Life Sciences Commons^™

The Interrelationships Of Placental Mammals And The Limits Of Phylogenetic Inference, James E. Tarver, Mario Dos Reis, Siavash Mirarab, Raymond J. J. Moran, Sean Parker, Joseph E. O'Reilly, Benjamin L. King, Mary J. O'Connell, Robert J. Asher, Tandy Warnow, Kevin J. Peterson, Philip C.J. Donoghue, Davide Pisani

Dartmouth Scholarship

Placental mammals comprise three principal clades: Afrotheria (e.g., elephants and tenrecs), Xenarthra (e.g., armadillos and sloths), and Boreoeutheria (all other placental mammals), the relationships among which are the subject of controversy and a touchstone for debate on the limits of phylogenetic inference. Previous analyses have found support for all three hypotheses, leading some to conclude that this phylogenetic problem might be impossible to resolve due to the compounded effects of incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) and a rapid radiation. Here we show, using a genome scale nucleotide data set, microRNAs, and the reanalysis of the three largest previously published amino acid …

Genes With A Large Intronic Burden Show Greater Evolutionary Conservation On The Protein Level, Olga Gorlova, Alexey Fedorov, Christopher Logothetis, Christopher Amos, Ivan Gorlov

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: The existence of introns in eukaryotic genes is believed to provide an evolutionary advantage by increasing protein diversity through exon shuffling and alternative splicing. However, this eukaryotic feature is associated with the necessity of exclusion of intronic sequences, which requires considerable energy expenditure and can lead to splicing errors. The relationship between intronic burden and evolution is poorly understood. The goal of this study was to analyze the relationship between the intronic burden and the level of evolutionary conservation of the gene. Results: We found a positive correlation between the level of evolutionary conservation of a gene and its …

X-Linked Mtmr8 Diversity And Evolutionary History Of Sub-Saharan Populations, Damian Labuda, Vania Yotova, Jean-François Lefebvre, Claudia Moreau, Gerd Utermann, Scott M. Williams

Dartmouth Scholarship

The genetic diversity within an 11 kb segment of the MTMR8 gene in a sample of 111 sub-Saharan and 49 non-African X chromosomes was investigated to assess the early evolutionary history of sub-Saharan Africans and the out-of-Africa expansion. The analyses revealed a complex genetic structure of the Africans that contributed to the emergence of modern humans. We observed partitioning of two thirds of old lineages among southern, west/central and east African populations indicating ancient population stratification predating the out of Africa migration. Age estimates of these lineages, older than coalescence times of uniparentally inherited markers, raise the question whether contemporary …

Lafora Disease E3-Ubiquitin Ligase Malin Is Related To Trim32 At Both The Phylogenetic And Functional Level, Carlos Romá-Mateo, Daniel Moreno, Santiago Vernia, Teresa Rubio, Travis M. Bridges, Matthew S. Gentry, Pascual Sanz

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Malin is an E3-ubiquitin ligase that is mutated in Lafora disease, a fatal form of progressive myoclonus epilepsy. In order to perform its function, malin forms a functional complex with laforin, a glucan phosphatase that facilitates targeting of malin to its corresponding substrates. While laforin phylogeny has been studied, there are no data on the evolutionary lineage of malin.

RESULTS: After an extensive search for malin orthologs, we found that malin is present in all vertebrate species and a cephalochordate, in contrast with the broader species distribution previously reported for laforin. These data suggest that in addition to forming …