The molecular evolution of cytochrome c in eukaryotes

Direct tests of cytochrome c and c1 functions in the electron transport chain of malaria parasites

The mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) of Plasmodium malaria parasites is a major antimalarial drug target, but critical cytochrome (cyt) functions remain unstudied and enigmatic. Parasites express two distinct cyt c homologs (c and c-2) with unusually sparse sequence identity and uncertain fitness contributions. P. falciparum cyt c-2 is the most divergent eukaryotic cyt c homolog currently known and has sequence features predicted to be incompatible with canonical ETC function. We tagged both cyt c homologs and the related cyt c1 for inducible knockdown. Translational repression of cyt c and cyt c1 was lethal to parasites, which died from ETC dysfunction and impaired ubiquinone recycling. In contrast, cyt c-2 knockdown or knockout had little impact on blood-stage growth, indicating that parasites rely fully on the more conserved cyt c for ETC function. Biochemical and structural studies revealed that both cyt c and c-2 are hemylated by holocytochrome c synthase, but UV-vis absorbance and EPR spectra strongly suggest that cyt c-2 has an unusually open active site in which heme is stably coordinated by only a single axial amino acid ligand and can bind exogenous small molecules. These studies provide a direct dissection of cytochrome functions in the ETC of malaria parasites and identify a highly divergent Plasmodium cytochrome c with molecular adaptations that defy a conserved role in eukaryotic evolution.

Direct Tests of Cytochrome Function in the Electron Transport Chain of Malaria Parasites

The mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) of Plasmodium malaria parasites is a major antimalarial drug target, but critical cytochrome functions remain unstudied and enigmatic. Parasites express two distinct cyt c homologs ( c and c -2) with unusually sparse sequence identity and uncertain fitness contributions. P. falciparum cyt c -2 is the most divergent eukaryotic cyt c homolog currently known and has sequence features predicted to be incompatible with canonical ETC function. We tagged both cyt c homologs and the related cyt c ₁ for inducible knockdown. Translational repression of cyt c and cyt c ₁ was lethal to parasites, which died from ETC dysfunction and impaired ubiquinone recycling. In contrast, cyt c -2 knockdown or knock-out had little impact on blood-stage growth, indicating that parasites rely fully on the more conserved cyt c for ETC function. Biochemical and structural studies revealed that both cyt c and c -2 are hemylated by holocytochrome c synthase, but UV-vis absorbance and EPR spectra strongly suggest that cyt c -2 has an unusually open active site in which heme is stably coordinated by only a single axial amino-acid ligand and can bind exogenous small molecules. These studies provide a direct dissection of cytochrome functions in the ETC of malaria parasites and identify a highly divergent Plasmodium cytochrome c with molecular adaptations that defy a conserved role in eukaryotic evolution.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT

Mitochondria are critical organelles in eukaryotic cells that drive oxidative metabolism. The mitochondrion of Plasmodium malaria parasites is a major drug target that has many differences from human cells and remains poorly studied. One key difference from humans is that malaria parasites express two cytochrome c proteins that differ significantly from each other and play untested and uncertain roles in the mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC). Our study revealed that one cyt c is essential for ETC function and parasite viability while the second, more divergent protein has unusual structural and biochemical properties and is not required for growth of blood-stage parasites. This work elucidates key biochemical properties and evolutionary differences in the mitochondrial ETC of malaria parasites.

Advances in Time Estimation Methods for Molecular Data

Molecular dating has become central to placing a temporal dimension on the tree of life. Methods for estimating divergence times have been developed for over 50 years, beginning with the proposal of molecular clock in 1962. We categorize the chronological development of these methods into four generations based on the timing of their origin. In the first generation approaches (1960s-1980s), a strict molecular clock was assumed to date divergences. In the second generation approaches (1990s), the equality of evolutionary rates between species was first tested and then a strict molecular clock applied to estimate divergence times. The third generation approaches (since ∼2000) account for differences in evolutionary rates across the tree by using a statistical model, obviating the need to assume a clock or to test the equality of evolutionary rates among species. Bayesian methods in the third generation require a specific or uniform prior on the speciation-process and enable the inclusion of uncertainty in clock calibrations. The fourth generation approaches (since 2012) allow rates to vary from branch to branch, but do not need prior selection of a statistical model to describe the rate variation or the specification of speciation model. With high accuracy, comparable to Bayesian approaches, and speeds that are orders of magnitude faster, fourth generation methods are able to produce reliable timetrees of thousands of species using genome scale data. We found that early time estimates from second generation studies are similar to those of third and fourth generation studies, indicating that methodological advances have not fundamentally altered the timetree of life, but rather have facilitated time estimation by enabling the inclusion of more species. Nonetheless, we feel an urgent need for testing the accuracy and precision of third and fourth generation methods, including their robustness to misspecification of priors in the analysis of large phylogenies and data sets.

