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PMID: 15599510 Published · ppublish English Comparative Study Journal Article

Phylogenetic analysis of the complete genome sequence of Encephalitozoon cuniculi supports the fungal origin of microsporidia and reveals a high frequency of fast-evolving genes.

Journal of molecular evolution ·Vol. 59 ·No. 6 ·2004-12-00 ·Pages 780-91

Thomarat F, Vivarès CP, Gouy M

Abstract

Microsporidia are unicellular eukaryotes living as obligate intracellular parasites. Lacking mitochondria, they were initially considered as having diverged before the endosymbiosis at the origin of mitochondria. That microsporidia were primitively amitochondriate was first questioned by the discovery of microsporidial sequences homologous to genes encoding mitochondrial proteins and then refuted by the identification of remnants of mitochondria in their cytoplasm. Various molecular phylogenies also cast doubt on the early divergence of microsporidia, these organisms forming a monophyletic group with or within the fungi. The 2001 proteins putatively encoded by the complete genome of Encephalitozoon cuniculi provided powerful data to test this hypothesis. Phylogenetic analysis of 99 proteins selected as adequate phylogenetic markers indicated that the E. cuniculi sequences having the lowest evolutionary rates preferentially clustered with fungal sequences or, more rarely, with both animal and fungal sequences. Because sequences with low evolutionary rates are less sensitive to the long-branch attraction artifact, we concluded that microsporidia are evolutionarily related to fungi. This analysis also allowed comparing the accuracy of several phylogenetic algorithms for a fast-evolving lineage with real rather than simulated sequences.

MeSH Terms
Animals Classification/methods Cluster Analysis Computational Biology Evolution, Molecular Fungal Proteins/genetics Genome, Fungal Likelihood Functions Microsporidia/classification,genetics Models, Genetic Phylogeny
Chemicals
Fungal Proteins
Authors & Affiliations
3 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Thomarat Fabienne
Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, UMR CNRS 5558, Université Claude Bernard Lyon I, 43 boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne, France.
Vivarès Christian P
Gouy Manolo
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Article Info
Journal
Journal of molecular evolution
Abbr.
J Mol Evol
ISSN
0022-2844
DOI
10.1007/s00239-004-2673-0
Published
2004-12-00
Pages
780-91
Language
English
Region
Germany
NLM ID
0360051
Subset
IM
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1007/s00239-004-2673-0 View journal details
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