Large-scale phylogenomic analyses reveal that two enigmatic protist lineages, telonemia and centroheliozoa, are related to photosynthetic chromalveolates.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the early evolution and diversification of eukaryotes relies on a fully resolved phylogenetic tree. In recent years, most eukaryotic diversity has been assigned to six putative supergroups, but the evolutionary origin of a few major "orphan" lineages remains elusive. Two ecologically important orphan groups are the heterotrophic Telonemia and Centroheliozoa. Telonemids have been proposed to be related to the photosynthetic cryptomonads or stramenopiles and centrohelids to haptophytes, but molecular phylogenies have failed to provide strong support for any phylogenetic hypothesis. Here, we investigate the origins of Telonema subtilis (a telonemid) and Raphidiophrys contractilis (a centrohelid) by large-scale 454 pyrosequencing of cDNA libraries and including new genomic data f

SUBMITTER: Burki F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2817417 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature