Reduction of bacterial genome size and expansion resulting from obligate intracellular lifestyle and adaptation to soil habitat

Abstract

Prokaryotic organisms are exposed in the course of evolution to various impacts, resulting often in drastic changes of their genome size. Depending on circumstances, the same lineage may diverge into species having substantially reduced genomes, or such whose genomes have undergone considerable enlargement. Genome reduction is a consequence of obligate intracellular lifestyle rendering numerous genes expendable. Another consequence of intracellular lifestyle is reduction of effective population size and limited possibility of gene acquirement via lateral transfer. This causes a state of relaxed selection resulting in accumulation of mildly deleterious mutations that can not be corrected by recombination with the wild type copy. Thus, gene loss is usually irreversible. Additionally, constant environment of the eukaryotic cell renders that some bacterial genes involved in DNA repair are expandable. The loss of these genes is a probable cause of mutational bias resulting in a high A+T content. While causes of genome reduction are rather indisputable, those resulting in genome expansion seem to be less obvious. Presumably, the genome enlargement is an indirect consequence of adaptation to changing environmental conditions and requires the acquisition and integration of numerous genes. It seems that the need for a great number of capabilities is common among soil bacteria irrespective of their phylogenetic relationship. However, this would not be possible if soil bacteria lacked indigenous abilities to exchange and accumulate genetic information. The latter are considerably facilitated when housekeeping genes are physically separated from adaptive loci which are useful only in certain circumstances.