Plastid genome sequencing,comparative genomics,and phylogenomics:Current status and prospects

More than 190 plastid genomes have been completely sequenced during the past two decades due to advances in DNA sequencing technologies.Based on this unprecedented abundance of data,extensive genomic changes have been revealed in the plastid genomes.Inversion is the most common mechanism that leads to gene order changes.Several inversion events have been recognized as informative phylogenetic markers,such as a 30-kb inversion found in all living vascular plants minus lycopsids and two short inversions putat...     

Plastid genome sequencing,comparative genomics,and phylogenomics: Current status and prospects

Abstract More than 190 plastid genomes have been completely sequenced during the past two decades due to advances in DNA sequencing technologies. Based on this unprecedented abundance of data, extensive genomic changes have been revealed in the plastid genomes. Inversion is the most common mechanism that leads to gene order changes. Several inversion events have been recognized as informative phylogenetic markers, such as a 30‐kb inversion found in all living vascular plants minus lycopsids and two short inversions putatively shared by all ferns. Gene loss is a common event throughout plastid genome evolution. Many genes were independently lost or transferred to the nuclear genome in multiple plant lineages. The trnR‐CCG gene was lost in some clades of lycophytes, ferns, and seed plants, and all the ndh genes were absent in parasitic plants, gnetophytes, Pinaceae, and the Taiwan moth orchid. Certain parasitic plants have, in particular, lost plastid genes related to photosynthesis because of the relaxation of functional constraint. The dramatic growth of plastid genome sequences has also promoted the use of whole plastid sequences and genomic features to solve phylogenetic problems. Chloroplast phylogenomics has provided additional evidence for deep‐level phylogenetic relationships as well as increased phylogenetic resolutions at low taxonomic levels. However, chloroplast phylogenomics is still in its infant stage and rigorous analysis methodology has yet to be developed.     

哺乳动物系统发育基因组学研究进展

哺乳动物是一类最进化并在地球上占主导地位的动物类群,重建其系统发育关系一直是分子系统学的研究热点。随着越来越多物种全基因组测序的完成,在基因组水平上探讨该类动物的系统发育关系与进化成为研究的热点。本文从全基因组序列,稀有基因组变异及染色体涂染等几个方面简要介绍了当前系统发育基因组学在现生哺乳动物分子系统学中的应用,综合已有的研究归纳整理了胎盘亚纲的总目及目间的系统发育关系,给出了胎盘动物19 个目的系统发育树。本文还分析了哺乳动物系统发育基因组学目前所面临的主要问题及未来的发展前景。     

From phylogenetics to phylogenomics: the evolutionary relationships of insect endosymbiotic gamma-Proteobacteria as a test case

The increasing availability of complete genome sequences and the development of new, faster methods for phylogenetic reconstruction allow the exploration of the set of evolutionary trees for each gene in the genome of any species. This has led to the development of new phylogenomic methods. Here, we have compared different phylogenetic and phylogenomic methods in the analysis of the monophyletic origin of insect endosymbionts from the gamma-Proteobacteria, a hotly debated issue with several recent, conflicting reports. We have obtained the phylogenetic tree for each of the 579 identified protein-coding genes in the genome of the primary endosymbiont of carpenter ants, Blochmannia floridanus, after determining their presumed orthologs in 20 additional Proteobacteria genomes. A reference phylogeny reflecting the monophyletic origin of insect endosymbionts was further confirmed with different approaches, which led us to consider it as the presumed species tree. Remarkably, only 43 individual genes produced exactly the same topology as this presumed species tree. Most discrepancies between this tree and those obtained from individual genes or by concatenation of different genes were due to the grouping of Xanthomonadales with beta-Proteobacteria and not to uncertainties over the monophyly of insect endosymbionts. As previously noted, operational genes were more prone to reject the presumed species tree than those included in information-processing categories, but caution should be exerted when selecting genes for phylogenetic inference on the basis of their functional category assignment. We have obtained strong evidence in support of the monophyletic origin of gamma-Proteobacteria insect endosymbionts by a combination of phylogenetic and phylogenomic methods. In our analysis, the use of concatenated genes has shown to be a valuable tool for analyzing primary phylogenetic signals coded in the genomes. Nevertheless, other phylogenomic methods such as supertree approaches were useful in revealing alternative phylogenetic signals and should be included in comprehensive phylogenomic studies.     

Bacterial comparative genomics

A report on 'Genomes 2004: International Conference on the Analysis of Microbial and Other Genomes', Hinxton, UK, 14-17 April 2004.     

Ensembl 2002: accommodating comparative genomics

The Ensembl (http://www.ensembl.org/) database project provides a bioinformatics framework to organise biology around the sequences of large genomes. It is a comprehensive source of stable automatic annotation of human, mouse and other genome sequences, available as either an interactive web site or as flat files. Ensembl also integrates manually annotated gene structures from external sources where available. As well as being one of the leading sources of genome annotation, Ensembl is an open source software engineering project to develop a portable system able to handle very large genomes and associated requirements. These range from sequence analysis to data storage and visualisation and installations exist around the world in both companies and at academic sites. With both human and mouse genome sequences available and more vertebrate sequences to follow, many of the recent developments in Ensembl have focusing on developing automatic comparative genome analysis and visualisation.     

