Meeting Abstract
The inter-organismal movement of genetic material by means other than reproduction, or horizontal gene transfer (HGT), may be more common in eukaryotes than once thought. Using two parallel bioinformatic pipelines, we have identified and characterized horizontally transferred genes of bacterial and fungal origin found and expressed in Rhodnius prolixus (the kissing bug). First, proteins yielding significant hits with distantly related blood-feeders, bacteria, and fungi, but returning no hits from non-blood feeding Hemiptera and Drosophila were retained as candidate HGTs. These candidates were again queried through a series of protein and nucleotide databases to identify fungal- and bacterial-like regions nested within animal-like scaffolds. These identified functional genes are shared among hematophagous arthropods, but absent in more closely-related organisms which do not share this niche. Thus, HGT likely allowed for the acquisition of phenotypically novel traits in the evolution of hematophagous organisms. Our ultimate goal is to identify those genes shared by multiple hematophagous arthropods of similar and different ecological niches, elucidate their functions, origins, and transfer mechanisms, and determine the inter- and intra-organism effects of HGTs in eukaryotes and their evolution.
