| 1. |
- Ajawatanawong, Pravech, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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An automatable method for high throughput analysis of evolutionary patterns in slightly complex indels and its application to the deep phylogeny of Metazoa
- 2014
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Insertions/deletions (indels) in protein sequences are potential powerful evolutionary markers. However, these characters have rarely been explored systematically at deep phylogenetic levels. Previous analyses of simple (2-state) clade defining indels (CDIs) in universal eukaryotic proteins found none to support any major animal clade. We hypothesized that CDIs might still be found in the remaining population of indels, which we term complex indels. Here, we propose a method for analyzing the simplest class of complex indels the “slightly complex indels”, and use these to investigate deep branches in animal phylogeny. Complex indels with two states, called bi-state indels, show similar evolutionary patterns to singleton simple indels and confirms that insertion mutations are more common than deletions. Exploration of CDIs in 2- to 9-state complex indels shows strong support for all examined branches of fungi and Archaeplastida. Surprisingly, we also found CDIs supporting major branches in animals, particular in vertebrates. We then expanded the search to non-bilaterial animals (Porifera, Cnidaria and Ctenophora). The phylogenetic tree reconstructed by CDIs places the Ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi as the deepest branch of animals with 6 CDIs support. Trichoplax adhaerens is closely related to the Bilateria. Moreover, the indel phylogeny shows Nematostella vectensis and Hydra magnipapillata are paraphyletic group and position of Cnidarian branches seems to be problematic in the indel phylogeny because of homoplasy. This might be solved if we discover CDIs from animal specific proteins, which emerged after the universal orthologous proteins.Evolutionary Patterns in Slightly Complex Protein Insertions/Deletions (Indels) and Their Application to the Study of Deep Phylogeny in Metazoa
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| 2. |
- 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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| 3. |
- Ajawatanawong, Pravech, 1974-
(författare)
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Mine the Gaps : Evolution of Eukaryotic Protein Indels and their Application for Testing Deep Phylogeny
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Insertions/deletions (indels) are potentially powerful evolutionary markers, but little is known about their evolution and few tools exist to effectively study them. To address this, I developed SeqFIRE, a tool for automated identification and extraction of indels from protein multiple sequence alignments. The program also extracts conserved alignment blocks, thus covering all major steps in preparing multiple sequence alignments for phylogenetic analysis.I then used SeqFIRE to build an indel database, using 299 single copy proteins from a broad taxonomic sampling of mainly multicellular eukaryotes. A total of 4,707 indels were extracted, of which 901 are simple (one genetic event) and 3,806 are complex (multiple events). The most abundant indels are single amino acid simple indels. Indel frequency decreases exponentially with length and shows a linear relationship with host protein size. Singleton indels reveal a strong bias towards insertions (2.31 x deletions on average). These analyses also identify 43 indels marking major clades in Plantae and Fungi (clade defining indels or CDIs), but none for Metazoa.In order to study the 3806 complex indels they were first classified by number of states. Analysis of the 2-state complex and simple indels combined (“bi-state indels”) confirms that insertions are over 2.5 times as frequent as deletions. Three-quarters of the complex indels had three-nine states (“slightly complex indels”). A tree-assisted search method was developed allowing me to identify 1,010 potential CDIs supporting all examined major branches of Plantae and Fungi.Forty-two proteins were also found to host complex indel CDIs for the deepest branches of Metazoa. After expanding the taxon set for these proteins, I identified a total of 49 non-bilaterian specific CDIs. Parsimony analysis of these indels places Ctenophora as sister taxon to all other Metazoa including Porifera. Six CDIs were also found placing Placozoa as sister to Bilateria. I conclude that slightly complex indels are a rich source of CDIs, and my tree-assisted search strategy could be automated and implemented in the program SeqFIRE to facilitate their discovery. This will have important implications for mining the phylogenomic content of the vast resource of protist genome data soon to become available.
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| 4. |
- 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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| 5. |
- 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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| 6. |
- Al Jewari, Caesar, et al.