Effect of an Ala81His mutation on the Met80 loop dynamics of iso-1-cytochrome c

An A81H variant of yeast iso-1-cytochrome c is prepared to test the hypothesis that the steric size of the amino acid at sequence position 81 of cytochrome c, which has evolved from Ala in yeast to Ile in mammals, slows the dynamics of the opening of the heme crevice. The A81H mutation is used both to increase steric size and to provide a probe of the dynamics of the heme crevice through measurement of the thermodynamics and kinetics of the His81-mediated alkaline conformational transition of A81H iso-1-cytochrome c. Thermodynamic measurements show that the native conformer is more stable than the His81-heme alkaline conformer for A81H iso-1-cytochrome c. ΔGu°(H2O) is approximately 1.9 kcal/mol for formation of the His81-heme alkaline conformer. By contrast, for K79H iso-1-cytochrome c, the native conformer is less stable than the His79-heme alkaline conformer. ΔGu°(H2O) is approximately -0.34 kcal/mol for formation of the His79-heme alkaline conformer. pH jump and gated electron transfer kinetics demonstrate that this stabilization of the native conformer in A81H iso-1-cytochrome c arises primarily from a decrease in the rate constant for formation of the His81-heme alkaline conformer, kf,His81, relative to kf,His79 for formation of the His79-heme alkaline conformer, which forms by a mechanism similar to that observed for the His81-heme alkaline conformer. The result is discussed in terms of the effect of global protein stability on protein dynamics and in terms of optimization of the sequence of cytochrome c for its role as a peroxidase in the early stages of apoptosis in higher eukaryotes.

Structure of a mitochondrial cytochrome c conformer competent for peroxidase activity

At the onset of apoptosis, the peroxidation of cardiolipin at the inner mitochondrial membrane by cytochrome c requires an open coordination site on the heme. We report a 1.45-Å resolution structure of yeast iso-1-cytochrome c with the Met80 heme ligand swung out of the heme crevice and replaced by a water molecule. This conformational change requires modest adjustments to the main chain of the heme crevice loop and is facilitated by a trimethyllysine 72-to-alanine mutation. This mutation also enhances the peroxidase activity of iso-1-cytochrome c. The structure shows a buried water channel capable of facilitating peroxide access to the active site and of moving protons produced during peroxidase activity to the protein surface. Alternate positions of the side chain of Arg38 appear to mediate opening and closing of the buried water channel. In addition, two buried water molecules can adopt alternate positions that change the network of hydrogen bonds in the buried water channel. Taken together, these observations suggest that low and high proton conductivity states may mediate peroxidase function. Comparison of yeast and mammalian cytochrome c sequences, in the context of the steric factors that permit opening of the heme crevice, suggests that higher organisms have evolved to inhibit peroxidase activity, providing a more stringent barrier to the onset of apoptosis.

The evolution of evolvability in microRNA target sites in vertebrates

The lack of long-term evolutionary conservation of microRNA (miRNA) target sites appears to contradict many analyses of their functions. Several hypotheses have been offered, but an attractive one—that the conservation may be a function of taxonomic hierarchy (vertebrates, mammals, primates, etc.)—has rarely been discussed. For such an analysis, we cannot use evolutionary conservation as a criterion of target identification, and hence, have used high confidence target sites in the cross-linking immunoprecipitation (CLIP) data. Assuming that a proportion, p, of target sites in the CLIP data are conserved, we define the evolvability of miRNA targets as 1-p. Genomic data from vertebrate species show that the evolvability between human and fish is very high, at more than 90%. The evolvability decreases to 50% between birds and mammals, 20% among mammalian orders, and only 6% between human and chimpanzee. Within each taxonomic hierarchy, there is a set of targets that are conserved only at that level of evolution. Extrapolating the evolutionary trend, we find the evolvability in any single species to be close to 0%. Thus, all miRNA target sites identified by the CLIP method are evolutionarily conserved in one species, but the conservation is lost step by step in larger taxonomic groups. The changing evolvability of miRNA targets suggests that miRNA-target interactions may play a role in the evolution of organismal diversity.

