*Correspondence to: James O. McInerney; Email: [email protected] While it has become increasingly clear that the Tree of Life hypothesis has limitations in its ability to describe the evolution of all evolving entities on the planet, there has been a marked reluctance to move away from the tree-based language. Ironically, while modifying the idea of the Tree of Life to the extent that i...

Because transposons are able to self-excise and self-insert into the genome, they can also be used as a tool for altering gene expression, especially in the case of transposon mutagenesis. Here, Meredith et al. describe a robust transposon mutagenesis system that they have created allowing for the creation of a large range of expression genotypes in S. aureus. This collection has allowed for th...

The ACLAME database (http://aclame.ulb.ac.be) is a collection and classification of prokaryotic mobile genetic elements (MGEs) from various sources, comprising all known phage genomes, plasmids and transposons. In addition to providing information on the full genomes and genetic entities, it aims to build a comprehensive classification of the functional modules of MGEs at the protein, gene and ...

SeqWord Gene Island Sniffer, a new program for the identification of mobile genetic elements in sequences of bacterial chromosomes is presented. This program is based on the analysis of oligonucleotide usage variations in DNA sequences. 3,518 mobile genetic elements were identified in 637 bacterial genomes and further analyzed by sequence similarity and the functionality of encoded proteins. Th...

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Evolutionary Hypotheses . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . ..... . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . .. . ....... . . .... . ... . .. . . . . General Considerations .. . . .............. . . . ....... ........ . ... . . ....

conclusions antibiotic resistance gene cassettes may be carried on integron or other genetic elements. the purpose of this study was to detect integron or genomic islands involved in antibiotic resistance profile of the isolates of h. influenzae collected in this study. results of the twenty isolates, all (100%) were resistant to clindamycin, chloramphenicol and tetracycline, 95% to amoxicillin...

Insertion mutagenesis via mobile genetic element is a common technique for the analysis of gene function in model organisms. Next-generation sequencing offers an attractive approach for localizing the site of insertion, but alignment-based mapping of mobile genetic elements is challenging. A computational method for identifying insertion sites is reported herein. The technique was validated by ...

The most common type of coniferous mobile genetic elements are retrotransposons. Despite of their early positive impact on evolution of modern coniferous species they can have a significant negative impact for Forestry and breeding. Breaking genomic structural integrity mobile elements can cause phenotypic defects of plants. In this regard, the study of the diversity of coniferous mobile geneti...

Mobile genetic elements are essential for the acquisition of new genetic information and genomic recombination. Among these, integrons and ICEs of the SXT/R391 family are involved primarily in antibiotic resistance diffusion and in other adaptive functions in Vibrio. Many studies indicate that mobile genetic elements are also important factors of genetic variability and suggest their role as po...