Visualizing Horizontal Gene Transfer Detection in Phylogenetically Divergent Bacteria

Author(s)
Jana Schwarzerova, Laxmipriya Rajasekaran, Katerina Jureckova, Julie Nejezchlebova, Margaret Varga, Valentine Provaznik, Wolfram Weckwerth, Darina Cejkova
Abstract

Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) plays an important and indispensable role in the evolution of bacterial genomes, serving as a mechanism that contributes to genetic diversity and enables adaptation across phylogenetically distant taxa. This study introduces an analysis tool implemented as an R package for detecting HGT events in diverse bacterial lineages. The tool combines the integration of a heat-map matrix with phylogenetic analysis visualization techniques to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of HGT event detection. We applied it to a diverse set of bacterial genomes from chicken and pig gut and expanded the results with established methods for HGT detection. The findings demonstrate the capability of our visualization techniques to pinpoint HGT events, offering a valuable tool for researchers to explore the intricate dynamics of bacterial genome evolution.

Organisation(s)
Functional and Evolutionary Ecology
External organisation(s)
Brno University of Technology, University Hospital Ostrava, University of Oxford
Pages
267-277
No. of pages
11
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-64636-2_20
Publication date
08-2024
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
106014 Genomics, 106022 Microbiology, 106005 Bioinformatics
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Theoretical Computer Science, General Computer Science
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/ddb73c6f-c302-44e6-aaf2-e203380e3b58