Genome sequences reveal divergence times of malaria parasite lineages

SUMMARYObjectiveThe evolutionary history of human malaria parasites (genus Plasmodium) has long been a subject of speculation and controversy. The complete genome sequences of the two most widespread human malaria parasites, P. falciparum and P. vivax, and of the monkey parasite P. knowlesi are now available, together with the draft genomes of the chimpanzee parasite P. reichenowi, three rodent parasites, P. yoelii yoelli, P. berghei and P. chabaudi chabaudi, and one avian parasite, P. gallinaceum.MethodsWe present here an analysis of 45 orthologous gene sequences across the eight species that resolves the relationships of major Plasmodium lineages, and provides the first comprehensive dating of the age of those groups.ResultsOur analyses support the hypothesis that the last common ancestor of P. falciparum and the chimpanzee parasite P. reichenowi occurred around the time of the human-chimpanzee divergence. P. falciparum infections of African apes are most likely derived from humans and not the other way around. On the other hand, P. vivax, split from the monkey parasite P. knowlesi in the much more distant past, during the time that encompasses the separation of the Great Apes and Old World Monkeys.ConclusionThe results support an ancient association between malaria parasites and their primate hosts, including humans.

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Evolutionary history and metabolic insights of ancient mammalian uricases

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1320393111 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 111 (10) ◽

pp. 3763-3768 ◽

Cited By ~ 122

Author(s):

James T. Kratzer ◽

Miguel A. Lanaspa ◽

Michael N. Murphy ◽

Christina Cicerchi ◽

Christina L. Graves ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Uric Acid ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Common Ancestor ◽

Tumor Lysis Syndrome ◽

Integrated Approach ◽

Last Common Ancestor ◽

Evolutionary Models ◽

Monosodium Urate ◽

Domains Of Life ◽

History Of

Uricase is an enzyme involved in purine catabolism and is found in all three domains of life. Curiously, uricase is not functional in some organisms despite its role in converting highly insoluble uric acid into 5-hydroxyisourate. Of particular interest is the observation that apes, including humans, cannot oxidize uric acid, and it appears that multiple, independent evolutionary events led to the silencing or pseudogenization of the uricase gene in ancestral apes. Various arguments have been made to suggest why natural selection would allow the accumulation of uric acid despite the physiological consequences of crystallized monosodium urate acutely causing liver/kidney damage or chronically causing gout. We have applied evolutionary models to understand the history of primate uricases by resurrecting ancestral mammalian intermediates before the pseudogenization events of this gene family. Resurrected proteins reveal that ancestral uricases have steadily decreased in activity since the last common ancestor of mammals gave rise to descendent primate lineages. We were also able to determine the 3D distribution of amino acid replacements as they accumulated during evolutionary history by crystallizing a mammalian uricase protein. Further, ancient and modern uricases were stably transfected into HepG2 liver cells to test one hypothesis that uricase pseudogenization allowed ancient frugivorous apes to rapidly convert fructose into fat. Finally, pharmacokinetics of an ancient uricase injected in rodents suggest that our integrated approach provides the foundation for an evolutionarily-engineered enzyme capable of treating gout and preventing tumor lysis syndrome in human patients.

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The evolutionary history of the hominin hand since the last common ancestor of Pan and Homo

Journal of Anatomy ◽

10.1111/j.1469-7580.2008.00865.x ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 212 (4) ◽

pp. 544-562 ◽

Cited By ~ 130

Author(s):

Matthew W. Tocheri ◽

Caley M. Orr ◽

Marc C. Jacofsky ◽

Mary W. Marzke

Keyword(s):

Evolutionary History ◽

Common Ancestor ◽

Last Common Ancestor ◽

History Of

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Discovery of sea urchin NGFFFamide receptor unites a bilaterian neuropeptide family

Open Biology ◽

10.1098/rsob.150030 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 150030 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Dean C. Semmens ◽

Isabel Beets ◽

Matthew L. Rowe ◽

Liisa M. Blowes ◽

Paola Oliveri ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sea Urchin ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Common Ancestor ◽

