Recent Events Dominate Interdomain Lateral Gene Transfers Between Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes and, with the Exception of Endosymbiotic Gene Transfers, Few Ancient Transfer Events Persist

Authors

Laura A. Katz, Smith CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-31-2015

Publication Title

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Abstract

While there is compelling evidence for the impact of endosymbiotic gene transfer (EGT; transfer from either mitochondrion or chloroplast to the nucleus) on genome evolution in eukaryotes, the role of interdomain transfer from bacteria and/or archaea (i.e. prokaryotes) is less clear. Lateral gene transfers (LGTs) have been argued to be potential sources of phylogenetic information, particularly for reconstructing deep nodes that are difficult to recover with traditional phylogenetic methods. We sought to identify interdomain LGTs by using a phylogenomic pipeline that generated 13 465 single gene trees and included up to 487 eukaryotes, 303 bacteria and 118 archaea. Our goals include searching for LGTs that unite major eukaryotic clades, and describing the relative contributions of LGT and EGT across the eukaryotic tree of life. Given the difficulties in interpreting single gene trees that aim to capture the approximately 1.8 billion years of eukaryotic evolution, we focus on presence–absence data to identify interdomain transfer events. Specifically, we identify 1138 genes found only in prokaryotes and representatives of three or fewer major clades of eukaryotes (e.g. Amoebozoa, Archaeplastida, Excavata, Opisthokonta, SAR and orphan lineages). The majority of these genes have phylogenetic patterns that are consistent with recent interdomain LGTs and, with the notable exception of EGTs involving photosynthetic eukaryotes, we detect few ancient interdomain LGTs. These analyses suggest that LGTs have probably occurred throughout the history of eukaryotes, but that ancient events are not maintained unless they are associated with endosymbiotic gene transfer among photosynthetic lineages.

Keywords

Endosymbiotic gene transfer, Eukaryotic tree of life, Horizontal gene transfer, Phylogenomics

Volume

370

Issue

1678

DOI

10.1098/rstb.2014.0324

ISSN

09628436

Rights

& 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Comments

Archived as published.

Open Access paper.

Recommended Citation

Katz, Laura A., "Recent Events Dominate Interdomain Lateral Gene Transfers Between Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes and, with the Exception of Endosymbiotic Gene Transfers, Few Ancient Transfer Events Persist" (2015). Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/bio_facpubs/98