Trefusiidae Are a Subtaxon of Marine Enoplida (Nematoda): Evidence from Primary Structure of Hairpin 35 and 48 Loops of SSU rRNA Gene

A rare nucleotide substitution was found in the evolutionarily conserved loop of hairpin 35 of the 18S rRNA gene of marine free-living nematode, Trefusia zostericola(Nematoda: Enoplida). The same substitution was found in all the marine Enoplida studied but not in other nematodes. Such a molecular synapomorphy indicates that marine enoplids are more closely related to T. zostericolathan to freshwater Triplonchida. Maximum parsimony, neighbor-joining, and maximum likelihood analyses of complete nucleotide sequences of the gene, with the heterogeneity of nucleotide sites in evolution rates taken into account, support this conclusion. Hence, the hypothesis of particular primitiveness of Trefusiidae among nematodes should be rejected. Phylogenies based on molecular data support the morphological reduction of metanemes in Trefusiidae. Alongside with the unique change in hairpin 35 loop among marine Enoplida (including T. zostericola), hairpin 48 is also modified by a rare transversion which could be found among Mesorhabditoidea nematodes, in related genera Pelodera, Mesorhabditis, Teratorhabditis, Parasitorhabditis, Crustorhabditis, and Distolabrellus, and in 11 orders of Rhodophyta. Rare mutations in hairpins 35 and 48 tend to be fixed correlatively in evolution and could be found in all the Acanthocephala species. X-Ray data show that these regions (H31 and H43, in alternative nomenclature) are spatially brought together in native ribosomes. The nature and distribution of molecular autoapomorphies in phylogenetic trees of high-rank taxa are discussed.