Strongylocentrotus Purpuratus ◽

Disulfide Bridge ◽

The Other ◽

Genes Encoding ◽

History Of ◽

Neuropeptide Evolution ◽

Signalling Systems

Neuropeptides are ancient regulators of physiology and behaviour, but reconstruction of neuropeptide evolution is often difficult owing to lack of sequence conservation. Here, we report that the receptor for the neuropeptide NGFFFamide in the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus (phylum Echinodermata) is an orthologue of vertebrate neuropeptide-S (NPS) receptors and crustacean cardioactive peptide (CCAP) receptors. Importantly, this has facilitated reconstruction of the evolution of two bilaterian neuropeptide signalling systems. Genes encoding the precursor of a vasopressin/oxytocin-type neuropeptide and its receptor duplicated in a common ancestor of the Bilateria. One copy of the precursor retained ancestral features, as seen in highly conserved vasopressin/oxytocin–neurophysin-type precursors. The other copy diverged, but this took different courses in protostomes and deuterostomes. In protostomes, the occurrence of a disulfide bridge in neuropeptide product(s) of the precursor was retained, as in CCAP, but with loss of the neurophysin domain. In deuterostomes, we see the opposite scenario—the neuropeptides lost the disulfide bridge, and neurophysin was retained (as in the NGFFFamide precursor) but was subsequently lost in vertebrate NPS precursors. Thus, the sea urchin NGFFFamide precursor and receptor are ‘missing links’ in the evolutionary history of neuropeptides that control ecdysis in arthropods (CCAP) and regulate anxiety in humans (NPS).

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The Evolutionary History of New Zealand Deschampsia Is Marked by Long-Distance Dispersal, Endemism, and Hybridization

Biology ◽

10.3390/biology10101001 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 1001

Author(s):

Zhiqing Xue ◽

Josef Greimler ◽

Ovidiu Paun ◽

Kerry Ford ◽

Michael H. J. Barfuss ◽

...

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Dna Analysis ◽

Common Ancestor ◽

Plastid Dna ◽

Last Common Ancestor ◽

Long Distance Dispersal ◽

Long Distance ◽

Test Species ◽

History Of

The contrasting evolutionary histories of endemic versus related cosmopolitan species provide avenues to understand the spatial drivers and limitations of biodiversity. Here, we investigated the evolutionary history of three New Zealand endemic Deschampsia species, and how they are related to cosmopolitan D. cespitosa. We used RADseq to test species delimitations, infer a dated species tree, and investigate gene flow patterns between the New Zealand endemics and the D. cespitosa populations of New Zealand, Australia and Korea. Whole plastid DNA analysis was performed on a larger worldwide sampling. Morphometrics of selected characters were applied to New Zealand sampling. Our RADseq review of over 55 Mbp showed the endemics as genetically well-defined from each other. Their last common ancestor with D. cespitosa lived during the last ten MY. The New Zealand D. cespitosa appears in a clade with Australian and Korean samples. Whole plastid DNA analysis revealed the endemics as members of a southern hemisphere clade, excluding the extant D. cespitosa of New Zealand. Both data provided strong evidence for hybridization between D. cespitosa and D. chapmanii. Our findings provide evidence for at least two migration events of the genus Deschampsia to New Zealand and hybridization between D. cespitosa and endemic taxa.

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The Eukaryotic Last Common Ancestor Was Bifunctional for Hopanoid and Sterol Production

10.20944/preprints202004.0186.v2 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Warren Francis

Keyword(s):

Evolutionary History ◽

Common Ancestor ◽

Last Common Ancestor ◽

Metabolic Demand ◽

Anaerobic Conditions ◽

Vertical Inheritance ◽

Single Origin ◽

Key Species ◽

Facultative Aerobe ◽

History Of

Steroid and hopanoid biomarkers can be found in ancient rocks and may give a glimpse of what life was present at that time. Sterols and hopanoids are produced by two related enzymes, though the evolutionary history of this protein family is complicated by losses and horizontal gene transfers, and appears to be widely misinterpretted. Here, I have added sequences from additional key species, and re-analysis of the phylogeny of SHC and OSC indicates a single origin of both enzymes among eukaryotes. This pattern is best explained by vertical inheritance of both enzymes from a bacterial ancestor, followed by widespread loss of SHC, and two subsequent HGT events to ferns and ascomycetes. Thus, the last common ancestor of eukaryotes would have been bifunctional for both sterol and hopanoid production. Later enzymatic innovations allowed diversification of sterols in eukaryotes. Contrary to previous interpretations, the LCA of eukaryotes potentially would have been able to produce hopanoids as a substitute for sterols in anaerobic conditions. Without invoking any other metabolic demand, the LCA of eukaryotes could have been a facultative aerobe, living in unstable conditions with respect to oxygen level.