(författare)
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Conflict over the Eukaryote Root Resides in Strong Outliers, Mosaics and Missing Data Sensitivity of Site-Specific (CAT) Mixture Models
- 2022
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Ingår i: Systematic Biology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1063-5157 .- 1076-836X.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Phylogenetic reconstruction using concatenated loci ("phylogenomics" or "supermatrix phylogeny") is a powerful tool for solving evolutionary splits that are poorly resolved in single gene/protein trees. However, recent phylogenomic attempts to resolve the eukaryote root have yielded conflicting results, along with claims of various artifacts hidden in the data. We have investigated these conflicts using two new methods for assessing phylogenetic conflict. ConJak uses whole marker (gene or protein) jackknifing to assess deviation from a central mean for each individual sequence, whereas ConWin uses a sliding window to screen for incongruent protein fragments (mosaics). Both methods allow selective masking of individual sequences or sequence fragments in order to minimize missing data, an important consideration for resolving deep splits with limited data. Analyses focused on a set of 76 eukaryotic proteins of bacterial ancestry previously used in various combinations to assess the branching order among the three major divisions of eukaryotes: Amorphea (mainly animals, fungi, and Amoebozoa), Diaphoretickes (most other well-known eukaryotes and nearly all algae) and Excavata, represented here by Discoba (Jakobida, Heterolobosea, and Euglenozoa). ConJak analyses found strong outliers to be concentrated in undersampled lineages, whereas ConWin analyses of Discoba, the most undersampled of the major lineages, detected potentially incongruent fragments scattered throughout. Phylogenetic analyses of the full data using an LG-gamma model support a Discoba sister scenario (neozoan-excavate root), which rises to 99-100% bootstrap support with data masked according to either protocol. However, analyses with two site-specific (CAT) mixture models yielded widely inconsistent results and a striking sensitivity to missing data. The neozoan-excavate root places Amorphea and Diaphoretickes as more closely related to each other than either is to Discoba, a fundamental relationship that should remain unaffected by additional taxa.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Al Jewari, Caesar
(författare)
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Resolving deep nodes of eukaryote phylogeny
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- My thesis aims to solve deep nodes in the eukaryote tree of life (eToL), by developing new data sets and new approaches to analysing them. In paper I, I described a dataset of 76 universal eukaryotic proteins of bacterial descent (euBacs), in order to test the relations among the three main divisions of mitochondriate eukaryotes (Amorphea, Diaphretickes and Discoba). I developed two protocols to identify problematic data. The conJac protocol analyzes data by jackknifing to detect outlier sequences, while conWin uses a sliding window to find sequence fragments of potentially foreign origin. Phylogenetic analyses of the 76 euBacs, with and without conWin or conJac filtering place Discoba as the sister group to Amorphea and Diaphretickes. The results are largely consistent and highly supported under various evolutionary models except for highly complex CAT models. In paper II, I describe a dataset of 198 universal eukaryote proteins of archaeal ancestry (euArcs), which includes the remaining eukaryotes, informally referred to as amitochondriate excavate. These were excluded from the previous study because they lack euBacs. Phylogenetic analyses of the euArc dataset place the amitochondriate excavate as the first three branches of eToL, followed by Discoba, the only mitochondriate excavates, which appear as a sister group to the remaining eukaryotes. I also developed a protocol using predicted protein structures to increase the fitness of the model without inflating the parameter space, allowing me to conduct a series of control analyses and further support the multi-excavate root. In Paper III, I describe a new application of reciprocal-rooting using concatenated sequences, which I then use to test the euArc root. I also developed two sampling protocols unique to this kind of data. The protocols confirm the multi-excavate euArc root, which indicates that eukaryotes arose from an excavate ancestor. Paper IV describes a follow-up on the ConWin results from Paper I. These show moderate to strong support for mosaicism in 16 euBac proteins from diverse metabolic pathways and donor lineages. In summary, this thesis presents a novel root for the eukaryote tree of life. The new root requires revision of fundamental theories of eukaryote evolution including the source and timing of mitochondrial origins. The methods I have developed are applicable to many different kinds of phylogenetic studies, and the new protein structure model should make these analyses faster, more flexible, and more widely available.
