A joint research group of Institute for Biological Resources and Functions, AIST, and the University of Tokyo identified a large bacterial genome fragment on the X chromosome of the adzuki bean beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis, known as a pest of stored beans. The genome fragment was derived from Wolbachia, an endosymbiotic bacterium specialized for life in insect cells. This finding provides the first direct evidence of horizontal gene transfer between prokaryote and multicellular eukaryote.
Based on this finding, the possibility was suggested that even higher multicellular eukaryotic organisms, including human, might occasionally incorporate genes into their genomes from coexisting microorganisms such as gut microflora, parasites, endosymbionts, and environmental microbes. The finding has attracted great attention from worldwide, because of an impact on many aspects of basic and applied biology such as origin and acquisition of novel properties in organismal evolution, process and the mechanism in parasitism and symbiosis, management of genetically engineered organisms, etc.
This work was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U. S. A.* on October 29, 2002.
This research project has been supported by the Program for Promotion of Basic Research Activities for Innovative Biosciences (ProBRAIN) of the Bio-Oriented Technology Research Advancement institution.
* Genome fragment of Wolbachia endosymbiont transferred to X chromosome of host insect.
Natsuko Kondo, Naruo Nikoh, Nobuyuki Ijichi, Masakazu Shimada, and Takema Fukatsu
14280-14285 PNAS October 29 2002 vol.99 no.22
