Data files associated with "The impact of mercury selection and conjugative genetic elements on community structure and resistance gene transfer" by Hall, Pärnänen, Harrison, Virta, and Brockhurst.

Hall, James (2020) Data files associated with "The impact of mercury selection and conjugative genetic elements on community structure and resistance gene transfer" by Hall, Pärnänen, Harrison, Virta, and Brockhurst. [Data Collection]

Data Catalogue DOI: 10.17638/datacat.liverpool.ac.uk/1076

Description

Abstract: "Carriage of resistance genes can underpin bacterial survival, reshaping microbial communities due to their spread between species on mobile genetic elements (MGEs). However, the spread of MGEs could be affected by environmental factors such as selection for resistance, and biological factors such as plasmid host range, with consequences for individual species and for community structure. Here we cultured a focal bacterial strain, Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25, with a soil microbial community, with and without mercury selection, and with and without mercury resistance plasmids (pQBR57 or pQBR103), to investigate the effect of selection and resistance gene introduction on (1) the focal species; (2) the natural community; (3) the spread of the introduced merA resistance allele. We found that P. fluorescens SBW25 only escaped competitive exclusion by other members of community under mercury selection, even when it did not begin with a mercury resistance plasmid, due to its propensity to acquire resistance from the community by horizontal gene transfer. Mercury contamination had a significant effect on community structure, decreasing alpha diversity within communities while increasing beta diversity between communities, a pattern that was not affected by the introduction of mercury resistance plasmids by P. fluorescens SBW25. Nevertheless, the introduced merA allele spread to a phylogenetically diverse set of recipients over the five weeks of the experiment, as assessed by epicPCR. Our data demonstrates how the effects of MGEs can be experimentally assessed for individual lineages, the wider community, and for the spread of adaptive traits."

Keywords:

horizontal gene transfer, conjugative plasmids, mobile genetic elements, Pseudomonas, mercury, soil, bacterial communities

Divisions:

Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology

Depositing User:

James Hall

Date Deposited:

12 May 2020 13:35

Last Modified:

12 May 2020 13:35

DOI:

10.17638/datacat.liverpool.ac.uk/1076