Classification of methanogenic bacteria by 16S ribosomal RNA characterization

The 16S ribosomal RNAs from 10 species of methanogenic bacteria have been characterized in terms of the oligonucleotides produced by T(1) RNase digestion. Comparative analysis of these data reveals the methanogens to constitute a distinct phylogenetic group containing two major divisions. These organisms appear to be only distantly related to typical bacteria.

General heterotachy and distance method adjustments

Heterotachy is a general term to describe positions in a sequence that evolve at different rates in different lineages. Kolaczkowski and Thornton (2004. Performance of maximum parsimony and likelihood phylogenetics when evolution is heterogeneous. Nature 431:980-984.) recently described an intriguing heterotachy model that leads to topological bias for likelihood-based methods and parsimony methods. In this article, we show that heterotachy can generally be viewed as multivariate rates-across-sites variation, which can be described as randomly drawing rates (or branch lengths) from a multivariate distribution for each branch at each site. Motivated by this idea, we propose a pairwise alpha heterotachy adjustment model, which gives us much improved topological estimation in the settings by Kolaczkowski and Thornton (2004).

A mixed branch length model of heterotachy improves phylogenetic accuracy

Evolutionary relationships are typically inferred from molecular sequence data using a statistical model of the evolutionary process. When the model accurately reflects the underlying process, probabilistic phylogenetic methods recover the correct relationships with high accuracy. There is ample evidence, however, that models commonly used today do not adequately reflect real-world evolutionary dynamics. Virtually all contemporary models assume that relatively fast-evolving sites are fast across the entire tree, whereas slower sites always evolve at relatively slower rates. Many molecular sequences, however, exhibit site-specific changes in evolutionary rates, called "heterotachy." Here we examine the accuracy of 2 phylogenetic methods for incorporating heterotachy, the mixed branch length model--which incorporates site-specific rate changes by summing likelihoods over multiple sets of branch lengths on the same tree--and the covarion model, which uses a hidden Markov process to allow sites to switch between variable and invariable as they evolve. Under a variety of simple heterogeneous simulation conditions, the mixed model was dramatically more accurate than homotachous models, which were subject to topological biases as well as biases in branch length estimates. When data were simulated with strong versions of the types of heterotachy observed in real molecular sequences, the mixed branch length model was more accurate than homotachous techniques. Analyses of empirical data sets confirmed that the mixed branch length model can improve phylogenetic accuracy under conditions that cause homotachous models to fail. In contrast, the covarion model did not improve phylogenetic accuracy compared with homotachous models and was sometimes substantially less accurate. We conclude that a mixed branch length approach, although not the solution to all phylogenetic errors, is a valuable strategy for improving the accuracy of inferred trees.

Homoplasy in genome-wide analysis of rare amino acid replacements: the molecular-evolutionary basis for Vavilov's law of homologous series

BACKGROUND

Rare genomic changes (RGCs) that are thought to comprise derived shared characters of individual clades are becoming an increasingly important class of markers in genome-wide phylogenetic studies. Recently, we proposed a new type of RGCs designated RGC_CAMs (after Conserved Amino acids-Multiple substitutions) that were inferred using genome-wide identification of amino acid replacements that were: i) located in unambiguously aligned regions of orthologous genes, ii) shared by two or more taxa in positions that contain a different, conserved amino acid in a much broader range of taxa, and iii) require two or three nucleotide substitutions. When applied to animal phylogeny, the RGC_CAM approach supported the coelomate clade that unites deuterostomes with arthropods as opposed to the ecdysozoan (molting animals) clade. However, a non-negligible level of homoplasy was detected.

RESULTS

We provide a direct estimate of the level of homoplasy caused by parallel changes and reversals among the RGC_CAMs using 462 alignments of orthologous genes from 19 eukaryotic species. It is shown that the impact of parallel changes and reversals on the results of phylogenetic inference using RGC_CAMs cannot explain the observed support for the Coelomata clade. In contrast, the evidence in support of the Ecdysozoa clade, in large part, can be attributed to parallel changes. It is demonstrated that parallel changes are significantly more common in internal branches of different subtrees that are separated from the respective common ancestor by relatively short times than in terminal branches separated by longer time intervals. A similar but much weaker trend was detected for reversals. The observed evolutionary trend of parallel changes is explained in terms of the covarion model of molecular evolution. As the overlap between the covarion sets in orthologous genes from different lineages decreases with time after divergence, the likelihood of parallel changes decreases as well.

