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SUMMARY:Is the bacterial accessory genome adaptive? - Dr John Lees from EM
 BL – EBI\, Wellcome Genome Campus\, Hinxton 
DTSTART:20250130T140000Z
DTEND:20250130T150000Z
UID:TALK219430@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Caroline Newnham
DESCRIPTION:Bacterial genomes vary in sequence due to mutations\, but also
  vary in their gene content and order due to horizontal gene transfer. Whe
 ther the variation in gene content and order\, known as the accessory geno
 me\, is typically neutral\, nearly neutral or adaptive is still the subjec
 t of debate – different theoretical arguments support all three scenario
 s. The availability of large sample collections across many thousands of b
 acterial species offers the opportunity to bring data to bear on this ques
 tion. I will first present methods being developed in my group to make it 
 possible to analyse collections of millions of genomes. Using these approa
 ches\, I will then show how a mechanistic model of gene gain and loss can 
 be fitted to different pathogen species to determine whether their accesso
 ry genome shows signals of adaptation. Finally\, I will show how transform
 er-based AI architectures can learn gene content and ordering across even 
 more species\, giving another way to look at this problem. So\, is the bac
 terial accessory genome adaptive? A short answer would be 'it depends'. Co
 me to the talk to find out what it depends on.
LOCATION:Biffen Lecture theatre and Zoom
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