GBE Found and Lost: The Fates of Horizontally Acquired Genes in Arthropod-Symbiotic Spiroplasma Wen-Sui Lo1,2,3,GailE.Gasparich4, and Chih-Horng Kuo1,2,5,* 1Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan 2Molecular and Biological Agricultural Sciences Program, Taiwan International Graduate Program, National Chung Hsing University and Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan 3Graduate Institute of Biotechnology, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan 4Department of Biological Sciences, Towson University 5Biotechnology Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan *Corresponding author: E-mail:
[email protected]. Accepted: August 5, 2015 Data deposition: The genome sequences reported in this study have been deposited at DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank under the accessions CP011855 (Spiroplasma atrichopogonis GNAT3597T = ATCC BAA-520T) and CP011856 (Spiroplasma eriocheiris TDA-040725-5T = DSMZ 21848T). The 16S rRNA gene sequences of S. atrichopogonis strains GNAT3597T and ATCC BAA-520T have been deposited under the accessions KR349130 and KR349131, respectively. Abstract Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is an important mechanism that contributed to biological diversity, particularly in bacteria. Through acquisition of novel genes, the recipient cell may change its ecological preference and the process could promote speciation. In this study, we determined the complete genome sequence of two Spiroplasma species for comparative analyses and inferred the putative gene gains and losses. Although most Spiroplasma