Abstract

Prokaryotic Mobile Genetic Elements (MGEs) such as transposons, integrons, phages and plasmids are one of the major drivers of prokaryotic adaptation and evolution. MGEs can mediate rapid dispersal of cargo functions such as antibiotic resistance across phylogenetically distinct microbial species and also across different habitats. However, MGE is an umbrella term for a variety of distinct elements and these are often annotated and analysed individually. This has hampered comparative MGE analyses important for gaining global understanding of phylogenetic and environmental patterns of MGE dispersal. Recently, we developed a computational framework that addressed this methodological gap in the field. In this talk, I will introduce our computational framework and our resource (proMGE.embl.de) of 2.4 million MGEs from 76k prokaryotic genomes annotated using this approach. I will discuss the insights we obtained about the phylogenetic distribution and antibiotic resistance dispersal potential of the identified MGEs. Finally, I will briefly talk about how this computational framework has opened avenues for further investigation of the contributions of mobile genetic elements and their interactions in microbial communities of our planet.

Biohraphy

Supriya Khedkar is a postdoctoral fellow in Peer Bork’s lab at EMBL Heidelberg. She is a computational microbiologist interested in understanding bacterial genome and community evolution. She is a classically trained microbiologist who transitioned to the field of bacterial genomics during her doctoral studies at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS-TIFR), India. Coming from an inter-disciplinary background her current research lies at the interface of mobile DNA research, (meta)genomics and molecular evolution.