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Physiology, phylogeny, and LUCA.

William F Martin1, Madeline C Weiss2, Sinje Neukirchen3

  • 1Institute for Molecular Evolution, Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätstrasse 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. ; Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2780-157 Oeiras, Portugal.

Microbial Cell (Graz, Austria)
|March 31, 2017
PubMed
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Tracing life's origins requires deciphering ancient microbial genomes. Researchers identify genuinely ancient genes by analyzing universal distribution and filtering out those altered by lateral gene transfer and divergence.

Area of Science:

  • Microbiology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Genomics

Background:

  • Prokaryotic genomes contain evolutionary history, but ancient records are difficult to read.
  • Lateral gene transfer (LGT) and sequence divergence obscure the evolutionary history within microbial genomes.
  • Identifying genes tracing back to the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) is challenging.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To determine which genes in sequenced genomes are genuinely ancient.
  • To identify genes that originated from the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA).

Main Methods:

  • Analyzing the universal distribution of genes across prokaryotic genomes.
  • Constructing phylogenetic trees for all genes and identifying those not significantly altered by LGT.
  • Sifting through gene trees to find signals of ancient evolutionary history.
Keywords:
acetogensautotrophyearly evolutiongeochemistrymethanogens

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Main Results:

  • The study aims to identify ancient genes by applying specific analytical methods.
  • The outcome of applying these methods to find ancient genes is presented.

Conclusions:

  • The methods employed help to identify ancient genes within prokaryotic genomes.
  • This research contributes to understanding the earliest evolutionary history of life.