open access

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/64492

Horizontally Transferred Genetic Elements in the Tsetse Fly Genome: An Alignment-Free Clustering Approach Using Batch Learning Self-Organising Map (BLSOM)

英語

2016

Hindawi Publishing Corporation

BioMed Research International

2016

3164624

Tsetse flies (Glossina spp.) are the primary vectors of trypanosomes, which can cause human and animal African trypanosomiasis in Sub-Saharan African countries. The objective of this study was to explore the genome of Glossina morsitans morsitans for evidence of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from microorganisms. We employed an alignment-free clustering method, that is, batch learning self-organising map (BLSOM), in which sequence fragments are clustered based on the similarity of oligonucleotide frequencies independently of sequence homology. After an initial scan of HGT events using BLSOM, we identified 3.8% of the tsetse fly genome as HGT candidates. The predicted donors of these HGT candidates included known symbionts, such as Wolbachia, as well as bacteria that have not previously been associated with the tsetse fly. We detected HGT candidates from diverse bacteria such as Bacillus and Flavobacteria, suggesting a past association between these taxa. Functional annotation revealed that the HGT candidates encoded loci in various functional pathways, such as metabolic and antibiotic biosynthesis pathways. These findings provide a basis for understanding the coevolutionary history of the tsetse fly and its microbes and establish the effectiveness of BLSOM for the detection of HGT events.

学術雑誌論文

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Copyright © 2016 Ryo Nakao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

2314-6133