High or low correlation between co-occuring gene clusters and 16S rRNA gene phylogeny

Abstract

Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes are universal for all living organisms. Yet, the correspondence between genome composition and rRNA phylogeny remains poorly known. The aim of this study was to use the information from genome sequence databases to address the correlation between rRNA gene phylogeny and total gene composition in bacteria. This was done by analysing 327 genomes with TIGRFAM functional gene annotations. Our approach consisted of two steps. First, we searched for discriminatory clusters of co-occurring genes. Using a multivariate statistical approach, we identified 11 such clusters which contain genes that were co-occurring only in a subset of genomes and contributed to explain the gene content differences between genome subsets. Second, we mapped the discovered clusters to 16S rRNA-based phylogeny and calculated the correlation between co-occuring genes and phylogeny. Six of the 11 clusters exhibited significant correlation with 16S rRNA gene phylogeny. The most distinct phylogenetic finding was a high correlation between iron-sulfur oxidoreductases in combination with carbon nitrogen ligases and Chlorobium. The other correlations identified covered relatively large phylogroups: Actinobacteria were positively associated with kinases, while Gammaproteobacteria were positively associated with methylases and acyltransferases. The suggested functional differences between higher phylogroups, however, need experimental verification.