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The Eukaryotic Last Common Ancestor Was Bifunctional for Hopanoid and Sterol Production

10.20944/preprints202004.0186.v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Warren Francis

Keyword(s):

Evolutionary History ◽

Common Ancestor ◽

Last Common Ancestor ◽

Metabolic Demand ◽

Anaerobic Conditions ◽

Vertical Inheritance ◽

Single Origin ◽

Key Species ◽

Facultative Aerobe ◽

History Of

Steroid and hopanoid biomarkers can be found in ancient rocks and, in principle, can give a glimpse of what life was present at that time. Sterols and hopanoids are produced by two related enzymes, though the evolutionary history of this protein family is complicated by losses and horizontal gene transfers, and appears to be widely misinterpretted. Here, I have added sequences from additional key species, and re-analysis of the phylogeny of SHC and OSC indicates a single origin of both enzymes among eukaryotes. This pattern is best explained by vertical inheritance of both enzymes from a bacterial ancestor, followed by widespread loss of SHC, and two subsequent HGT events to ferns and ascomycetes. Thus, the last common ancestor of eukaryotes would have been bifunctional for both sterol and hopanoid production. Later enzymatic innovations allowed diversification of sterols in eukaryotes. Contrary to previous interpretations, the LCA of eukaryotes potentially would have been able to produce hopanoids as a substitute for sterols in anaerobic conditions. Without invoking any other metabolic demand, the LCA of eukaryotes could have been a facultative aerobe, living in unstable conditions with respect to oxygen level.

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Recombinant transfer in the basic genome ofEscherichia coli

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1510839112 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 112 (29) ◽

pp. 9070-9075 ◽

Cited By ~ 59

Author(s):

Purushottam D. Dixit ◽

Tin Yau Pang ◽

F. William Studier ◽

Sergei Maslov

Keyword(s):

Common Ancestor ◽

Recipient Cell ◽

Gene Clusters ◽

Selective Advantage ◽

Last Common Ancestor ◽

Genome Sequences ◽

Bacterial Genomes ◽

Basic Genome ◽

Single Base Pair ◽

Generalized Transduction

An approximation to the ∼4-Mbp basic genome shared by 32 strains ofEscherichia colirepresenting six evolutionary groups has been derived and analyzed computationally. A multiple alignment of the 32 complete genome sequences was filtered to remove mobile elements and identify the most reliable ∼90% of the aligned length of each of the resulting 496 basic-genome pairs. Patterns of single base-pair mutations (SNPs) in aligned pairs distinguish clonally inherited regions from regions where either genome has acquired DNA fragments from diverged genomes by homologous recombination since their last common ancestor. Such recombinant transfer is pervasive across the basic genome, mostly between genomes in the same evolutionary group, and generates many unique mosaic patterns. The six least-diverged genome pairs have one or two recombinant transfers of length ∼40–115 kbp (and few if any other transfers), each containing one or more gene clusters known to confer strong selective advantage in some environments. Moderately diverged genome pairs (0.4–1% SNPs) show mosaic patterns of interspersed clonal and recombinant regions of varying lengths throughout the basic genome, whereas more highly diverged pairs within an evolutionary group or pairs between evolutionary groups having >1.3% SNPs have few clonal matches longer than a few kilobase pairs. Many recombinant transfers appear to incorporate fragments of the entering DNA produced by restriction systems of the recipient cell. A simple computational model can closely fit the data. Most recombinant transfers seem likely to be due to generalized transduction by coevolving populations of phages, which could efficiently distribute variability throughout bacterial genomes.

