Lateral genetic transfer (LGT) is the process by which genetic material moves between organisms (and viruses) in the biosphere. Among the many approaches developed for the inference of LGT events from DNA sequence data, methods based on the comparison of phylogenetic trees remain the gold standard for many types of problem. Identifying LGT events from …
March 2017 archive
Mar 15
Evolution: Plumbing the Depths of Diplonemid Diversity.
Environmental molecular sequence surveys have opened a window on the hidden riches of the microbial biosphere. Recent genetic ‘barcoding’ and single-cell genomics studies have provided a snapshot of the biology of diplonemids – abundant, diverse, marine heterotrophic protists whose ecological roles are becoming clearer. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Mar 15
Microbiome Helper: a Custom and Streamlined Workflow for Microbiome Research.
Sequence-based approaches to study microbiomes, such as 16S rRNA gene sequencing and metagenomics, are uncovering associations between microbial taxa and a myriad of factors. A drawback of these approaches is that the necessary sequencing library preparation and bioinformatic analyses are complicated and continuously changing, which can be a barrier for researchers new to the field. …
Mar 15
Gregarine infection accelerates larval development of the cat flea Ctenocephalides felis (Bouché).
A high degree of specialization between host and parasite is a well-known outcome of a long history of coevolution, and it is strikingly illustrated in a coordination of their life cycles. In some cases, the arms race ensued at the establishment of a symbiotic relationship results in the adoption of manipulative strategies by the parasite. …
Mar 15
The origin of mitochondrial cristae from alphaproteobacteria.
Mitochondria are the respiratory organelles of eukaryotes and their evolutionary history is deeply intertwined with that of eukaryotes. The compartmentalization of respiration in mitochondria occurs within cristae, whose evolutionary origin has remained unclear. Recent discoveries, however, have revived the old notion that mitochondrial cristae could have had a pre-endosymbiotic origin. Mitochondrial cristae are likely homologous …
Mar 15
Shifting Balance on a Static Mutation-Selection Landscape: A Novel Scenario of Positive Selection.
A version of the mechanistic mutation-selection (MutSel) model that accounts for temporal dynamics at a site is presented. This is used to show that the rate ratio dN/dS at a site can be transiently >1 even when fitness coefficients are fixed or the fitness landscape is static. This occurs whenever a site drifts away from …
Mar 15
Diversity and Evolution of Paramoeba spp. and their Kinetoplastid Endosymbionts.
Members of the genus Paramoeba (including Neoparamoeba) (Amoebozoa) are single-celled eukaryotes of economic and ecological importance because of their association with disease in a variety of marine animals including fish, sea urchins, and lobster. Interestingly, they harbor a eukaryotic endosymbiont of kinetoplastid ancestry, Perkinsela sp. To investigate the complex relationship between Paramoeba spp. and Perkinsela …
Mar 15
Discovery of an expanded set of avian leucosis subgroup E proviruses in chickens using Vermillion, a novel sequence capture and analysis pipeline.
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Mar 15
The carboxy terminus of YCF1 contains a motif conserved throughout >500 million years of streptophyte evolution.
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Mar 15
Endosymbiosis: Did Plastids Evolve from a Freshwater Cyanobacterium?
Photosynthetic eukaryotes are the product of an endosymbiotic event between a eukaryotic host and a cyanobacterium that became today’s plastid. A new phylogenomic study suggests that the closest relative of plastids among extant cyanobacteria is the recently discovered freshwater-dwelling Gloeomargarita lithophora. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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