Physiology, phylogeny, and LUCA

Autor(en)
William F. Martin, Madeline C. Weiss, Sinje Neukirchen, Shijulal Nelson-Sathi, Filipa L Sousa
Abstrakt

Genomes record their own history. But if we want to look all the way back to life's beginnings some 4 billion years ago, the record of microbial evolution that is preserved in prokaryotic genomes is not easy to read. Microbiology has a lot in common with geology in that regard. Geologists know that plate tectonics and erosion have erased much of the geological record, with ancient rocks being truly rare. The same is true of microbes. Lateral gene transfer (LGT) and sequence divergence have erased much of the evolutionary record that was once written in genomes, and it is not obvious which genes among sequenced genomes are genuinely ancient. Which genes trace to the last universal ancestor, LUCA? The classical approach has been to look for genes that are universally distributed. Another approach is to make all trees for all genes, and sift out the trees where signals have been overwritten by LGT. What is left ought to be ancient. If we do that, what do we find?

Organisation(en)
Externe Organisation(en)
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology
Journal
Microbial Cell
Band
3
Seiten
582-587
Anzahl der Seiten
6
ISSN
2311-2638
DOI
https://doi.org/10.15698/mic2016.12.545
Publikationsdatum
12-2016
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
106022 Mikrobiologie
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Immunology and Microbiology (miscellaneous) , Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (miscellaneous)
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/physiology-phylogeny-and-luca(18398f95-ede8-48f5-a558-6c4fe1e9699e).html