Evolution of metabolisms: a new method for the comparison of metabolic pathways using genomics information.

The abundance of information provided by completely sequenced genomes defines a starting point for new insights in the multilevel organization of organisms and their evolution. At the lowest level enzymes and other protein complexes are formed by aggregating multiple polypeptides. At a higher level enzymes group conceptually into metabolic pathways as part of a dynamic information-processing system, and substrates are processed by enzymes yielding other substrates. A method based on a combination of sequence information with graph topology of the underlying pathway is presented. With this approach pathways of different organisms are related to each other by phylogenetic analysis, extending conventional phylogenetic analysis of individual enzymes. The new method is applied to pathways related to electron transfer and to the Krebs citric acid cycle. In addition to providing a more comprehensive understanding of similarities and differences between organisms, this method indicates different evolutionary rates between substrates and enzymes.     

Universal Protein Families and the Functional Content of the Last Universal Common Ancestor

The phylogenetic distribution of Methanococcus jannaschii proteins can provide, for the first time, an estimate of the genome content of the last common ancestor of the three domains of life. Relying on annotation and comparison with reference to the species distribution of sequence similarities results in 324 proteins forming the universal family set. This set is very well characterized and relatively small and nonredundant, containing 301 biochemical functions, of which 246 are unique. This universal function set contains mostly genes coding for energy metabolism or information processing. It appears that the Last Universal Common Ancestor was an organism with metabolic networks and genetic machinery similar to those of extant unicellular organisms.     

Phylogeny of Organisms Investigated by the Base-Pair Changes in the Stem Regions of Small and Large Ribosomal Subunit RNAs

In order to obtain the evolutionary distance data that are as purely additive as possible, we have developed a novel method for evaluating the evolutionary distances from the base-pair changes in stem regions of ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs). The application of this method to small-subunit (SSU) and large-subunit (LSU) rRNAs provides the distance data, with which both the unweighted pair group method of analysis and the neighbor-joining method give almost the same tree topology of most organisms except for some Protoctista, thermophilic bacteria, parasitic organisms, and endosymbionts. Although the evolutionary distances calculated with LSU rRNAs are somewhat longer than those with SSU rRNAs, the difference, probably due to a slight difference in functional constraint, is substantially decreased when the distances are converted into the divergence times of organisms by the measure of the time scale estimated in each type of rRNAs. The divergence times of main branches agree fairly well with the geological record of organisms, at least after the appearance of oxygen-releasing photosynthesis, although the divergence times of Eukaryota, Archaebacteria, and Eubacteria are somewhat overestimated in comparison with the geological record of Earth formation. This result is explained by considering that the mutation rate is determined by the accumulation of misrepairs for DNA damage caused by radiation and that the effect of radiation had been stronger before the oxygen molecules became abundant in the atmosphere of the Earth. Received: 23 October 1997 / Accepted: 12 August 1998     

Multiple Lineages of the Mitochondrial Gene NADH Dehydrogenase Subunit 1 (ND1) in Parasitic Helminths: Implications for Molecular Evolutionary Studies of Facultatively Anaerobic Eukaryotes

The task of using partial ND1 sequences to infer a phylogeny for species of the genus Paragonimus (Trematoda: Digenea) was complicated by the discovery of at least two ND1 lineages within individual worms. The divergence of the ND1 lineages is shown by phylogenetic analysis not only to predate the divergence of the three Paragonimus species or species groups investigated but also the divergence of some trematode families. Some sequences are clearly pseudogenes as they contain single base deletions and/or premature termination codons. The presence of both pseudogenes and/or mitochondrial heteroplasmy are invoked to explain the presence of multiple and divergent ND1 lineages in these trematodes, which have two distinct cytochemical types of mitochondria. The implications for phylogenetic studies generally and of parasitic helminths specifically, using ND1 sequence data, are discussed. The ability of these organisms to adapt their metabolic processes to the variable availability of oxygen as an electron acceptor are proposed to explain some of the molecular diversity observed in parasitic helminths and possibly also in other anaerobically adapted eukaryotes. Received: 18 October 1999 / Accepted: 23 June 2000     

Genetic Affinities Within the Herring Gull Larus argentatus Assemblage Revealed by AFLP Genotyping

