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- Boussau, Bastien, et al.
(author)
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Computational inference of scenarios for alpha-proteobecterial genome evolution
- 2004
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In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 101:26, s. 9722-9727
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The alpha-proteobacteria, from which mitochondria are thought to have originated, display a 10-fold genome size variation and provide an excellent model system for studies of genome size evolution in bacteria. Here, we use computational approaches to infer ancestral gene sets and to quantify the flux of genes along the branches of the alpha-proteobacterial species tree. Our study reveals massive gene expansions at branches diversifying plant-associated bacteria and extreme losses at branches separating intracellular bacteria of animals and humans. Alterations in gene numbers have mostly affected functional categories associated with regulation, transport, and small-molecule metabolism, many of which are encoded by paralogous gene families located on auxiliary chromosomes. The results suggest that the alpha-proteobacterial ancestor contained 3,000-5,000 genes and was a free-living, aerobic, and motile bacterium with pili and surface proteins for host cell and environmental interactions. Approximately one third of the ancestral gene set has no homologs among the eukaryotes. More than 40% of the genes without eukaryotic counterparts encode proteins that are conserved among the alpha-proteobacteria but for which no function has yet been identified. These genes that never made it into the eukaryotes but are widely distributed in bacteria may represent bacterial drug targets and should be prime candidates for future functional characterization.
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- Duchemin, Wandrille, et al.
(author)
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RecPhyloXML : a format for reconciled gene trees
- 2018
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In: Bioinformatics. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1367-4803 .- 1367-4811. ; 34:21, s. 3646-3652
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Motivation: A reconciliation is an annotation of the nodes of a gene tree with evolutionary events-for example, speciation, gene duplication, transfer, loss, etc. -along with a mapping onto a species tree. Many algorithms and software produce or use reconciliations but often using different reconciliation formats, regarding the type of events considered or whether the species tree is dated or not. This complicates the comparison and communication between different programs. Results: Here, we gather a consortium of software developers in gene tree species tree reconciliation to propose and endorse a format that aims to promote an integrative-albeit flexible-specification of phylogenetic reconciliations. This format, named recPhyloXML, is accompanied by several tools such as a reconciled tree visualizer and conversion utilities.
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- Höhna, Sebastian, 1983-, et al.
(author)
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Probabilistic Graphical Model Representation in Phylogenetics
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Recent years have seen a rapid expansion of the model space explored in statistical phylogenetics, emphasizing the need for new approaches to model representation and software development. Clear communication and representation of the chosen model is crucial for: (1) reproducibility of an analysis, (2) model development and (3) software design. Moreover, a unified, clear and understandable framework formodel representation lowers the barrier for beginning scientists and non-specialists to grasp the model including the assumptions and parameter/variable dependencies.Graphical models is such a unifying framework that has gained in popularity in the statistical literature in recent years. The core idea isto break complex models into conditionally independent distributions and the strength lies in, amongst others: comprehensibility, flexibility, adaptability and computational algorithms. Graphical models can be used to teach statistical models, to facilitate communication among phylogeneticists and in the development of generic software for simulation and statistical inference.Here, we provide an introduction to graphical models for phylogeneticists and extend the standard graphical model representation to the realm of phylogenetics. We introduce a new graphical model component, tree plates, to capture the changing structure of the subgraph corresponding to a phylogenetic tree. We describe a range of phylogenetic models using the graphical model framework and built these into separate, interchangeable modules. Phylogenetic model graphs can be readily used in simulation, maximum likelihood inference, and Bayesian inference using either Metropolis-Hastings or Gibbs sampling of the posterior distribution.
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- Höhna, Sebastian, et al.
(author)
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Probabilistic Graphical Model Representation in Phylogenetics
- 2014
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In: Systematic Biology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1063-5157 .- 1076-836X. ; 63:5, s. 753-771
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Recent years have seen a rapid expansion of the model space explored in statistical phylogenetics, emphasizing the need for new approaches to statistical model representation and software development. Clear communication and representation of the chosen model is crucial for: (i) reproducibility of an analysis, (ii) model development, and (iii) software design. Moreover, a unified, clear and understandable framework for model representation lowers the barrier for beginners and nonspecialists to grasp complex phylogenetic models, including their assumptions and parameter/variable dependencies. Graphical modeling is a unifying framework that has gained in popularity in the statistical literature in recent years. The core idea is to break complex models into conditionally independent distributions. The strength lies in the comprehensibility, flexibility, and adaptability of this formalism, and the large body of computational work based on it. Graphical models are well-suited to teach statistical models, to facilitate communication among phylogeneticists and in the development of generic software for simulation and statistical inference. Here, we provide an introduction to graphical models for phylogeneticists and extend the standard graphical model representation to the realm of phylogenetics. We introduce a new graphical model component, tree plates, to capture the changing structure of the subgraph corresponding to a phylogenetic tree. We describe a range of phylogenetic models using the graphical model framework and introduce modules to simplify the representation of standard components in large and complex models. Phylogenetic model graphs can be readily used in simulation, maximum likelihood inference, and Bayesian inference using, for example, Metropolis-Hastings or Gibbs sampling of the posterior distribution.
