RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Horizontal gene transfer-mediated bacterial strain variation affects host fitness
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.09.24.311167
DO 10.1101/2020.09.24.311167
A1 Yun Wang
A1 Franz Baumdicker
A1 Sven Kuenzel
A1 Fabian Staubach
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/25/2020.09.24.311167.abstract
AB How microbes affect host fitness and environmental adaptation has become a fundamental research question in evolutionary biology. We tested for associations of bacterial genomic variation and Drosophila melanogaster offspring number in a microbial Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS). Leveraging strain variation in the genus Gluconobacter, a genus of bacteria that are commonly associated with Drosophila under natural conditions, we pinpoint the thiamine biosynthesis pathway (TBP) as contributing to differences in fitness conferred to the fly host. By tracing the evolutionary history of TBP genes in Gluconobacter, we find that TBP genes were most likely lost and reacquired by horizontal gene transfer (HGT). We suggest that HGT might contribute to microbiome flexibility and speculate that it can also more generally contribute to host adaptation.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.