Evolutionary relationships among virulence-associated histidine kinases

A strong relationship between virulence-associated sensor histidine kinases of fungi and those in Streptomyces coelicolor was observed, and phylogenet ic analysis suggested that bacterium-to-eukaryote horizontal gene transfer had occurred between ancestors of these organisms. Phylogenetic analysis al so identified a group of histidine kinases orthologous to the Streptomyces proteins that includes Pseudomonas aeruginosa GacS. We provide evidence tha t GacS is important for swarming motility, lipase production, and virulence in mice and had evolved to have partial functional overlaps with PhoQ, a l ess-related virulence-associated histidine kinase.