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Improved resolution of recalcitrant nodes in the animal phylogeny through the analysis of genome gene content and morphology

10.1101/2021.11.19.469253 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ksenia Juravel ◽

Luis Porras ◽

Sebastian Hoehna ◽

Davide Pisani ◽

Gert Wörheide

Keyword(s):

Common Ancestor ◽

Sister Group ◽

The Other ◽

Gene Content ◽

Statistical Hypothesis ◽

Phylogenetic Position ◽

Last Common Ancestor ◽

Statistical Hypothesis Testing ◽

Animal Phylogeny ◽

Phylogenetic Hypotheses

An accurate phylogeny of animals is needed to clarify their evolution, ecology, and impact on shaping the biosphere. Although multi-gene alignments of up to several hundred thousand amino acids are nowadays routinely used to test hypotheses of animal relationships, some nodes towards the root of the animal phylogeny are proving hard to resolve. While the relationships of the non-bilaterian lineages, primarily sponges (Porifera) and comb jellies (Ctenophora), have received much attention since more than a decade, controversies about the phylogenetic position of the worm-like bilaterian lineage Xenacoelomorpha and the monophyly of the "Superphylum" Deuterostomia have more recently emerged. Here we independently analyse novel genome gene content and morphological datasets to assess patterns of phylogenetic congruence with previous amino-acid derived phylogenetic hypotheses. Using statistical hypothesis testing, we show that both our datasets very strongly support sponges as the sister group of all the other animals, Xenoacoelomorpha as the sister group of the other Bilateria, and largely support monophyletic Deuterostomia. Based on these results, we conclude that the last common animal ancestor may have been a simple, filter-feeding organism without a nervous system and muscles, while the last common ancestor of Bilateria might have been a small, acoelomate-like worm without a through gut.

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Natural history of ABC systems: not only transporters

Essays in Biochemistry ◽

10.1042/bse0500019 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 50 ◽

pp. 19-42 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Elie Dassa

Keyword(s):

Common Ancestor ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Last Common Ancestor ◽

Abc Proteins ◽

Hypothetical Scenario ◽

History Of ◽

Phylogenetic Perspective ◽

Living Organisms

In recent years, our understanding of the functioning of ABC (ATP-binding cassette) systems has been boosted by the combination of biochemical and structural approaches. However, the origin and the distribution of ABC proteins among living organisms are difficult to understand in a phylogenetic perspective, because it is hard to discriminate orthology and paralogy, due to the existence of horizontal gene transfer. In this chapter, I present an update of the classification of ABC systems and discuss a hypothetical scenario of their evolution. The hypothetical presence of ABC ATPases in the last common ancestor of modern organisms is discussed, as well as the additional possibility that ABC systems might have been transmitted to eukaryotes, after the two endosymbiosis events that led to the constitution of eukaryotic organelles. I update the functional information of selected ABC systems and introduce new families of ABC proteins that have been included recently into this vast superfamily, thanks to the availability of high-resolution three-dimensional structures.

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Evolutionary history of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) demethylation enzyme DmdA in marine bacteria

10.1101/766360 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Laura Hernández ◽

Alberto Vicens ◽

Luis Enrique Eguiarte ◽

Valeria Souza ◽

Valerie De Anda ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Gene Family ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Common Ancestor ◽

Functional Divergence ◽

Gene Families ◽

Recent Common Ancestor ◽

Common Ancestry ◽

Demethylation Pathway ◽

History Of ◽

New Gene

ABSTRACTDimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), an osmolyte produced by oceanic phytoplankton, is predominantly degraded by bacteria belonging to the Roseobacter lineage and other marine Alphaproteobacteria via DMSP-dependent demethylase A protein (DmdA). To date, the evolutionary history of DmdA gene family is unclear. Some studies indicate a common ancestry between DmdA and GcvT gene families and a co-evolution between Roseobacter and the DMSP-producing-phytoplankton around 250 million years ago (Mya). In this work, we analyzed the evolution of DmdA under three possible evolutionary scenarios: 1) a recent common ancestor of DmdA and GcvT, 2) a coevolution between Roseobacter and the DMSP-producing-phytoplankton, and 3) pre-adapted enzymes to DMSP prior to Roseobacter origin. Our analyses indicate that DmdA is a new gene family originated from GcvT genes by duplication and functional divergence driven by positive selection before a coevolution between Roseobacter and phytoplankton. Our data suggest that Roseobacter acquired dmdA by horizontal gene transfer prior to exposition to an environment with higher DMSP. Here, we propose that the ancestor that carried the DMSP demethylation pathway genes evolved in the Archean, and was exposed to a higher concentration of DMSP in a sulfur rich atmosphere and anoxic ocean, compared to recent Roseobacter ecoparalogs (copies performing the same function under different conditions), which should be adapted to lower concentrations of DMSP.

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