Life on leaves left a lasting mark on the Methylobacterium core genome

Across 293 Methylobacterium genomes, 1,099 core protein-coding genes show nonrandom phylogenetic discordance, with the strongest deviations linked to phyllosphere adaptation functions.

• Why it matters: Core genomes are expected to reflect vertical inheritance, but it remains unclear how much horizontal exchange shapes “core” evolution in ecologically diverse bacteria.
• What they did: The authors compared gene trees, reconstructed phylogenetic networks, analyzed nucleotide polymorphism patterns, and performed functional enrichment to test whether discordance clusters by function.
• The result: Genes most discordant across approaches are repeatedly enriched for anoxygenic photosynthesis and UV/osmotic stress protection, often organized in conserved genomic clusters, including a photosynthesis cluster with variable evolutionary history.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.