To date, the taxonomic status of circumpolar breeding populations of the Herring Gull Larus argentatus, the Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus fuscus, and the closely related Yellow-legged Gull Larus cachinnans has been based on differences or similarities in phenotype, morphology, and feeding and premating behavior. To shed some new light on the many taxonomic uncertainties surrounding these taxa, we describe the results of a large DNA study based on comparing the distribution of 209 biallelic markers among 109 gulls, representing 11 gull taxa of the Herring Gull assemblage and the Common Gull Larus canus. A detailed phylogenetic analysis failed to show clustering of individuals into groups representing either geographic origin or phenotype. Alternatively, birds were grouped into taxa defined on the basis of phenotype and geographic origin or phenotype alone. Genetic analyses revealed significantly different genetic distances between all pairs of taxa. However, based on these genetic distances, again no consistent phylogenetic tree could be constructed. Analysis of molecular variance indicated that about 77% of the total genetic variability among these gulls could be explained by within-taxon differences. Only 23% of the total genetic variability was due to genetic differences between taxa, irrespective of their species or subspecies status. Although this seems to challenge the current taxonomic treatment of the herring gull assemblage, our results are too premature and too incomplete to recommend a drastic change. Received: 27 January 2000 / Accepted: 18 September 2000     

Toward a Better Knowledge of the Molecular Evolution of Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxylase by Comparison of Partial cDNA Sequences

To get deeper insight into the evolution of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase we have identified PEPC fragments (about 1,100 bp) of another 12 plants species not yet investigated in this context. The selected plants include one Chlorophyta, two Bryophyta, four Pteridophyta, and five Spermatophyta species. The obtained phylogenetic trees on PEPC isoforms are the most complete ones up to now available. Independent of their manner of construction, the resulting dendrograms are very similar and fully consistent with the main topology as it is postulated for the evolution of the higher terrestrial plants. We found a distinct clustering of the PEPC sequences of the prokaryotes, the algae, and the spermatophytes. PEPC isoforms of the archegoniates are located in the phylogenetic trees between the algae and spermatophytes. Our results strengthen the view that the PEPC is a very useful molecular marker with which to visualize phylogenetic trends both on the metabolic and organismic levels. Received: 23 December 1996 / Accepted: 22 April 1997     

Phylogenetic analysis of viroid and viroid-like satellite RNAs from plants: a reassessment

The proposed monophyletic origin of a group of subviral plant pathogens (viroids and viroid-like satellite RNAs), as well as the phylogenetic relationships and the resulting taxonomy of these entities, has been recently questioned. The criticism comes from the (apparent) lack of sequence similarity among these RNAs necessary to reliably infer a phylogeny. Here we show that, despite their low overall sequence similarity, a sequence alignment manually adjusted to take into account all the local similarities and the insertions/deletions and duplications/rearrangements described in the literature for viroids and viroid-like satellite RNA, along with the use of an appropriate estimator of genetic distances, constitutes a data set suitable for a phylogenetic reconstruction. When the likelihood-mapping method was applied to this data set, the tree-likeness obtained was higher than that corresponding to a sequence alignment that does not take into consideration the local similarities. In addition, bootstrap analysis also supports the major groups previously proposed and the reconstruction is consistent with the biological properties of this RNAs. Received: 17 January 2001 / Accepted: 16 March 2001     

Recent Evolutionary History of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Subtype B: Reconstruction of Epidemic Onset Based on Sequence Distances to the Common Ancestor

We obtained and studied HIV-1 sequences with a known sampling year from three outbreaks of the HIV-1 epidemic: 141 env V3 (270 nt) sampled between 1984 and 1992 and 117 pol prot/RT (804 nt) sequences sampled between 1986 and 1999 from Dutch homosexual men and injecting drug users (IDUs), as well as 77 env V3 sequences sampled between 1983 and 1994 in the United States. Since retrospective serological and/or epidemiological data on these populations are available, providing estimates of the dates of the onset of the HIV-1 epidemics, we had the opportunity to test different phylogenetic models for their accuracy in deriving the recent evolutionary history of HIV-1 subtype B and the onset date of the HIV-1 epidemic. We observed that, in any given year, individual sequences vary widely in their distances to the common ancestor, and sequences close to the ancestors were found decades after the onset of the epidemic. Nevertheless, the mean evolutionary distances of virus strains to ancestors were increasing significantly during the course of the studied epidemics, which indicates that the molecular clock is operational in the recent evolution of HIV-1. When the relationship between the sampling years of sequences and their nucleotide distances to the common ancestor was extrapolated to the past, analysis of pol sequences provided accurate estimates of the onset years of the epidemics, whereas analysis of V3 sequences by the maximum-likelihood or neighbor-joining methods led to an overestimation of the age of the epidemics. Separate analysis of nonsynonymous and synonymous distances revealed that this overestimation results from nonsynonymous substitutions, whose numbers were not increasing significantly in all three virus populations over the observation period. In contrast, analysis of synonymous env V3 distances provided accurate estimates of the onset years for the outbreaks we studied. Received: 26 October 2001 / Accepted: 8 November 2001     

