| 1. |
- Cavender, James C., et al.
(författare)
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New dictyostelid cellular slime molds from South Africa
- 2018
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Ingår i: Phytotaxa. - : MAGNOLIA PRESS. - 1179-3155 .- 1179-3163. ; 383:3, s. 233-251
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A distributional study of the dictyostelid cellular slime molds (dictyostelids) of South Africa was carried out during 2006 as part of the Global Biodiversity of Eumycetozoans project based at the University of Arkansas and funded by the National Science Foundation Samples of soil/humus collected from 31 study sites yielded a total of 881 clones, with an average density of 210 clones/gram for all samples in which dictyostelids were detected. Eighteen different species were represented by one or more clones, and six of these could not be identified. These six species are described herein as new to science. In addition, information is provided on the ecological distribution of all of the species of dictyostelids now known to occur in South Africa.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Perrigo, Allison L., et al.
(författare)
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What's on your boots : an investigation into the role we play in protist dispersal
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Biogeography. - : Wiley. - 0305-0270 .- 1365-2699. ; 39:5, s. 998-1003
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- D. M. Wilkinson (2010, Journal of Biogeography, 37, 393–397) suggested that anthropogenic dispersal is an understudied and potentially important factor in terrestrial protist biogeography. We investigated human footwear as a potential vector of dictyostelids, a diverse group of amoebae that includes both geographically restricted and cosmopolitan species. Eighteen pairs of boots were examined and dictyostelids were isolated from nearly all samples larger than 5.0 g. In total, six dictyostelid isolates were recovered, corresponding to four species –Dictyostelium minutum, D. sphaerocephalum, D. leptosomopsis and a new species, Polysphondylium sp. 1. Myxogastrid amoebae and acrasid-like aggregations were also observed. Thus anthropogenic dispersal of naked amoebae appears to occur. The possible role of variations in dictyostelid fruiting body morphologies in dispersal potential is also discussed. These results support Wilkinson’s proposal and suggest that dictyostelids may be a useful group with which to study anthropogenic dispersal of terrestrial protists.
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| 5. |
- Romeralo, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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An expanded phylogeny of social amoebas (Dictyostelia) shows increasing diversity and new morphological patterns
- 2011
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Ingår i: BMC Evolutionary Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2148. ; 11, s. 84-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Social Amoebae or Dictyostelia are eukaryotic microbes with a unique life cycle consisting of both uni- and multicellular stages. They have long fascinated molecular, developmental and evolutionary biologists, and Dictyostelium discoideum is now one of the most widely studied eukaryotic microbial models. The first molecular phylogeny of Dictyostelia included most of the species known at the time and suggested an extremely deep taxon with a molecular depth roughly equivalent to Metazoa. The group was also shown to consist of four major clades, none of which correspond to traditional genera. Potential morphological justification was identified for three of the four major groups, on the basis of which tentative names were assigned. Results: Over the past four years, the Mycetozoan Global Biodiversity Survey has identified many new isolates that appear to be new species of Dictyostelia, along with numerous isolates of previously described species. We have determined 18S ribosomal RNA gene sequences for all of these new isolates. Phylogenetic analyses of these data show at least 50 new species, and these arise from throughout the dictyostelid tree breaking up many previously isolated long branches. The resulting tree now shows eight well-supported major groups instead of the original four. The new species also expand the known morphological diversity of the previously established four major groups, violating nearly all previously suggested deep morphological patterns. Conclusions: A greatly expanded phylogeny of Dictyostelia now shows even greater morphological plasticity at deep taxonomic levels. In fact, there now seem to be no obvious deep evolutionary trends across the group. However at a finer level, patterns in morphological character evolution are beginning to emerge. These results also suggest that there is a far greater diversity of Dictyostelia yet to be discovered, including novel morphologies.
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| 6. |
- Sheikh, Sanea, et al.
