Experimental approaches to identify horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events of non-mobile DNA in bacteria have typically relied on detection of the initial transformants or their immediate offspring. However, rare HGT events occurring in large and structured populations are unlikely to be detected in a short time frame. Population genetic modeling of the growth dynamics of bacterial genotypes is ...

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) drives the evolution of recipient organism particularly if it provides a novel function which enhances the fitness or its adaption to the environment. Virus-host co-evolution is attractive for studying co-evolutionary processes, since viruses strictly replicate inside of the host cells and thus their evolution is inexorably tangled with host biology. HGT, as a mec...

Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) is defined as the movement of genetic material from one strain of species to another. Bacteria, being an asexual organism were always believed to transfer genes vertically. But recent studies provide evidence that shows bacteria can also transfer genes horizontally. HGT plays a major role in evolution and medicine. It is the major contributor in bacterial evolutio...

The significance of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in eukaryotic evolution remains controversial. Although many eukaryotic genes are of bacterial origin, they are often interpreted as being derived from mitochondria or plastids. Because of their fixed gene pool and gene loss, however, mitochondria and plastids alone cannot adequately explain the presence of all, or even the majority, of bacteri...

Fungi contain a remarkable range of metabolic pathways, sometimes encoded by gene clusters, enabling them to digest most organic matter and synthesize an array of potent small molecules. Although metabolism is fundamental to the fungal lifestyle, we still know little about how major evolutionary processes, such as gene duplication (GD) and horizontal gene transfer (HGT), have interacted with cl...

Hydrodynamic gene transfer (HGT) has been used as an effective and convenient way to achieve gene expressions in vivo. However, its time-dependent impact on the immune system is unknown. The aim of the current study is to investigate the dynamic changes of the immune parameters after HGT. Plasmids were delivered to BALB/c mice by HGT. Each group of mice was sacrificed on day 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 af...

BACKGROUND SUMMARY The use of preoperative halo-gravity traction (HGT) improves both spinal deformity and pulmonary function and is a helpful adjuvant in the treatment of complex spinal deformity. Despite the benefits of preoperative HGT, there is no consensus on the optimal traction protocol. METHODS We evaluated the treatment of 33 patients treated with preoperative HGT to determine the saf...

BACKGROUND Acquisition of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance by many clinically important bacteria can be traced to horizontal gene transfer (HGT) between related or evolutionarily distant microflora. Comparative genomic analysis has become an important tool for identifying HGT DNA in emerging pathogens. We have adapted the multi-genome alignment tool EvoPrinter to facilitate discovery...

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-orga...