Skip Navigation


MBE Advance Access originally published online on July 27, 2005
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2005 22(11):2142-2146; doi:10.1093/molbev/msi221
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:
22/11/2142    most recent
msi221v1
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 (10)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Huang, J.
Right arrow Articles by Gogarten, J. P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Huang, J.
Right arrow Articles by Gogarten, J. P.
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@oupjournals.org

Letter

The Presence of a Haloarchaeal Type Tyrosyl-tRNA Synthetase Marks the Opisthokonts as Monophyletic

Jinling Huang*,{dagger},{ddagger}, Ying Xu§ and Johann Peter Gogarten{ddagger}

* Department of Biology, East Carolina University; {dagger} NASA Astrobiology Institute at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts; {ddagger} Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut; and § Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia

E-mail: huangj{at}mail.ecu.edu.

Lateral gene transfer plays an important role in the evolution of life. Events of ancient gene transfer can transmit genetic novelties to descendent lineages and subsequently shape their genetic systems. We here present the analyses of the gene encoding tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (tyrRS), which reveal two eukaryotic tyrRS lineages, one including the opisthokonts and the other the remaining eukaryotes. The different origins of tyrRS lineages between the opisthokonts and the remaining eukaryotes indicate a likely case of ancient lateral gene transfer of tyrRS from an archaeon to the opisthokonts, which lends further support for the monophyly of the latter group. Ancient paralogy followed by differential gene loss is an alternative, albeit less parsimonious explanation for the distribution of the two eukaryotic tyrRS types. In either case, the presence of a haloarchaeal tyrRS type in the opisthokonts marks this group as monophyletic. This finding also points to the potential utility of ancient gene transfer events as molecular markers for major organismal lineages.

Key Words: ancient gene transfer • opisthokonts • tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase • eukaryotic evolution


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
 Mol Biol EvolHome page
M. Elias
The Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factors Sec2 and PRONE: Candidate Synapomorphies for the Opisthokonta and the Archaeplastida
Mol. Biol. Evol., August 1, 2008; 25(8): 1526 - 1529.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Genome ResHome page
O. Zhaxybayeva, J. P. Gogarten, R. L. Charlebois, W. F. Doolittle, and R. T. Papke
Phylogenetic analyses of cyanobacterial genomes: Quantification of horizontal gene transfer events
Genome Res., September 1, 2006; 16(9): 1099 - 1108.
[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.