Wednesday, March 11, 2009

A hypothesis for the evolution of nuclear-encoded, plastid-targeted glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase genes in "chromalveolate" members

PLoS ONE. 2009;4(3):e4737. Epub 2009 Mar 9

A hypothesis for the evolution of nuclear-encoded, plastid-targeted glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase genes in "chromalveolate" members

Takishita K, Yamaguchi H, Maruyama T, Inagaki Y.

Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan. takishitak@jamstec.go.jp

Eukaryotes bearing red alga-derived plastids--photosynthetic alveolates (dinoflagellates plus the apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondii plus the chromerid Chromera velia), photosynthetic stramenopiles, haptophytes, and cryptophytes--possess unique plastid-targeted glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenases (henceforth designated as "GapC1"). Pioneering phylogenetic studies have indicated a single origin of the GapC1 enzymes in eukaryotic evolution, but there are two potential idiosyncrasies in the GapC1 phylogeny: Firstly, the GapC1 tree topology is apparently inconsistent with the organismal relationship among the "GapC1-containing" groups. Secondly, four stramenopile GapC1 homologues are consistently paraphyletic in previously published studies, although these organisms have been widely accepted as monophyletic. For a closer examination of the above issues, in this study GapC1 gene sampling was improved by determining/identifying nine stramenopile and two cryptophyte genes. Phylogenetic analyses of our GapC1 dataset, which is particularly rich in the stramenopile homologues, prompt us to propose a new scenario that assumes multiple, lateral GapC1 gene transfer events to explain the incongruity between the GapC1 phylogeny and the organismal relationships amongst the "GapC1-containing" groups. Under our new scenario, GapC1 genes uniquely found in photosynthetic alveolates, photosynthetic stramenopiles, haptophytes, and cryptopyhytes are not necessarily a character vertically inherited from a common ancestor.

Publication Types:
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

PMID: 19270733 [PubMed - in process]

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