CONCLUSION

The level of homoplasy observed here appears to be low enough to justify the utility of RGC_CAMs and other types of RGCs for resolution of hard problems in phylogeny. Parallel changes, one of the major classes of events leading to homoplasy, occur much more often in relatively recently diverged lineages than in those separated from their last common ancestor by longer time intervals of time. This pattern seems to provide the molecular-evolutionary underpinning of Vavilov's law of homologous series and is readily interpreted within the framework of the covarion model of molecular evolution.

Evolution of protein lipograms: A bioinformatics problem

A protein lacking one of the 20 common amino acids is a protein lipogram. This open-ended problem-based learning assignment deals with the evolution of proteins with biased amino acid composition. It has students query protein and metabolic databases to test the hypothesis that natural selection has reduced the frequency of each amino acid specifically in the enzymes required for its biosynthesis. Student groups work in parallel on different amino acids and share strategies. Aside from content objectives that integrate knowledge of protein structure, function, synthesis, and evolution, this problem incorporates oral and written presentations, statistical analysis, and substantial decision making. The point of the problem described here is that a deficiency or absence of a particular amino acid in a protein may be more than a chance occurrence and may be driven by natural selection. The challenge is to demonstrate the difference.

Monophyly of Primary Photosynthetic Eukaryotes: Green Plants, Red Algae, and Glaucophytes

Between 1 and 1.5 billion years ago, eukaryotic organisms acquired the ability to convert light into chemical energy through endosymbiosis with a Cyanobacterium (e.g.,). This event gave rise to "primary" plastids, which are present in green plants, red algae, and glaucophytes ("Plantae" sensu Cavalier-Smith). The widely accepted view that primary plastids arose only once implies two predictions: (1) all plastids form a monophyletic group, as do (2) primary photosynthetic eukaryotes. Nonetheless, unequivocal support for both predictions is lacking (e.g.,). In this report, we present two phylogenomic analyses, with 50 genes from 16 plastid and 15 cyanobacterial genomes and with 143 nuclear genes from 34 eukaryotic species, respectively. The nuclear dataset includes new sequences from glaucophytes, the less-studied group of primary photosynthetic eukaryotes. We find significant support for both predictions. Taken together, our analyses provide the first strong support for a single endosymbiotic event that gave rise to primary photosynthetic eukaryotes, the Plantae. Because our dataset does not cover the entire eukaryotic diversity (but only four of six major groups in), further testing of the monophyly of Plantae should include representatives from eukaryotic lineages for which currently insufficient sequence information is available.

Performance of maximum parsimony and likelihood phylogenetics when evolution is heterogeneous

All inferences in comparative biology depend on accurate estimates of evolutionary relationships. Recent phylogenetic analyses have turned away from maximum parsimony towards the probabilistic techniques of maximum likelihood and bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (BMCMC). These probabilistic techniques represent a parametric approach to statistical phylogenetics, because their criterion for evaluating a topology--the probability of the data, given the tree--is calculated with reference to an explicit evolutionary model from which the data are assumed to be identically distributed. Maximum parsimony can be considered nonparametric, because trees are evaluated on the basis of a general metric--the minimum number of character state changes required to generate the data on a given tree--without assuming a specific distribution. The shift to parametric methods was spurred, in large part, by studies showing that although both approaches perform well most of the time, maximum parsimony is strongly biased towards recovering an incorrect tree under certain combinations of branch lengths, whereas maximum likelihood is not. All these evaluations simulated sequences by a largely homogeneous evolutionary process in which data are identically distributed. There is ample evidence, however, that real-world gene sequences evolve heterogeneously and are not identically distributed. Here we show that maximum likelihood and BMCMC can become strongly biased and statistically inconsistent when the rates at which sequence sites evolve change non-identically over time. Maximum parsimony performs substantially better than current parametric methods over a wide range of conditions tested, including moderate heterogeneity and phylogenetic problems not normally considered difficult.