控制水稻胚乳淀粉合成代谢若干关键酶基因对花后高温的响应表达

以稻米品质温度敏感型的早籼稻品种嘉早935为材料,利用人工气候箱控温试验和实时荧光定量PCR技术,探讨了不同灌浆温度(日均温分别为22和32 ℃)处理下胚乳淀粉分支酶(SBE)、淀粉去分支酶(DBE)和淀粉合酶(SS)的10个同工型基因(sbe1、sbe3、sbe4、pul、isa1、isa2、isa3、Wx、sss1和sss2a)的相对表达量差异及动态变化特征.结果表明: 淀粉合成相关功能基因对水稻灌浆期高温胁迫的响应表达方式存在明显差异,而且因同工型的类型而不同.在高温处理下,sbe1和sbe3的相对表达量显著下降,二者属于SBE类基因中对高温胁迫较敏感的主要同工型;DBE基因中,pul属于高表达的同工型,而且其对高温胁迫响应比isa1、isa2和isa3敏感;在Wx、sss1和sss2a中,sss2a的相对表达量显著低于sss1和Wx, 但sss2a和sss1对高温胁迫响应比Wx敏感,因此二者可能也是高温胁迫对胚乳淀粉结构进行调控的重要位点,尤其在水稻灌浆的中后期发挥重要作用.     

Primate comparative genomics: lemur biology and evolution

Comparative genome sequencing projects are providing insight into aspects of genome biology that raise new questions and challenge existing paradigms. Placement in the phylogenetic tree can often be a major determinant of which organism to choose for study. Lemurs hold a key position at the base of the primate evolutionary tree and will be highly informative for the genomics community by offering comparisons of primate-specific characteristics and processes. Combining research in chromosome evolution, genome evolution and behavior with lemur comparative genomic sequencing will offer insights into many levels of primate evolution. We discuss the current state of lemur cytogenetic and phylogenetic analyses, and suggest how focusing more genomic efforts on lemurs will be beneficial to understanding human and primate evolution, as well as disease, and will contribute to conservation efforts.     

ACGT-a comparative genomics tool

SUMMARY: ACGT (a comparative genomics tool) is a genomic DNA sequence comparison viewer and analyzer. It can read a pair of DNA sequences in GenBank, Embl or Fasta formats, with or without a comparison file, and provide users with many options to view and analyze the similarities between the input sequences. It is written in Java and can be run on Unix, Linux and Windows platforms. AVAILABILITY: The ACGT program is freely available with documentation and examples at website: http://db.systemsbiology.net/projects/local/mhc/acgt/     

Alvira: comparative genomics of viral strains

MOTIVATION: The Alvira tool is a general purpose multiple sequence alignment viewer with a special emphasis on the comparative analysis of viral genomes. This new tool has been devised specifically to address the problem of the simultaneous analysis of a large number of viral strains. The multiple alignment is embedded in a graph that can be explored at different levels of resolution. AVAILABILITY: The Alvira software is available at: http://bioinfo.genopole-toulouse.prd.fr/Alvira. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: A tutorial is available at Alvira's homepage.     

The animal in the genome: comparative genomics and evolution

Comparisons between completely sequenced metazoan genomes have generally emphasized how similar their encoded protein content is, even when the comparison is between phyla. Given the manifest differences between phyla and, in particular, intuitive notions that some animals are more complex than others, this creates something of a paradox. Simplistic explanations have included arguments such as increased numbers of genes; greater numbers of protein products produced through alternative splicing; increased numbers of regulatory non-coding RNAs and increased complexity of the cis-regulatory code. An obvious value of complete genome sequences lies in their ability to provide us with inventories of such components. I examine progress being made in linking genome content to the pattern of animal evolution, and argue that the gap between genomic and phenotypic complexity can only be understood through the totality of interacting components.     

A decade of progress in plant molecular phylogenetics

Over the past decade, botanists have produced several thousand phylogenetic analyses based on molecular data, with particular emphasis on sequencing rbcL, the plastid gene encoding the large subunit of Rubisco (ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase). Because phylogenetic trees retrieved from the three plant genomes (plastid, nuclear and mitochondrial) have been highly congruent, the ‘Angiosperm Phylogeny Group’ has used these DNA-based phylogenetic trees to reclassify all families of flowering plants. However, in addition to taxonomy, these major phylogenetic efforts have also helped to define strategies to reconstruct the ‘tree of life’, and have revealed the size of the ancestral plant genome, uncovered potential candidates for the ancestral flower, identified molecular living fossils, and linked the rate of neutral substitutions with species diversity. With an increased interest in DNA sequencing programmes in non-model organisms, the next decade will hopefully see these phylogenetic findings integrated into new genetic syntheses, from genomes to taxa.     

phyloXML: XML for evolutionary biology and comparative genomics

Background  

Evolutionary trees are central to a wide range of biological studies. In many of these studies, tree nodes and branches need to be associated (or annotated) with various attributes. For example, in studies concerned with organismal relationships, tree nodes are associated with taxonomic names, whereas tree branches have lengths and oftentimes support values. Gene trees used in comparative genomics or phylogenomics are usually annotated with taxonomic information, genome-related data, such as gene names and functional annotations, as well as events such as gene duplications, speciations, or exon shufflings, combined with information related to the evolutionary tree itself. The data standards currently used for evolutionary trees have limited capacities to incorporate such annotations of different data types.