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| 9. |
- Atkinson, Gemma C., et al.
(författare)
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Evolution of nonstop, no-go and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay and their termination factor-derived components
- 2008
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Ingår i: BMC Evolutionary Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2148. ; 8, s. 290-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Members of the eukaryote/archaea specific eRF1 and eRF3 protein families have central roles in translation termination. They are also central to various mRNA surveillance mechanisms, together with the eRF1 paralogue Dom34p and the eRF3 paralogues Hbs1p and Ski7p. We have examined the evolution of eRF1 and eRF3 families using sequence similarity searching, multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis. Results: Extensive BLAST searches confirm that Hbs1p and eRF3 are limited to eukaryotes, while Dom34p and eRF1 (a/eRF1) are universal in eukaryotes and archaea. Ski7p appears to be restricted to a subset of Saccharomyces species. Alignments show that Dom34p does not possess the characteristic class-1 RF minidomains GGQ, NIKS and YXCXXXF, in line with recent crystallographic analysis of Dom34p. Phylogenetic trees of the protein families allow us to reconstruct the evolution of mRNA surveillance mechanisms mediated by these proteins in eukaryotes and archaea. Conclusion: We propose that the last common ancestor of eukaryotes and archaea possessed Dom34p-mediated no-go decay (NGD). This ancestral Dom34p may or may not have required a trGTPase, mostly like a/eEF1A, for its delivery to the ribosome. At an early stage in eukaryotic evolution, eEF1A was duplicated, giving rise to eRF3, which was recruited for translation termination, interacting with eRF1. eRF3 evolved nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) activity either before or after it was again duplicated, giving rise to Hbs1p, which we propose was recruited to assist eDom34p in eukaryotic NGD. Finally, a third duplication within ascomycete yeast gave rise to Ski7p, which may have become specialised for a subset of existing Hbs1p functions in non-stop decay (NSD). We suggest Ski7p-mediated NSD may be a specialised mechanism for counteracting the effects of increased stop codon read-through caused by prion-domain [ PSI+] mediated eRF3 precipitation.
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| 10. |
- Atkinson, Gemma, et al.
(författare)
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Evolution of elongation factor G and the origins of mitochondrial and chloroplast forms
- 2011
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 28:3, s. 1281-1292
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Protein synthesis elongation factor G (EF-G) is an essential protein with central roles in both the elongation and ribosome recycling phases of protein synthesis. Although EF-G evolution is predicted to be conservative, recent reports suggest otherwise. We have characterized EF-G in terms of its molecular phylogeny, genomic context and patterns of amino acid substitution. We find that most bacteria carry a single "canonical" EF-G, which is phylogenetically conservative and encoded in an str operon. However, we also find a number of EF-G paralogs. These include a pair of EF-Gs that are mostly found together and in an eclectic subset of bacteria, specifically delta-proteobacteria, spirochaetes and planctomycetes (the "spd" bacteria). These spdEFGs have also given rise to the mitochondrial factors mtEFG1 and mtEFG2, which probably arrived in eukaryotes before the eukaryotic last common ancestor. Meanwhile, chloroplasts apparently use an α-proteobacterial derived EF-G, rather than the expected cyanobacterial form. The long-term co-maintenance of the spd/mtEFGs may be related to their subfunctionalization for translocation and ribosome recycling. Consistent with this, patterns of sequence conservation and site-specific evolutionary rate shifts suggest that the faster evolving spd/mtEFG2 has lost translocation function, but, surprisingly, the protein also shows little conservation of sites related to recycling activity. On the other hand, spd/mtEFG1, although more slowly evolving, shows signs of substantial remodeling. This is particularly extensive in the GTPase domain, including a highly conserved three amino acid insertion in switch I. We suggest that sub-functionalization of the spd/mtEFGs is not a simple case of specialization for subsets of original activities. Rather the duplication allows the release of one paralog from the selective constraints imposed by dual functionality thus allowing it to become more highly specialized. Thus the potential for fine-tuning afforded by subfunctionalization may explain the maintenance of EF-G paralogs.
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