Molecular Evolution of the Aldo-keto Reductase Gene Superfamily

The aldo-keto reductase enzymes comprise a functionally diverse gene family which catalyze the NADPH-dependant reduction of a variety of carbonyl compounds. The protein sequences of 45 members of this family were aligned and phylogenetic trees were deduced from this alignment using the neighbor-joining and Fitch algorithms. The branching order of these trees indicates that the vertebrate enzymes cluster in three groups, which have a monophyletic origin distinct from the bacterial, plant, and invertebrate enzymes. A high level of conservation was observed between the vertebrate hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase enzymes, prostaglandin F synthase, and ρ-crystallin of Xenopus laevis. We infer from the phylogenetic analysis that prostaglandin F synthase may represent a recent recruit to the eicosanoid biosynthetic pathway from the hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase pathway and furthermore that, in the context of gene recruitment, Xenopus laevisρ-crystallin may represent a shared gene. Received: 26 August 1996 / Accepted: 5 June 1997     

Molecular Evolutionary Analysis of the Thiamine-Diphosphate-Dependent Enzyme,Transketolase

Members of the transketolase group of thiamine-diphosphate-dependent enzymes from 17 different organisms including mammals, yeast, bacteria, and plants have been used for phylogenetic reconstruction. Alignment of the amino acid and DNA sequences for 21 transketolase enzymes and one putative transketolase reveals a number of highly conserved regions and invariant residues that are of predicted importance for enzyme activity, based on the crystal structure of yeast transketolase. One particular sequence of 36 residues has some similarities to the nucleotide-binding motif and we designate it as the transketolase motif. We report further evidence that the recP protein from Streptococcus pneumoniae might be a transketolase and we list a number of invariant residues which might be involved in substrate binding. Phylogenies derived from the nucleotide and the amino acid sequences by various methods show a conventional clustering for mammalian, plant, and gram-negative bacterial transketolases. The branching order of the gram-positive bacteria could not be inferred reliably. The formaldehyde transketolase (sometimes known as dihydroxyacetone synthase) of the yeast Hansenula polymorpha appears to be orthologous to the mammalian enzymes but paralogous to the other yeast transketolases. The occurrence of more than one transketolase gene in some organisms is consistent with several gene duplications. The high degree of similarity in functionally important residues and the fact that the same kinetic mechanism is applicable to all characterized transketolase enzymes is consistent with the proposition that they are all derived from one common ancestral gene. Transketolase appears to be an ancient enzyme that has evolved slowly and might serve as a model for a molecular clock, at least within the mammalian clade. Received: 13 September 1995 / Accepted: 14 November 1996     

Molecular Evolution of the Myeloperoxidase Family

Animal myeloperoxidase and its relatives constitute a diverse protein family, which includes myeloperoxidase, eosinophil peroxidase, thyroid peroxidase, salivary peroxidase, lactoperoxidase, ovoperoxidase, peroxidasin, peroxinectin, cyclooxygenase, and others. The members of this protein family share a catalytic domain of about 500 amino acid residues in length, although some members have distinctive mosaic structures. To investigate the evolution of the protein family, we performed a comparative analysis of its members, using the amino acid sequences and the coordinate data available today. The results obtained in this study are as follows: (1) 60 amino acid sequences belonging to this family were collected by database searching. We found a new member of the myeloperoxidase family derived from a bacterium. This is the first report of a bacterial member of this family. (2) An unrooted phylogenetic tree of the family was constructed according to the alignment. Considering the branching pattern in the obtained phylogenetic tree, together with the mosaic features in the primary structures, 60 members of the myeloperoxidase family were classified into 16 subfamilies. (3) We found two molecular features that distinguish cyclooxygenase from the other members of the protein family. (4) Several structurally deviated segments were identified by a structural comparison between cyclooxygenase and myeloperoxidase. Some of the segments seemed to be associated with the functional and/or structural differences between the enzymes. Received: 25 January 2000 / Accepted: 19 July 2000     

The Heat-Shock Gene hsp83 of Drosophila auraria: Genomic Organization, Nucleotide Sequence, and Long Antiparallel Coupled ORFs (LAC ORFs)