(författare)
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A New Classification of the Dictyostelids
- 2018
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Ingår i: Protist. - : Elsevier BV. - 1434-4610 .- 1618-0941. ; 169:1, s. 1-28
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Traditional morphology-based taxonomy of dictyostelids is rejected by molecular phylogeny. A new classification is presented based on monophyletic entities with consistent and strong molecular phylogenetic support and that are, as far as possible, morphologically recognizable. All newly named clades are diagnosed with small subunit ribosomal RNA (18S rRNA) sequence signatures plus morphological synapomorphies where possible. The two major molecular clades are given the rank of order, as Acytosteliales ord. nov. and Dictyosteliales. The two major clades within each of these orders are recognized and given the rank of family as, respectively, Acytosteliaceae and Cavenderiaceae fam. nov. in Acytosteliales, and Dictyosteliaceae and Raperosteliaceae fam. nov. in Dictyosteliales. Twelve genera are recognized: Cavenderia gen. nov. in Cavenderiaceae, Acytostelium, Rostrostelium gen. nov. and Heterostelium gen. nov. in Acytosteliaceae, Tieghemostelium gen. nov., Hagiwaraea gen. nov., Raperostelium gen. nov. and Speleostelium gen. nov. in Raperosteliaceae, and Dictyostelium and Polysphondylium in Dictyosteliaceae. The “polycephalum” complex is treated as Coremiostelium gen. nov. (not assigned to family) and the “polycarpum” complex as Synstelium gen. nov. (not assigned to order and family). Coenonia, which may not be a dictyostelid, is treated as a genus incertae sedis. Eighty-eight new combinations are made at species and variety level, and Dictyostelium ammophilum is validated.
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| 7. |
- Zhao, Weizhou
(författare)
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Evolution of streamlined genomes in ultra-small aquatic bacteria
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates the evolutionary processes of streamlined genomes from aquatic bacteria adapting to different salinities, using two groups of ultra-small aquatic bacteria (LD12 Alphaproteobacteria and acI Actinobacteria). Due to difficulties in obtaining pure cultures of these bacteria, culture-free approaches (single-cell genomics and metagenomics) were used to construct and compare genomes, and to study the mechanisms and selective forces of adaptation to freshwater, brackish, and marine ecosystems.A study of single-cell amplified genomes (SAGs) from freshwater LD12 Alphaproteobacteria revealed that LD12 forms a clade embedded within the globally dominant marine Alphaproteobacteria SAR11, and subclades were organized into distinct microclusters. LD12 genomes had a very low ratio of recombination to point mutations, in contrast to their marine relatives which had a very high ratio of recombination to mutation. We suggested that the transition from marine to freshwater was a bottleneck event, resulting in reduced opportunities for recombination.In a separate study, we analyzed complete genomes and SAGs from acI Actinobacteria abundant in freshwater ecosystems, and found overall low rates of sequence divergence with however a dramatic acceleration near genomic island 1 (GI-1). We also identified a type IV topoisomerase, the delta subunit of DNA polymerase, and an RNA polymerase sigma factor near GI-1. Based on these results, we proposed a model for the evolution and expression of novel genes in these genomes.We also isolated and analyzed the genomes of single cells from a marine Actinobacteria (subclass Candidatus Actinomarinidae). These were not related to acI, but to Acidimicrobiia, which suggested salinity barriers have been crossed several times by Actinobacteria.To further understand the transition to different salinities, we obtained acI SAGs from three different intermediate-salinity Baltic Sea locations. We took sequence reads from 21 metagenomes taken along the salinity gradient, and recruited these fragments to both the freshwater and brackish acI reference genomes. These results indicated that transitions between fresh and brackish waters have occurred multiple times in acI Actinobacteria and some of these strains are globally present in coastal waters.
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| 8. |
- Ajawatanawong, Pravech, et al.
