“From the Abyss: Understanding Horizontal Gene Transfer and Mobile Genetic Elements in the Deep Ocean, Insights from the Thermococcales”
Résumé
Interactions between cells and mobile elements such as viruses and plasmids (the mobilome) played a major role in life evolution. In this project we are both studying the mobilome history at the level of an entire domain, Archaea, using genomes already available, and focusing on a particular order of hyperthemophilic archaea, Thermococcales, by the sequencing of 100 closed genomes from Thermococcales isolated in various oceanic hydrothermal sites. Here I will present our results on the study of the diversity and the evolution of the MGEs in Thermococcales. I will present an atypical plasmid family [1], the pT26-2 family, widely spread in the Thermococcales and not only. Bioinformatic analyses suggest that this plasmid family could correspond to a new “plasmidion” [2], as first described recently by Erdmann and co-workers [3]. I will also present the first conjugative plasmid, pT33-3, corresponding to the largest plasmid (103 kb) identified in Thermococcales [4].