Taking the Gonococcus-Human Relationship to a Whole New Level: Implications for the Coevolution of Microbes and Humans

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: William M Shafer, Emory University; Elizabeth A. Ohneck, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2011-04-26
• Publisher: American Society for Microbiology: mBio
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2011 Shafer and Ohneck
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
• Final Published Version (URL): http://mbio.asm.org/content/2/3/e00067-11
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: mBio
• ISSN: 2150-7511
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 3
• Start Page: 1
• End Page: 2
• Grant/Funding Information: W.M.S. is supported by a Senior Research Career Scientist Award from theVAMedical Research Service, and E.A.O. was supported by NIH training grant 2T32 AI 007470-16.; Work in our laboratory is supported by NIH grants R37 AI201150-26 and AI-0311496-20 and a VA Merit Award.
• Research Categories: Biology, Microbiology

Abstract

While horizontal gene transfer occurs frequently among bacterial species, evidence for the transfer of DNA from host to microbe is exceptionally rare. However, the recent report by Anderson and Seifert [mBio 2(1):e00005-11, 2011] provides evidence for such an event with the finding that 11% of Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains harbor a 685-bp sequence that is 98 to 100% identical to the human long interspersed nuclear element L1. While the function of this element in gonococci remains unclear, this finding significantly impacts our consideration of the coevolution of hosts and microbes, particularly that of humans and pathogens.