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The early phase of a bacterial insertion sequence infection

Bichsel, M; Barbour, A D; Wagner, A (2010). The early phase of a bacterial insertion sequence infection. Theoretical Population Biology, 78(4):278-288.

Abstract

Bacterial insertion sequences are the simplest form of autonomous mobile DNA. It is unknown whether they need to have beneficial effects to infect and persist in bacterial populations, or whether horizontal gene transfer suffices for their persistence. We address this question by using branching process models to investigate the critical, early phase of an insertion sequence infection. We find that the probability of a successful infection is low and depends linearly on the difference between the rate of horizontal gene transfer and the fitness cost of the insertion sequences. Our models show that the median time to extinction of an insertion sequence that dies out is very short, while the median time for a successful infection to reach a modest population size is very long. We conclude that horizontal gene transfer is strong enough to allow the persistence of insertion sequences, although infection is an erratic and slow process.

Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of Biochemistry
07 Faculty of Science > Department of Biochemistry

07 Faculty of Science > Institute of Mathematics
Dewey Decimal Classification:570 Life sciences; biology
510 Mathematics
Scopus Subject Areas:Life Sciences > Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Language:English
Date:December 2010
Deposited On:23 Dec 2010 13:38
Last Modified:12 Oct 2024 03:44
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:0040-5809
OA Status:Green
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tpb.2010.08.003
PubMed ID:20816882

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