Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Genomics

Publisher

Elsevier

Publication Date

1-2020

Volume

112

Issue

1

Disciplines

Biology | Life Sciences

Abstract

Bartonella henselae is a facultative intracellular pathogen that occurs worldwide and is responsible primarily for cat-scratch disease in young people and bacillary angiomatosis in immunocompromised patients. The principal source of genome-level diversity that contributes to B. henselae's host-adaptive features is thought to be horizontal gene transfer events. However, our analyses did not reveal the acquisition of horizontally-transferred islands in B. henselae after its divergence from other Bartonella. Rather, diversity in gene content and genome size was apparently acquired through two alternative mechanisms, including deletion and, more predominantly, duplication of genes. Interestingly, a majority of these events occurred in regions that were horizontally transferred long before B. henselae's divergence from other Bartonella species. Our study indicates the possibility that gene duplication, in response to positive selection pressures in specific clones of B. henselae, might be linked to the pathogen's adaptation to arthropod vectors, the cat reservoir, or humans as incidental host-species.

Keywords

Bartonella henselae, Facultative intracellular human pathogen, Gene deletion, Gene duplication, Gene mosaicism in bacterial genomes, Pan-genome

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygeno.2019.03.009

Comments

First available online March 2019.

Rights

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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