The genomic organization of the hsp83 gene of Drosophila auraria, a far-eastern endemic species belonging to the montium subgroup of the melanogaster species group, is presented here. Based on in situ hybridization on polytene chromosomes, cDNA and genomic clone mapping, nucleotide sequencing, and genomic Southern analysis, hsp83 is shown to be present as a single-copy gene at locus 64B on the 3L chromosome arm in D. auraria. This gene is organized into two exons separated by a 929-bp intron. The first exon represents the mRNA leader sequence and is not translated, while the coding region, having a length of 2,151 bp, is solely included in the second exon. Nucleotide sequence comparisons of D. auraria hsp83 with homologous sequences from other organisms show high conservation of the coding region (88–92% identity) in the genus Drosophila, in addition to the conserved genomic organization of two-exons–one-intron, of comparable size and arrangement. A phylogenetic tree based on the protein sequences of homologous genes from representative organisms is in accord with the accredited phylogenetic position of D. auraria. In the hsp83 gene region, a second case of long antiparallel coupled open reading frames (LAC ORFs) for this species was found. The antiparallel to the hsp83 gene ORF is 1,554 bases long, while the two ORFs overlap has a size of 1,548 bp. The anti-hsp83 ORF does not show significant homology to any known gene sequences. In addition, no similar LAC ORF structures were found in homologous gene regions of other organisms. Received: 18 April 1997 / Accepted: 1 August 1997     

Detection of Seven Major Evolutionary Lineages in Cyanobacteria Based on the 16S rRNA Gene Sequence Analysis with New Sequences of Five Marine Synechococcus Strains

Although molecular phylogenetic studies of cyanobacteria on the basis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence have been reported, the topologies were unstable, especially in the inner branchings. Our analysis of 16S rRNA gene phylogeny by the maximum-likelihood and neighbor-joining methods combined with rate homogeneous and heterogeneous models revealed seven major evolutionary lineages of the cyanobacteria, including prochlorophycean organisms. These seven lineages are always stable on any combination of these methods and models, fundamentally corresponding to phylogenetic relationships based on other genes, e.g., psbA, rbcL, rnpB, rpoC, and tufA. Moreover, although known genotypic and phenotypic characters sometimes appear paralleled in independent lineages, many characters are not contradictory within each group. Therefore we propose seven evolutionary groups as a working hypothesis for successive taxonomic reconstruction. New 16S rRNA sequences of five unicellular cyanobacterial strains, PCC 7001, PCC 7003, PCC 73109, PCC 7117, and PCC 7335 of Synechococcus sp., were determined in this study. Although all these strains have been assigned to ``marine clusters B and C,' they were separated into three lineages. This suggests that the organisms classified in the genus Synechococcus evolved diversely and should be reclassified in several independent taxonomic units. Moreover, Synechococcus strains and filamentous cyanobacteria make a monophyletic group supported by a comparatively high statistical confidence value (80 to 100%) in each of the two independent lineages; therefore, these monophylies probably reflect the convergent evolution of a multicellular organization. Received: 3 September 1998 / Accepted: 30 November 1998     

Pervasiveness of Gene Conservation and Persistence of Duplicates in Cellular Genomes

In this work detailed statistics on ancestral gene duplication and gene conservation in completely sequenced cellular genomes are presented. Analysis of open reading frame (ORF) products having simultaneous matches in several distinct organisms showed a significant correlation between duplication and conservation. Systematic comparisons of predicted proteomes of 23 organisms (including 20 that have been completely sequenced), have allowed us to quantify the degree of ancestral duplication within each genome and the level of conservation between genomes, using threshold values calculated for individual organisms. Statistical analysis of various gene proportions revealed interesting trends in gene structure and evolution, such as that (a) more than one-quarter (25%–66%) of the predicted ORF products of the surveyed organisms are not unique, indicating a high level of ancestral duplications; (b) levels of exclusive conservation within Bacteria are higher than those within the eukaryal or archaeal domains; and (c) at least one-half (47–99%) of the total predicted ORF products in the surveyed genomes have one or several highly significant matches in another genome. Significant matches are based on simulations taking into account the mean size of ORF products and the composition of each target organism's proteome. The methodology we have developed ensures stability and comparability of our results as the number of completely sequenced genomes increases. Received: 4 May 1998 / Accepted: 28 September 1998     

The Historical Factor: The Biosynthetic Relationships Between Amino Acids and Their Physicochemical Properties in the Origin of the Genetic Code

