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All Outputs (11)

Evidence for Selection in the Abundant Accessory Gene Content of a Prokaryote Pangenome (2021)
Journal Article
Whelan, F. J., Hall, R. J., & McInerney, J. O. (2021). Evidence for Selection in the Abundant Accessory Gene Content of a Prokaryote Pangenome. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 38(9), 3697-3708. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msab139

A pangenome is the complete set of genes (core and accessory) present in a phylogenetic clade. We hypothesize that a pangenome's accessory gene content is structured and maintained by selection. To test this hypothesis, we interrogated the genomes of... Read More about Evidence for Selection in the Abundant Accessory Gene Content of a Prokaryote Pangenome.

Coinfinder: Detecting significant associations and dissociations in pangenomes (2020)
Journal Article
Whelan, F. J., Rusilowicz, M., & McInerney, J. O. (2020). Coinfinder: Detecting significant associations and dissociations in pangenomes. Microbial Genomics, 6(3), https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000338

© 2020 The Authors. The accessory genes of prokaryote and eukaryote pangenomes accumulate by horizontal gene transfer, differential gene loss, and the effects of selection and drift. We have developed Coinfinder, a software program that assesses whet... Read More about Coinfinder: Detecting significant associations and dissociations in pangenomes.

Eukaryote genes are more likely than prokaryote genes to be composites (2019)
Journal Article
Ou, Y., & McInerney, J. O. (2019). Eukaryote genes are more likely than prokaryote genes to be composites. Genes, 10(9), https://doi.org/10.3390/genes10090648

© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. The formation of new genes by combining parts of existing genes is an important evolutionary process. Remodelled genes, which we call composites, have been investigated in many species, howeve... Read More about Eukaryote genes are more likely than prokaryote genes to be composites.

Function-related replacement of bacterial siderophore pathways (2017)
Journal Article
Moore, B. S., Jensen, P. R., Letzel, A., Crüsemann, M., Bruns, H., Crusemann, M., …Ziemert, N. (2018). Function-related replacement of bacterial siderophore pathways. ISME Journal, 12(2), 320-329. https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2017.137

© The Author(s) 2018. Bacterial genomes are rife with orphan biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) associated with secondary metabolism of unrealized natural product molecules. Often up to a tenth of the genome is predicted to code for the biosynthesis o... Read More about Function-related replacement of bacterial siderophore pathways.

Why prokaryotes have pangenomes (2017)
Journal Article
McInerney, J. O., McNally, A., & O'Connell, M. J. (2017). Why prokaryotes have pangenomes. Nature Microbiology, 2(4), https://doi.org/10.1038/nmicrobiol.2017.40

The existence of large amounts of within-species genome content variability is puzzling. Population genetics tells us that fitness effects of new variants—either deleterious, neutral or advantageous—combined with the long-term effective population si... Read More about Why prokaryotes have pangenomes.

“Every gene is everywhere but the environment selects”: Global geolocalization of gene sharing in environmental samples through network analysis (2016)
Journal Article
Fondi, M., Karkman, A., Tamminen, M. V., Bosi, E., Virta, M., Fani, R., …McInerney, J. O. (2016). “Every gene is everywhere but the environment selects”: Global geolocalization of gene sharing in environmental samples through network analysis. Genome Biology and Evolution, 8(5), 1388-1400. https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evw077

© The Author(s) 2016. The spatial distribution of microbes on our planet is famously formulated in the Baas Becking hypothesis as “everything is everywhere but the environment selects.” While this hypothesis does not strictly rule out patterns caused... Read More about “Every gene is everywhere but the environment selects”: Global geolocalization of gene sharing in environmental samples through network analysis.

Endosymbiotic origin and differential loss of eukaryotic genes (2015)
Journal Article
Ku, C., Nelson-Sathi, S., Roettger, M., Sousa, F. L., Lockhart, P. J., Bryant, D., …Martin, W. F. (2015). Endosymbiotic origin and differential loss of eukaryotic genes. Nature, 524(7566), 427–432. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14963

Chloroplasts arose from cyanobacteria, mitochondria arose from proteobacteria. Both organelles have conserved their prokaryotic biochemistry, but their genomes are reduced, and most organelle proteins are encoded in the nucleus. Endosymbiotic theory... Read More about Endosymbiotic origin and differential loss of eukaryotic genes.

Origins of major archaeal clades correspond to gene acquisitions from bacteria (2014)
Journal Article
Nelson-Sathi, S., Sousa, F. L., Roettger, M., Lozada-Chavez, N., Thiergart, T., Janssen, A., …Martin, W. F. (2015). Origins of major archaeal clades correspond to gene acquisitions from bacteria. Nature, 517(7532), 77-80. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13805

The mechanisms that underlie the origin of major prokaryotic groups are poorly understood. In principle, the origin of both species and higher taxa among prokaryotes should entail similar mechanisms--ecological interactions with the environment paire... Read More about Origins of major archaeal clades correspond to gene acquisitions from bacteria.

Population genomics reveal recent speciation and rapid evolutionary adaptation in polar bears (2014)
Journal Article
Liu, S., Lorenzen, E. D., Fumagalli, M., Li, B., Harris, K., Xiong, Z., …Wang, J. (2014). Population genomics reveal recent speciation and rapid evolutionary adaptation in polar bears. Cell, 157(4), 785-794. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.03.054

Polar bears are uniquely adapted to life in the High Arctic and have undergone drastic physiological changes in response to Arctic climates and a hyperlipid diet of primarily marine mammal prey. We analyzed 89 complete genomes of polar bear and brown... Read More about Population genomics reveal recent speciation and rapid evolutionary adaptation in polar bears.

Heterogeneous models place the root of the placental mammal phylogeny (2013)
Journal Article
Morgan, C. C., Foster, P. G., Webb, A. E., Pisani, D., McInerney, J. O., & O'Connell, M. J. (2013). Heterogeneous models place the root of the placental mammal phylogeny. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 30(9), 2145-2156. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/mst117

Heterogeneity among life traits in mammals has resulted in considerable phylogenetic conflict, particularly concerning the position of the placental root. Layered upon this are gene-and lineage-specific variation in amino acid substitution rates and... Read More about Heterogeneous models place the root of the placental mammal phylogeny.