Skip Navigation


MBE Advance Access originally published online on May 15, 2007
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2007 24(8):1752-1760; doi:10.1093/molbev/msm095
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:
24/8/1752    most recent
msm095v1
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 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 arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Pisani, D.
Right arrow Articles by McInerney, J. O.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Pisani, D.
Right arrow Articles by McInerney, J. O.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. 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 Articles

Supertrees Disentangle the Chimerical Origin of Eukaryotic Genomes

Davide Pisani, James A. Cotton and James O. McInerney

Department of Biology, The National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland

E-mail: james.o.mcinerney{at}nuim.ie.

Accepted for publication May 9, 2007.

Eukaryotes are traditionally considered to be one of the three natural divisions of the tree of life and the sister group of the Archaebacteria. However, eukaryotic genomes are replete with genes of eubacterial ancestry, and more than 20 mutually incompatible hypotheses have been proposed to account for eukaryote origins. Here we test the predictions of these hypotheses using a novel supertree-based phylogenetic signal-stripping method, and recover supertrees of life based on phylogenies for up to 5,741 single gene families distributed across 185 genomes. Using our signal-stripping method, we show that there are three distinct phylogenetic signals in eukaryotic genomes. In order of strength, these link eukaryotes with the Cyanobacteria, the Proteobacteria, and the Thermoplasmatales, an archaebacterial (euryarchaeotes) group. These signals correspond to distinct symbiotic partners involved in eukaryote evolution: plastids, mitochondria, and the elusive host lineage. According to our whole-genome data, eukaryotes are hardly the sister group of the Archaebacteria, because up to 83% of eukaryotic genes with a prokaryotic homolog have eubacterial, not archaebacterial, origins. The results reject all but two of the current hypotheses for the origin of eukaryotes: those assuming a sulfur-dependent or hydrogen-dependent syntrophy for the origin of mitochondria.

Key Words: supertrees • phylogenomics • tree of life • network of life • eukaryote origins

William Martin, Associate Editor


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
 Phil Trans R Soc BHome page
W. Martin
Evolutionary origins of metabolic compartmentalization in eukaryotes
Phil Trans R Soc B, March 12, 2010; 365(1541): 847 - 855.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Phil Trans R Soc BHome page
T. Dagan and W. Martin
Getting a better picture of microbial evolution en route to a network of genomes
Phil Trans R Soc B, August 12, 2009; 364(1527): 2187 - 2196.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Phil Trans R Soc BHome page
L. S. Haggerty, F. J. Martin, D. A. Fitzpatrick, and J. O. McInerney
Gene and genome trees conflict at many levels
Phil Trans R Soc B, August 12, 2009; 364(1527): 2209 - 2219.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Mol Biol EvolHome page
F. U. Battistuzzi and S. B. Hedges
A Major Clade of Prokaryotes with Ancient Adaptations to Life on Land
Mol. Biol. Evol., February 1, 2009; 26(2): 335 - 343.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Phil Trans R Soc BHome page
N. Galtier and V. Daubin
Dealing with incongruence in phylogenomic analyses
Phil Trans R Soc B, December 27, 2008; 363(1512): 4023 - 4029.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc R Soc BHome page
G. T Lloyd, K. E Davis, D. Pisani, J. E Tarver, M. Ruta, M. Sakamoto, D. W.E Hone, R. Jennings, and M. J Benton
Dinosaurs and the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution
Proc R Soc B, November 7, 2008; 275(1650): 2483 - 2490.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Phil Trans R Soc BHome page
M. Mentel and W. Martin
Energy metabolism among eukaryotic anaerobes in light of Proterozoic ocean chemistry
Phil Trans R Soc B, August 27, 2008; 363(1504): 2717 - 2729.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Mol Biol EvolHome page
N. Yutin, K. S. Makarova, S. L. Mekhedov, Y. I. Wolf, and E. V. Koonin
The Deep Archaeal Roots of Eukaryotes
Mol. Biol. Evol., August 1, 2008; 25(8): 1619 - 1630.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc R Soc BHome page
M. Ruta, D. Pisani, G. T Lloyd, and M. J Benton
A supertree of Temnospondyli: cladogenetic patterns in the most species-rich group of early tetrapods
Proc R Soc B, December 22, 2007; 274(1629): 3087 - 3095.
[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.