), Proteobacteria (58), Spirochaetes (3), Thermotogales (1). (Fusobacterium nucleatum is included within the Low-G+C Firmicutes)

  • a Computed as a global mean of all individual combinations of X genomes from X phyla

  • b Means are first computed for each phylum combination (e.g., from the 174 genome combinations of Proteobacteria versus Spirochaetes), then a mean of these phylum means is computed. E.g., for X = 3, a genome from one phylum is compared with a genome from a second phylum and with a genome from a third phylum. The mean number of RBM for all such combinations is reported. (sd) Standard deviation, (square brackets) minimum and maximum values (n), number of combinations. See Figure 3 for a graphical representation of the phylum combinations data

This Article

  1. Genome Res. 14: 2469-2477

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