An exceptional horizontal gene transfer in plastids: gene replacement by a distant bacterial paralog and evidence that haptophyte and cryptophyte plastids are sisters.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) to the plant mitochondrial genome has recently been shown to occur at a surprisingly high rate; however, little evidence has been found for HGT to the plastid genome, despite extensive sequencing. In this study, we analyzed all genes from sequenced plastid genomes to unearth any neglected cases of HGT and to obtain a measure of the overall extent of HGT to the plastid.

Results

Although several genes gave strongly supported conflicting trees under certain conditions, we are confident of HGT in only a single case beyond the rubisco HGT already reported. Most of the conflicts involved near neighbors connected by long branches (e.g. red algae and their secondary hosts), where phylogenetic methods are prone to mislead. However, three gene

SUBMITTER: Rice DW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1570145 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature