The constancy of gene conservation across divergent bacterial orders
2009
Gene Conservation in Bacteria
Sample size: 448
publication
Evidence: high
Author Information
Author(s): Silander Olin K, Ackermann Martin
Primary Institution: Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Hypothesis
Does the functional importance of orthologous genes change across bacterial taxa?
Conclusion
Most bacterial genes are under a nearly constant level of purifying selection, indicating that bacterial evolution is dominated by selective and functional stasis.
Supporting Evidence
- The level of gene conservation for different orthologous genes is highly correlated across clades.
- Functional differences appear to be maintained over very long periods of time.
- Correlations in gene conservation remain strong even within specific functional classes of genes.
Takeaway
Scientists studied how similar genes are in different bacteria to see if they work the same way. They found that many genes stay important over a long time.
Methodology
The study used stochastic character mapping to calculate gene conservation across different bacterial clades.
Statistical Information
P-Value
p<0.0001
Statistical Significance
p<0.0001
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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