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The scale and evolutionary significance of horizontal gene transfer in the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis
BACKGROUND: It is generally agreed that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is common in phagotrophic protists. However, the overall scale of HGT and the cumulative impact of acquired genes on the evolution of these organisms remain largely unknown. RESULTS: Choanoflagellates are phagotrophs and the clos...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4046809/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24156600 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-14-729 |
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author | Yue, Jipei Sun, Guiling Hu, Xiangyang Huang, Jinling |
author_facet | Yue, Jipei Sun, Guiling Hu, Xiangyang Huang, Jinling |
author_sort | Yue, Jipei |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: It is generally agreed that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is common in phagotrophic protists. However, the overall scale of HGT and the cumulative impact of acquired genes on the evolution of these organisms remain largely unknown. RESULTS: Choanoflagellates are phagotrophs and the closest living relatives of animals. In this study, we performed phylogenomic analyses to investigate the scale of HGT and the evolutionary importance of horizontally acquired genes in the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis. Our analyses identified 405 genes that are likely derived from algae and prokaryotes, accounting for approximately 4.4% of the Monosiga nuclear genome. Many of the horizontally acquired genes identified in Monosiga were probably acquired from food sources, rather than by endosymbiotic gene transfer (EGT) from obsolete endosymbionts or plastids. Of 193 genes identified in our analyses with functional information, 84 (43.5%) are involved in carbohydrate or amino acid metabolism, and 45 (23.3%) are transporters and/or involved in response to oxidative, osmotic, antibiotic, or heavy metal stresses. Some identified genes may also participate in biosynthesis of important metabolites such as vitamins C and K12, porphyrins and phospholipids. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that HGT is frequent in Monosiga brevicollis and might have contributed substantially to its adaptation and evolution. This finding also highlights the importance of HGT in the genome and organismal evolution of phagotrophic eukaryotes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-14-729) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4046809 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-40468092014-06-06 The scale and evolutionary significance of horizontal gene transfer in the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis Yue, Jipei Sun, Guiling Hu, Xiangyang Huang, Jinling BMC Genomics Research Article BACKGROUND: It is generally agreed that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is common in phagotrophic protists. However, the overall scale of HGT and the cumulative impact of acquired genes on the evolution of these organisms remain largely unknown. RESULTS: Choanoflagellates are phagotrophs and the closest living relatives of animals. In this study, we performed phylogenomic analyses to investigate the scale of HGT and the evolutionary importance of horizontally acquired genes in the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis. Our analyses identified 405 genes that are likely derived from algae and prokaryotes, accounting for approximately 4.4% of the Monosiga nuclear genome. Many of the horizontally acquired genes identified in Monosiga were probably acquired from food sources, rather than by endosymbiotic gene transfer (EGT) from obsolete endosymbionts or plastids. Of 193 genes identified in our analyses with functional information, 84 (43.5%) are involved in carbohydrate or amino acid metabolism, and 45 (23.3%) are transporters and/or involved in response to oxidative, osmotic, antibiotic, or heavy metal stresses. Some identified genes may also participate in biosynthesis of important metabolites such as vitamins C and K12, porphyrins and phospholipids. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that HGT is frequent in Monosiga brevicollis and might have contributed substantially to its adaptation and evolution. This finding also highlights the importance of HGT in the genome and organismal evolution of phagotrophic eukaryotes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-14-729) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2013-10-25 /pmc/articles/PMC4046809/ /pubmed/24156600 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-14-729 Text en © Yue et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Yue, Jipei Sun, Guiling Hu, Xiangyang Huang, Jinling The scale and evolutionary significance of horizontal gene transfer in the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis |
title | The scale and evolutionary significance of horizontal gene transfer in the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis |
title_full | The scale and evolutionary significance of horizontal gene transfer in the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis |
title_fullStr | The scale and evolutionary significance of horizontal gene transfer in the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis |
title_full_unstemmed | The scale and evolutionary significance of horizontal gene transfer in the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis |
title_short | The scale and evolutionary significance of horizontal gene transfer in the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis |
title_sort | scale and evolutionary significance of horizontal gene transfer in the choanoflagellate monosiga brevicollis |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4046809/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24156600 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-14-729 |
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