| 1. |
- Jarvis, Erich D., et al.
(författare)
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Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds
- 2014
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Ingår i: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 346:6215, s. 1320-1331
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To better determine the history of modern birds, we performed a genome-scale phylogenetic analysis of 48 species representing all orders of Neoaves using phylogenomic methods created to handle genome-scale data. We recovered a highly resolved tree that confirms previously controversial sister or close relationships. We identified the first divergence in Neoaves, two groups we named Passerea and Columbea, representing independent lineages of diverse and convergently evolved land and water bird species. Among Passerea, we infer the common ancestor of core landbirds to have been an apex predator and confirm independent gains of vocal learning. Among Columbea, we identify pigeons and flamingoes as belonging to sister clades. Even with whole genomes, some of the earliest branches in Neoaves proved challenging to resolve, which was best explained by massive protein-coding sequence convergence and high levels of incomplete lineage sorting that occurred during a rapid radiation after the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event about 66 million years ago.
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| 2. |
- Figuet, Emeric, et al.
(författare)
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Life History Traits, Protein Evolution, and the Nearly Neutral Theory in Amniotes
- 2016
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 33:6, s. 1517-1527
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The nearly neutral theory of molecular evolution predicts that small populations should accumulate deleterious mutations at a faster rate than large populations. The analysis of nonsynonymous (dN) versus synonymous (dS) substitution rates in birds versus mammals, however, has provided contradictory results, questioning the generality of the nearly neutral theory. Here we analyzed the impact of life history traits, taken as proxies of the effective population size, on molecular evolutionary and population genetic processes in amniotes, including the so far neglected reptiles. We report a strong effect of species body mass, longevity, and age of sexual maturity on genome-wide patterns of polymorphism and divergence across the major groups of amniotes, in agreement with the nearly neutral theory. Our results indicate that the rate of protein evolution in amniotes is determined in the first place by the efficiency of purifying selection against deleterious mutations-and this is true of both radical and conservative amino acid changes. Interestingly, the among-species distribution of dN/dS in birds did not follow this general trend: dN/dS was not higher in large, long-lived than in small, short-lived species of birds. We show that this unexpected pattern is not due to a more narrow range of life history traits, a lack of correlation between traits and Ne, or a peculiar distribution of fitness effects of mutations in birds. Our analysis therefore highlights the bird dN/dS ratio as a molecular evolutionary paradox and a challenge for future research.
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| 3. |
- Galtier, N., et al.
(författare)
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Mitochondrial DNA as a marker of molecular diversity : a reappraisal
- 2009
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Ingår i: Molecular Ecology. - 0962-1083 .- 1365-294X. ; 18:22, s. 4541-4550
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Over the last three decades, mitochondrial DNA has been the most popular marker of molecular diversity, for a combination of technical ease-of-use considerations, and supposed biological and evolutionary properties of clonality, near-neutrality and clock-like nature of its substitution rate. Reviewing recent literature on the subject, we argue that mitochondrial DNA is not always clonal, far from neutrally evolving and certainly not clock-like, questioning its relevance as a witness of recent species and population history. We critically evaluate the usage of mitochondrial DNA for species delineation and identification. Finally, we note the great potential of accumulating mtDNA data for evolutionary and functional analysis of the mitochondrial genome.
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| 4. |
- Künstner, Axel, et al.
(författare)
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Evolutionary Constraint in Flanking Regions of Avian Genes
- 2011
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 28:9, s. 2481-2489
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An important comprehension from comparative genomic analysis is that sequence conservation beyond neutral expectations is frequently found outside protein-coding regions, indicating important functional roles of noncoding DNA. Understanding the causes of constraint on noncoding sequence evolution forms an important area of research, not least in light of the importance for understanding the evolution of gene expression. We aligned all orthologous genes of chicken and zebra finch together with 5 kb of their upstream and downstream noncoding sequences, to study the evolution of gene flanking sequences in the avian genome. Using ancestral repeats as a neutral reference, we detected significant evolutionary constraint in the 3' flanking region, highest directly after termination (60%) and then gradually decreasing to about 20% 5 kb downstream. Constraint was higher in annotated 3' untranslated regions (UTRs) than in non-UTRs at the same distance from the stop codon and higher in sequences annotated as microRNA (miRNA)-binding sites than in non-miRNA-binding sites within 3' UTRs. Constraint was also higher when estimated for a smaller data set of genes from more closely related songbird species, indicating turnover of functional elements during avian evolution. On the 5' flanking side constraint was readily seen within the first 125 bp immediately upstream of the start codon (34%) and was about 10% for remaining sequence within 5 kb upstream. Analysis of chicken polymorphism data gave further support for the highest constraint directly before and after the translated region. Finally, we found that genes evolving under the highest constraint measured by d(N)/d(S) also had the highest level of constraint in the 3' flanking region. This study broadens the insights into gene flanking sequence evolution by adding new findings from a vertebrate lineage other than mammals.
