I am a PhD student, currently studying yeast endobacteria. The endobacteria our group work with are however cultivable although their genome sizes are significantly cut to half. The genome sequences of those endobacteria include some gaps. How to understand whether this reduction in genome size is due to gaps obtained while sequencing or evolution? Maybe this is a naive question but I will be really happy if you guide me through this.

Thanking you in advance.

Sincerely,

Trina Roychoudhury