Two forces are in general, hypothesized to have influenced the origin of the organization of the genetic code: the physicochemical properties of amino acids and their biosynthetic relationships. In view of this, we have considered a model incorporating these two forces. In particular, we have studied the optimization level of the physicochemical properties of amino acids in the set of amino acid permutation codes that respects the biosynthetic relationships between amino acids. Where the properties of amino acids are represented by polarity and molecular volume we obtain indetermination percentages in the organization of the genetic code of approximately 40%. This indicates that the contingent factor played a significant role in structuring the genetic code. Furthermore, this result is in agreement with the genetic code coevolution hypothesis, which attributes a merely ancillary role to the properties of amino acids while it suggests that it was their biosynthetic relationships that organized the code. Furthermore, this result does not favor the stereochemical models proposed to explain the origin of the genetic code. On the other hand, where the properties of amino acids are represented by polarity alone, we obtain an indetermination percentage of at least 21.5%. This might suggest that the polarity distances played an important role and would therefore provide evidence in favor of the physicochemical hypothesis of genetic code origin. Although, overall, the analysis might have given stronger support to the latter hypothesis, this did not actually occur. The results are therefore discussed in the context of the different theories proposed to explain the origin of the genetic code. Received: 10 September 1996 / Accepted: 3 March 1997     

Phylogenetic comparison of metabolic capacities of organisms at genome level

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) has been shown to widely spread in organisms by comparative genomic studies. However, its effect on the phylogenetic relationship of organisms, especially at a system level of different cellular functions, is still not well understood. In this work, we have constructed phylogenetic trees based on the enzyme, reaction, and gene contents of metabolic networks reconstructed from annotated genome information of 82 sequenced organisms. Results from different phylogenetic distance definitions and based on three different functional subsystems (i.e., metabolism, cellular processes, information storage and processing) were compared. Results based on the three different functional subsystems give different pictures on the phylogenetic relationship of organisms, reflecting the different extents of HGT in the different functional systems. In general, horizontal transfer is prevailing in genes for metabolism, but less in genes for information processing. Nevertheless, the major results of metabolic network-based phylogenetic trees are in good agreement with the tree based on 16S rRNA and genome trees, confirming the three domain classification and the close relationship between eukaryotes and archaea at the level of metabolic networks. These results strongly support the hypothesis that although HGT is widely distributed, it is nevertheless constrained by certain pre-existing metabolic organization principle(s) during the evolution. Further research is needed to identify the organization principle and constraints of metabolic network on HGT which have large impacts on understanding the evolution of life and in purposefully manipulating cellular metabolism.     

Construction of phylogenetic trees by kernel-based comparative analysis of metabolic networks

Background  

To infer the tree of life requires knowledge of the common characteristics of each species descended from a common ancestor as the measuring criteria and a method to calculate the distance between the resulting values of each measure. Conventional phylogenetic analysis based on genomic sequences provides information about the genetic relationships between different organisms. In contrast, comparative analysis of metabolic pathways in different organisms can yield insights into their functional relationships under different physiological conditions. However, evaluating the similarities or differences between metabolic networks is a computationally challenging problem, and systematic methods of doing this are desirable. Here we introduce a graph-kernel method for computing the similarity between metabolic networks in polynomial time, and use it to profile metabolic pathways and to construct phylogenetic trees.     

Molecular Evolution Within the L-Malate and L-Lactate Dehydrogenase Super-Family

The NAD(P)-dependent malate (L-MalDH) and NAD-dependent lactate (L-LDH) form a large super-family that has been characterized in organisms belonging to the three domains of life. In the first part of this study, the group of [LDH-like] L-MalDH, which are malate dehydrogenases resembling lactate dehydrogenase, were analyzed and clearly defined with respect to the other enzymes. In the second part, the phylogenetic relationships of the whole super-family were presented by taking into account the [LDH-like] L-MalDH. The inferred tree unambiguously shows that two ancestral genes duplications, and not one as generally thought, are needed to explain both the distribution into two enzymatic functions and the observation of three main groups within the super-family: L-LDH, [LDH-like] L-MalDH, and dimeric L-MalDH. In addition, various cases of functional changes within each group were observed and analyzed. The direction of evolution was found to always be polarized: from enzymes with a high stringency of substrate recognition to enzymes with a broad substrate specificity. A specific phyletic distribution of the L-LDH, [LDH-like] L-MalDH, and dimeric L-MalDH over the Archaeal, Bacterial, and Eukaryal domains was observed. This was analyzed in the light of biochemical, structural, and genomic data available for the L-LDH, [LDH-like] L-MalDH, and dimeric L-MalDH. This analysis led to the elaboration of a refined evolutionary scenario of the super-family, in which the selection of L-LDH and the fate of L-MalDH during mitochrondrial genesis are presented.