(författare)
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Evolution of protein indels in plants, animals and fungi
- 2013
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Ingår i: BMC Evolutionary Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2148. ; 13, s. 140-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Insertions/deletions (indels) in protein sequences are useful as drug targets, protein structure predictors, species diagnostics and evolutionary markers. However there is limited understanding of indel evolutionary patterns. We sought to characterize indel patterns focusing first on the major groups of multicellular eukaryotes. Results: Comparisons of complete proteomes from a taxonically broad set of primarily Metazoa, Fungi and Viridiplantae yielded 299 substantial (>250aa) universal, single-copy (in-paralog only) proteins, from which 901 simple (present/absent) and 3,806 complex (multistate) indels were extracted. Simple indels are mostly small (1-7aa) with a most frequent size class of 1aa. However, even these simple looking indels show a surprisingly high level of hidden homoplasy (multiple independent origins). Among the apparently homoplasy-free simple indels, we identify 69 potential clade-defining indels (CDIs) that may warrant closer examination. CDIs show a very uneven taxonomic distribution among Viridiplante (13 CDIs), Fungi (40 CDIs), and Metazoa (0 CDIs). An examination of singleton indels shows an excess of insertions over deletions in nearly all examined taxa. This excess averages 2.31 overall, with a maximum observed value of 7.5 fold. Conclusions: We find considerable potential for identifying taxon-marker indels using an automated pipeline. However, it appears that simple indels in universal proteins are too rare and homoplasy-rich to be used for pure indel-based phylogeny. The excess of insertions over deletions seen in nearly every genome and major group examined maybe useful in defining more realistic gap penalties for sequence alignment. This bias also suggests that insertions in highly conserved proteins experience less purifying selection than do deletions.
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| 9. |
- Ajawatanawong, Pravech, et al.
(författare)
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SeqFIRE : a web application for automated extraction of indel regions and conserved blocks from protein multiple sequence alignments
- 2012
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Ingår i: Nucleic Acids Research. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0305-1048 .- 1362-4962. ; 40:W1, s. W340-W347
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Analyses of multiple sequence alignments generally focus on well-defined conserved sequence blocks, while the rest of the alignment is largely ignored or discarded. This is especially true in phylogenomics, where large multigene datasets are produced through automated pipelines. However, some of the most powerful phylogenetic markers have been found in the variable length regions of multiple alignments, particularly insertions/deletions (indels) in protein sequences. We have developed Sequence Feature and Indel Region Extractor (SeqFIRE) to enable the automated identification and extraction of indels from protein sequence alignments. The program can also extract conserved blocks and identify fast evolving sites using a combination of conservation and entropy. All major variables can be adjusted by the user, allowing them to identify the sets of variables most suited to a particular analysis or dataset. Thus, all major tasks in preparing an alignment for further analysis are combined in a single flexible and user-friendly program. The output includes a numbered list of indels, alignments in NEXUS format with indels annotated or removed and indel-only matrices. SeqFIRE is a user-friendly web application, freely available online at www.seqfire.org/.
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| 10. |
- Al Jewari, Caesar, et al.
(författare)
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An excavate root for the eukaryote tree of life
- 2023
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Ingår i: Science Advances. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 2375-2548. ; 9:17
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Much of the higher-order phylogeny of eukaryotes is well resolved, but the root remains elusive. We assembled a dataset of 183 eukaryotic proteins of archaeal ancestry to test this root. The resulting phylogeny identifies four lineages of eukaryotes currently classified as “Excavata” branching separately at the base of the tree. Thus, Parabasalia appear as the first major branch of eukaryotes followed sequentially by Fornicata, Preaxostyla, and Discoba. All four excavate branch points receive full statistical support from analyses with commonly used evolutionary models, a protein structure partition model that we introduce here, and various controls for deep phylogeny artifacts. The absence of aerobic mitochondria in Parabasalia, Fornicata, and Preaxostyla suggests that modern eukaryotes arose under anoxic conditions, probably much earlier than expected, and without the benefit of mitochondrial respiration.
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