Skip Navigation


MBE Advance Access originally published online on November 16, 2005
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2006 23(3):587-597; doi:10.1093/molbev/msj064
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Material
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
23/3/587    most recent
msj064v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (47)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by van Rheede, T.
Right arrow Articles by Madsen, O.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by van Rheede, T.
Right arrow Articles by Madsen, O.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Article

The Platypus Is in Its Place: Nuclear Genes and Indels Confirm the Sister Group Relation of Monotremes and Therians

Teun van Rheede*,1, Trijntje Bastiaans*, David N. Boone{dagger}, S. Blair Hedges{dagger}, Wilfried W. de Jong*,{ddagger} and Ole Madsen*

* Department of Biochemistry, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; {dagger} Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University; and {ddagger} Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

E-mail: o.madsen{at}ncmls.ru.nl.

Morphological data supports monotremes as the sister group of Theria (extant marsupials + eutherians), but phylogenetic analyses of 12 mitochondrial protein-coding genes have strongly supported the grouping of monotremes with marsupials: the Marsupionta hypothesis. Various nuclear genes tend to support Theria, but a comprehensive study of long concatenated sequences and broad taxon sampling is lacking. We therefore determined sequences from six nuclear genes and obtained additional sequences from the databases to create two large and independent nuclear data sets. One (data set I) emphasized taxon sampling and comprised five genes, with a concatenated length of 2,793 bp, from 21 species (two monotremes, six marsupials, nine placentals, and four outgroups). The other (data set II) emphasized gene sampling and comprised eight genes and three proteins, with a concatenated length of 10,773 bp or 3,669 amino acids, from five taxa (a monotreme, a marsupial, a rodent, human, and chicken). Both data sets were analyzed by parsimony, minimum evolution, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian methods using various models and data partitions. Data set I gave bootstrap support values for Theria between 55% and 100%, while support for Marsupionta was at most 12.3%. Taking base compositional bias into account generally increased the support for Theria. Data set II exclusively supported Theria, with the highest possible values and significantly rejected Marsupionta. Independent phylogenetic evidence in support of Theria was obtained from two single amino acid deletions and one insertion, while no supporting insertions and deletions were found for Marsupionta. On the basis of our data sets, the time of divergence between Monotremata and Theria was estimated at 231–217 MYA and between Marsupialia and Eutheria at 193–186 MYA. The morphological evidence for a basal position of Monotremata, well separated from Theria, is thus fully supported by the available molecular data from nuclear genes.

Key Words: Marsupionta • Theria • phylogeny • base composition • divergence time


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 EndocrinologyHome page
C. Rivers, A. Flynn, X. Qian, L. Matthews, S. Lightman, D. Ray, and M. Norman
Characterization of Conserved Tandem Donor Sites and Intronic Motifs Required for Alternative Splicing in Corticosteroid Receptor Genes
Endocrinology, November 1, 2009; 150(11): 4958 - 4967.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
M. J. Phillips, T. H. Bennett, and M. S. Y. Lee
Molecules, morphology, and ecology indicate a recent, amphibious ancestry for echidnas
PNAS, October 6, 2009; 106(40): 17089 - 17094.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
J. C. Opazo, F. G. Hoffmann, and J. F. Storz
Differential loss of embryonic globin genes during the radiation of placental mammals
PNAS, September 2, 2008; 105(35): 12950 - 12955.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Mol Biol EvolHome page
A. B. Prasad, M. W. Allard, NISC Comparative Sequencing Program, and E. D. Green
Confirming the Phylogeny of Mammals by Use of Large Comparative Sequence Data Sets
Mol. Biol. Evol., September 1, 2008; 25(9): 1795 - 1808.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Genome ResHome page
P. B. Samollow
The opossum genome: Insights and opportunities from an alternative mammal
Genome Res., August 1, 2008; 18(8): 1199 - 1215.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Phil Trans R Soc BHome page
S. Mikula, P. R Manger, and E. G Jones
The thalamus of the monotremes: cyto- and myeloarchitecture and chemical neuroanatomy
Phil Trans R Soc B, July 27, 2008; 363(1502): 2415 - 2440.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Genome ResHome page
F. Veyrunes, P. D. Waters, P. Miethke, W. Rens, D. McMillan, A. E. Alsop, F. Grutzner, J. E. Deakin, C. M. Whittington, K. Schatzkamer, et al.
Bird-like sex chromosomes of platypus imply recent origin of mammal sex chromosomes
Genome Res., June 1, 2008; 18(6): 965 - 973.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Mol Biol EvolHome page
L. Eckhart, C. Ballaun, M. Hermann, J. L. VandeBerg, W. Sipos, A. Uthman, H. Fischer, and E. Tschachler
Identification of Novel Mammalian Caspases Reveals an Important Role of Gene Loss in Shaping the Human Caspase Repertoire
Mol. Biol. Evol., May 1, 2008; 25(5): 831 - 841.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 J HeredHome page
E. J. Devor and P. B. Samollow
In Vitro and In Silico Annotation of Conserved and Nonconserved MicroRNAs in the Genome of the Marsupial Monodelphis domestica
J. Hered., February 8, 2008; (2008) esm085v2.
[Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
J. C. Opazo, F. G. Hoffmann, and J. F. Storz
Genomic evidence for independent origins of {beta}-like globin genes in monotremes and therian mammals
PNAS, February 5, 2008; 105(5): 1590 - 1595.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
T. Rowe, T. H. Rich, P. Vickers-Rich, M. Springer, and M. O. Woodburne
The oldest platypus and its bearing on divergence timing of the platypus and echidna clades
PNAS, January 29, 2008; 105(4): 1238 - 1242.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Mol Biol EvolHome page
C. Casola, D. Hucks, and C. Feschotte
Convergent Domestication of pogo-like Transposases into Centromere-Binding Proteins in Fission Yeast and Mammals
Mol. Biol. Evol., January 1, 2008; 25(1): 29 - 41.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
D. E. Wildman, M. Uddin, J. C. Opazo, G. Liu, V. Lefort, S. Guindon, O. Gascuel, L. I. Grossman, R. Romero, and M. Goodman
Genomics, biogeography, and the diversification of placental mammals
PNAS, September 4, 2007; 104(36): 14395 - 14400.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 GeneticsHome page
J. J. Smith and S. R. Voss
Bird and Mammal Sex-Chromosome Orthologs Map to the Same Autosomal Region in a Salamander (Ambystoma)
Genetics, September 1, 2007; 177(1): 607 - 613.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Syst BiolHome page
A. F. Hugall, R. Foster, and M. S. Y. Lee
Calibration Choice, Rate Smoothing, and the Pattern of Tetrapod Diversification According to the Long Nuclear Gene RAG-1
Syst Biol, August 1, 2007; 56(4): 543 - 563.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Syst BiolHome page
M. S. Springer, A. Burk-Herrick, R. Meredith, E. Eizirik, E. Teeling, S. J. O'Brien, and W. J. Murphy
The Adequacy of Morphology for Reconstructing the Early History of Placental Mammals
Syst Biol, August 1, 2007; 56(4): 673 - 684.
[Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
G. Bernardi
The neoselectionist theory of genome evolution
PNAS, May 15, 2007; 104(20): 8385 - 8390.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Genome ResHome page
W. J. Murphy, T. H. Pringle, T. A. Crider, M. S. Springer, and W. Miller
Using genomic data to unravel the root of the placental mammal phylogeny
Genome Res., April 1, 2007; 17(4): 413 - 421.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.