Coevolution of gene families in prokaryotes
Abstract
We study gene family coevolution on a tree of life based on a large-scale ancestral gene content reconstruction, which includes gene duplication and deletion events. The insights obtained from this study are threefold: (1) Global properties, such as the distribution of coevolution partners and the formation of disconnected clusters of coevolving families, can be an inevitable consequence of evolution along a tree. (2) Concerted family expansion (gene duplication) and contraction (gene deletion) reflect functional constraints and therefore lead to better function prediction. (3) “Long-range” coevolutionary relationships, caused mostly by large family expansions or contractions, reveal high-level evolutionary organization of cellular processes in prokaryotes.
Footnotes
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↵1 Corresponding author.
↵1 E-mail o.x.corderosanchez{at}uu.nl; fax 31-30-253-9043.
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[Supplemental material is available online at www.genome.org.]
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Article published online before print. Article and publication date are at http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.6815508
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- Received June 15, 2007.
- Accepted November 29, 2007.
- Copyright © 2008, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