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| 5. |
- Nabholz, Benoit, et al.
(författare)
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Obtaining mtDNA genomes from next-generation transcriptome sequencing : A case study on the basal Passerida (Aves: Passeriformes) phylogeny
- 2010
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Ingår i: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. - : Elsevier BV. - 1055-7903 .- 1095-9513. ; 57:1, s. 466-470
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Classically, the mitochondrial genome is sequenced by a series of amplicons using conserved PCR primers. Here we show how shot-gun transcriptome sequencing can be used to obtain the complete set of protein-coding genes from the mtDNA of four passerine bird species. With these sequences, we address the still unresolved basal Passerida relationships (Ayes: Passeriformes). Our analysis suggests a new hypothesis for the basal relationships of Passerida, namely a clade grouping Sylvioidea and Passeroidea, with Paridae and Muscicapidae as successive sister groups to this clade. This study demonstrates the usefulness of next-generation sequencing transcriptome sequencing for obtaining new mtDNA genomes.
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| 6. |
- Warren, Wesley C, et al.
(författare)
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The genome of a songbird
- 2010
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 464:7289, s. 757-762
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The zebra finch is an important model organism in several fields with unique relevance to human neuroscience. Like other songbirds, the zebra finch communicates through learned vocalizations, an ability otherwise documented only in humans and a few other animals and lacking in the chicken-the only bird with a sequenced genome until now. Here we present a structural, functional and comparative analysis of the genome sequence of the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata), which is a songbird belonging to the large avian order Passeriformes. We find that the overall structures of the genomes are similar in zebra finch and chicken, but they differ in many intrachromosomal rearrangements, lineage-specific gene family expansions, the number of long-terminal-repeat-based retrotransposons, and mechanisms of sex chromosome dosage compensation. We show that song behaviour engages gene regulatory networks in the zebra finch brain, altering the expression of long non-coding RNAs, microRNAs, transcription factors and their targets. We also show evidence for rapid molecular evolution in the songbird lineage of genes that are regulated during song experience. These results indicate an active involvement of the genome in neural processes underlying vocal communication and identify potential genetic substrates for the evolution and regulation of this behaviour.
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| 7. |
- Clement, Yves, et al.
(författare)
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Evolutionary forces affecting synonymous variations in plant genomes
- 2017
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Ingår i: PLOS Genetics. - : PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE. - 1553-7390 .- 1553-7404. ; 13:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Base composition is highly variable among and within plant genomes, especially at third codon positions, ranging from GC-poor and homogeneous species to GC-rich and highly heterogeneous ones (particularly Monocots). Consequently, synonymous codon usage is biased in most species, even when base composition is relatively homogeneous. The causes of these variations are still under debate, with three main forces being possibly involved: mutational bias, selection and GC-biased gene conversion (gBGC). So far, both selection and gBGC have been detected in some species but how their relative strength varies among and within species remains unclear. Population genetics approaches allow to jointly estimating the intensity of selection, gBGC and mutational bias. We extended a recently developed method and applied it to a large population genomic dataset based on transcriptome sequencing of 11 angiosperm species spread across the phylogeny. We found that at synonymous positions, base composition is far from mutation-drift equilibrium in most genomes and that gBGC is a widespread and stronger process than selection. gBGC could strongly contribute to base composition variation among plant species, implying that it should be taken into account in plant genome analyses, especially for GC-rich ones.
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| 8. |
- Jarvis, Erich D., et al.
(författare)
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Phylogenomic analyses data of the avian phylogenomics project
- 2015
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Ingår i: GigaScience. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 2047-217X. ; 4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Determining the evolutionary relationships among the major lineages of extant birds has been one of the biggest challenges in systematic biology. To address this challenge, we assembled or collected the genomes of 48 avian species spanning most orders of birds, including all Neognathae and two of the five Palaeognathae orders. We used these genomes to construct a genome-scale avian phylogenetic tree and perform comparative genomic analyses. Findings: Here we present the datasets associated with the phylogenomic analyses, which include sequence alignment files consisting of nucleotides, amino acids, indels, and transposable elements, as well as tree files containing gene trees and species trees. Inferring an accurate phylogeny required generating: 1) A well annotated data set across species based on genome synteny; 2) Alignments with unaligned or incorrectly overaligned sequences filtered out; and 3) Diverse data sets, including genes and their inferred trees, indels, and transposable elements. Our total evidence nucleotide tree (TENT) data set (consisting of exons, introns, and UCEs) gave what we consider our most reliable species tree when using the concatenation-based ExaML algorithm or when using statistical binning with the coalescence-based MP-EST algorithm (which we refer to as MP-EST*). Other data sets, such as the coding sequence of some exons, revealed other properties of genome evolution, namely convergence. Conclusions: The Avian Phylogenomics Project is the largest vertebrate phylogenomics project to date that we are aware of. The sequence, alignment, and tree data are expected to accelerate analyses in phylogenomics and other related areas.
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| 9. |
- Künstner, Axel, et al.
(författare)
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Significant Selective Constraint at 4-Fold Degenerate Sites in the Avian Genome and Its Consequence for Detection of Positive Selection
- 2011
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Ingår i: Genome Biology and Evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1759-6653. ; 3, s. 1381-1389
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A major conclusion from comparative genomics is that many sequences that do not code for proteins are conserved beyond neutral expectations, indicating that they evolve under the influence of purifying selection and are likely to have functional roles. Due to the degeneracy of the genetic code, synonymous sites within protein-coding genes have previously been seen as "silent" with respect to function and thereby invisible to selection. However, there are indications that synonymous sites of vertebrate genomes are also subject to selection and this is not necessarily because of potential codon bias. We used divergence in ancestral repeats as a neutral reference to estimate the constraint on 4-fold degenerate sites of avian genes in a whole-genome approach. In the pairwise comparison of chicken and zebra finch, constraint was estimated at 24-32%. Based on three-species alignments of chicken, turkey, and zebra finch, lineage-specific estimates of constraint were 43%, 29%, and 24%, respectively. The finding of significant constraint at 4-fold degenerate sites from data on interspecific divergence was replicated in an analysis of intraspecific diversity in the chicken genome. These observations corroborate recent data from mammalian genomes and call for a reappraisal of the use of synonymous substitution rates as neutral standards in molecular evolutionary analysis, for example, in the use of the well-known d(N)/d(S) ratio and in inferences on positive selection. We show by simulations that the rate of false positives in the detection of positively selected genes and sites increases several-fold at the levels of constraint at 4-fold degenerate sites found in this study.
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| 10. |
- Nam, Kiwoong, et al.
(författare)
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Molecular evolution of genes in avian genomes
- 2010
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Ingår i: Genome Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1474-760X .- 1465-6906. ; 11:6, s. R68-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Obtaining a draft genome sequence of the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata), the second bird genome to be sequenced, provides the necessary resource for whole-genome comparative analysis of gene sequence evolution in a non-mammalian vertebrate lineage. To analyze basic molecular evolutionary processes during avian evolution, and to contrast these with the situation in mammals, we aligned the protein-coding sequences of 8,384 1: 1 orthologs of chicken, zebra finch, a lizard and three mammalian species. Results: We found clear differences in the substitution rate at fourfold degenerate sites, being lowest in the ancestral bird lineage, intermediate in the chicken lineage and highest in the zebra finch lineage, possibly reflecting differences in generation time. We identified positively selected and/or rapidly evolving genes in avian lineages and found an over-representation of several functional classes, including anion transporter activity, calcium ion binding, cell adhesion and microtubule cytoskeleton. Conclusions: Focusing specifically on genes of neurological interest and genes differentially expressed in the unique vocal control nuclei of the songbird brain, we find a number of positively selected genes, including synaptic receptors. We found no evidence that selection for beneficial alleles is more efficient in regions of high recombination; in fact, there was a weak yet significant negative correlation between omega and recombination rate, which is in the direction predicted by the Hill-Robertson effect if slightly deleterious mutations contribute to protein evolution. These findings set the stage for studies of functional genetics of avian genes.
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