[The Svedberg seminar] – Multilevel drift and selection in the evolution of prokaryotic plasmids
May 20, 2024 @ 15:15 – 16:15 CEST
Tal Dagan
Professor
Institute of general microbiology, Kiel University, Germany.
Bio
Prof. Tal Dagan graduated her PhD in 2005 and moved to Germany for her postdoctoral studies. Since 2013 she is a professor of microbiology at Kiel University. Her main research interest is microbial genome evolution via lateral gene transfer with a focus on the evolution of prokaryotic plasmids
Multilevel drift and selection in the evolution of prokaryotic plasmids
Plasmids are an extrachromosomal genetic elements that populate prokaryote cells. Due to their interaction with a hosting cell, drift and selection operate on plasmid alleles at two hierarchical levels: the collective of plasmids within the host and the collective of cells within the host population. The effect of these two levels on plasmid evolution remains understudied. Using experimental evolution approach integrated with phylogenomic reconstruction we found that: i) drift and selection at the level of the host population leads to contrasting effects on the plasmid fitness and ii) segregational drift of plasmid alleles during cell division constrains the rate of plasmid evolution. Our findings may apply for the evolution of other extrachromosomal genetic elements having a similar population structure. Focusing on plasmids, our research thus uncovers general principles in the evolution of autonomously replicating genetic elements.
Host: Maliheh Mehrshad maliheh.mehrshad@slu.se, SLU and Helen Wang helen.wang@imbim.uu.se UU
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