Sequence gaps join mice and men: phylogenetic evidence from deletions in two proteins

Recent nuclear sequence analyses have provided evidence thatprimates and rodents are more closely related than previouslybelieved (Madsen et al. 2001 ; Murphy et al. 2001a, 2001b ).This proposal is difficult to reconcile with morphological insights(Liu et al. 2001 ; Novacek 2001 ) and is not generally supportedby current mitochondrial sequence data (Reyes, Pesole, and Saccone2000 ; Nikaido et al. 2001 ; Arnason et al. 2002 ; Janke etal. 2002 ). Moreover, the supporting data and analyses havebeen criticized on methodological grounds (Rosenberg and Kumar2001 ). Here we report deletions in two nuclear protein-codinggenes that lend independent support