Global genome analysis of the shikimic acid pathway reveals greater gene loss in host-associated than in free-living bacteria

Table 2 The presence or absence of a complete shikimic acid pathway deduced from enzymes detected by HMM analysis in the predicted proteomes of 488 prokaryotes.

	Total	Complete pathway	Incomplete pathway	% incomplete
Total	488	336	152	31
Bacteria	442	335	107	24
Free living	147	131	16	11
Host-associated	295	204	91	31
Archaea	46	1	45	98

As expected, nearly all of the 147 Bacteria that have never been reported previously to be associated with a host (termed 'free-living') contain a complete complement of enzymes forming this pathway.

ISSN: 1471-2164