bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/780619; this version posted September 24, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 Horizontal gene transfer to a defensive symbiont with a reduced genome 2 amongst a multipartite beetle microbiome 3 Samantha C. Waterwortha, Laura V. Flórezb, Evan R. Reesa, Christian Hertweckc,d, 4 Martin Kaltenpothb and Jason C. Kwana# 5 6 Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin- 7 Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USAa 8 Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, 9 Johannes Gutenburg University, Mainz, Germanyb 10 Department of Biomolecular Chemistry, Leibniz Institute for Natural Products Research 11 and Infection Biology, Jena, Germanyc 12 Department of Natural Product Chemistry, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germanyd 13 14 #Address correspondence to Jason C. Kwan,
[email protected] 15 16 17 18 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/780619; this version posted September 24, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 19 ABSTRACT 20 The loss of functions required for independent life when living within a host gives rise to 21 reduced genomes in obligate bacterial symbionts. Although this phenomenon can be 22 explained by existing evolutionary models, its initiation is not well understood.