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- Jarvis, Erich D., et al.
(author)
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Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds
- 2014
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In: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 346:6215, s. 1320-1331
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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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- Muhammad, Sayyed Auwn, 1980-
(author)
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Probabilistic Modelling of Domain and Gene Evolution
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Phylogenetic inference relies heavily on statistical models that have been extended and refined over the past years into complex hierarchical models to capture the intricacies of evolutionary processes. The wealth of information in the form of fully sequenced genomes has led to the development of methods that are used to reconstruct the gene and species evolutionary histories in greater and more accurate detail. However, genes are composed of evolutionary conserved sequence segments called domains, and domains can also be affected by duplications, losses, and bifurcations implied by gene or species evolution. This thesis proposes an extension of evolutionary models, such as duplication-loss, rate, and substitution, that have previously been used to model gene evolution, to model the domain evolution.In this thesis, I am proposing DomainDLRS: a comprehensive, hierarchical Bayesian method, based on the DLRS model by Åkerborg et al., 2009, that models domain evolution as occurring inside the gene and species tree. The method incorporates a birth-death process to model the domain duplications and losses along with a domain sequence evolution model with a relaxed molecular clock assumption. The method employs a variant of Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique called, Grouped Independence Metropolis-Hastings for the estimation of posterior distribution over domain and gene trees. By using this method, we performed analyses of Zinc-Finger and PRDM9 gene families, which provides an interesting insight of domain evolution.Finally, a synteny-aware approach for gene homology inference, called GenFamClust, is proposed that uses similarity and gene neighbourhood conservation to improve the homology inference. We evaluated the accuracy of our method on synthetic and two biological datasets consisting of Eukaryotes and Fungal species. Our results show that the use of synteny with similarity is providing a significant improvement in homology inference.
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- Weber, Claudia C., et al.
(author)
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Evidence for GC-biased gene conversion as a driver of between-lineage differences in avian base composition
- 2014
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In: Genome Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-6906 .- 1474-760X. ; 15:12, s. 549-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background While effective population size (N-e) and life history traits such as generation time are known to impact substitution rates, their potential effects on base composition evolution are less well understood. GC content increases with decreasing body mass in mammals, consistent with recombination-associated GC biased gene conversion (gBGC) more strongly impacting these lineages. However, shifts in chromosomal architecture and recombination landscapes between species may complicate the interpretation of these results. In birds, interchromosomal rearrangements are rare and the recombination landscape is conserved, suggesting that this group is well suited to assess the impact of life history on base composition. Results Employing data from 45 newly and 3 previously sequenced avian genomes covering a broad range of taxa, we found that lineages with large populations and short generations exhibit higher GC content. The effect extends to both coding and non-coding sites, indicating that it is not due to selection on codon usage. Consistent with recombination driving base composition, GC content and heterogeneity were positively correlated with the rate of recombination. Moreover, we observed ongoing increases in GC in the majority of lineages. Conclusions Our results provide evidence that gBGC may drive patterns of nucleotide composition in avian genomes and are consistent with more effective gBGC in large populations and a greater number of meioses per unit time; that is, a shorter generation time. Thus, in accord with theoretical predictions, base composition evolution is substantially modulated by species life history.
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10. |
- Williams, Tom A., et al.
(author)
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Integrative modeling of gene and genome evolution roots the archaeal tree of life
- 2017
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In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : NATL ACAD SCIENCES. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 114:23, s. E4602-E4611
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A root for the archaeal tree is essential for reconstructing the metabolism and ecology of early cells and for testing hypotheses that propose that the eukaryotic nuclear lineage originated from within the Archaea; however, published studies based on outgroup rooting disagree regarding the position of the archaeal root. Here we constructed a consensus unrooted archaeal topology using protein concatenation and a multigene supertree method based on 3,242 single gene trees, and then rooted this tree using a recently developed model of genome evolution. This model uses evidence from gene duplications, horizontal transfers, and gene losses contained in 31,236 archaeal gene families to identify the most likely root for the tree. Our analyses support the monophyly of DPANN (Diapherotrites, Parvarchaeota, Aenigmarchaeota, Nanoarchaeota, Nanohaloarchaea), a recently discovered cosmopolitan and genetically diverse lineage, and, in contrast to previous work, place the tree root between DPANN and all other Archaea. The sister group to DPANN comprises the Euryarchaeota and the TACK Archaea, including Lokiarchaeum, which our analyses suggest are monophyletic sister lineages. Metabolic reconstructions on the rooted tree suggest that early Archaea were anaerobes that may have had the ability to reduce CO2 to acetate via the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway. In contrast to proposals suggesting that genome reduction has been the predominant mode of archaeal evolution, our analyses infer a relatively small-genomed archaeal ancestor that subsequently increased in complexity via gene duplication and horizontal gene transfer.
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