Presence of the delta-MSH sequence in a proopiomelanocortin cDNA cloned from the pituitary of the galeoid shark, Heterodontus portusjacksoni

Since a fourth MSH sequence, delta-MSH, has been detected in the proopiomelanocortin (POMC) gene of a dogfish and a stingray, members of superorder Squalea (class Chondrichthyes), it is possible that this novel MSH sequence might be a feature common to the POMC genes of all modern sharks and rays. As an initial step towards addressing this question, a full-length POMC cDNA was cloned and sequenced from the pituitary of the Port Jackson shark, Heterodontus portusjacksoni. The Port Jackson shark represents one of the oldest lineages in superorder Galea, and this superorder together with superorder Squalea form infraclass Neoselachii (the extant sharks and rays). The Port Jackson shark POMC cDNA has an open reading frame that is 1032 nucleotides in length and encodes the deduced amino acids sequences for beta-endorphin, ACTH/alpha-MSH, beta-MSH, gamma-MSH, and delta-MSH. Port Jackson shark delta-MSH has 83% primary sequence identity with dogfish and stingray delta-MSH, and it appears that the delta-MSH sequence may have been the result of an internal domain duplication and reinsertion of the beta-MSH sequence. The presence of the delta-MSH sequence in the POMC genes of representatives of both superorders of infraclass Neoselachii would indicate that the delta-MSH sequence must have been present in the ancestral euselachian shark that gave rise to the neoselachian radiation.

Solution structure of a monoheme ferrocytochrome c from Shewanella putrefaciens and structural analysis of sequence-similar proteins: functional implications

Within the frame of the characterization of the structure and function of cytochromes c, an 81-amino acid cytochrome c was identified in the genome of Shewanella putrefaciens. Because of the scarce information about bacterial cytochromes of this type and the large variability in sequences and possibly function, we decided to proceed to its structural characterization. This protein was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified. The oxidized species is largely high spin, with a detached methionine, whereas the reduced species has the classical His/Met axial ligation to iron. The NMR solution structure of the reduced form was determined on a (15)N-labeled sample, for which 99% of all non-proline backbone (1)H and (15)N resonances have been assigned. One thousand three hundred two meaningful NOEs, out of 1775 NOEs, together with 66 dihedral angles provide a structure with rmsd values from the mean of 0.50 and 0.96 A for backbone and all heavy atoms, respectively. A search of gene banks allowed us to locate 10 different cytochromes c, the sequences of which are more than 30% identical to that of the S. putrefacienscytochrome. For two of them, the structures are known. The structures of the others have been modeled by using the available templates and internally validated. Structural similarities in terms of surface properties account for their biophysical features and provide hints about the function.

Polymorphism identification within 50 equine gene-specific sequence tagged sites

The continued discovery of polymorphisms in the equine genome will be important for future studies using genomic screens and fine mapping for the identification of disease genes. Segments of 50 equine genes were examined for variability in 10 different horse breeds using a pool-and-sequence method. We identified 11 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 9380 bp of sequenced exon, and 25 SNPs, six microsatellites, and one insertion/deletion in 16961 bp of sequenced intron. Of all genes studied 52% contained at least one polymorphism, and polymorphisms were found at an overall rate of 1/613 bp. Several of the putative SNPs were tested and verified by restriction enzyme analysis using natural restriction sites or ones created by primer mutagenesis. The lowest allele frequency for a SNP detected in pooled samples was 10%. Three of the SNPs verified in the diverse horse pool were further tested in six breed-specific horse pools and were found to be reasonably variable within breeds. The pool-and-sequence method allows identification of polymorphisms in horse populations and will be a valuable tool for future disease gene and comparative mapping in horses.

Role of heme in structural organization of cytochrome c probed by semisynthesis

The heme prosthetic group of cytochrome c is covalently attached to the protein through thioether bonds to two cysteine side chains. The role of covalent heme attachment to cytochrome c is not understood, and most heme proteins bind the prosthetic group by iron ion ligation and tertiary interactions only. A two-armed attachment seems redundant if the role of covalent connection is to limit heme group orientation or to decouple heme affinity from redox potential. These considerations suggested that one role for covalent attachment of the rigid planar heme might be in organizing the cytochrome c protein structure. Indeed, porphyrin cytochrome c (in which the heme iron ion has been removed) is substantially more ordered than apocytochrome c, having characteristics consistent with a molten globule state. To assess the importance of planar rigidity in ordering this protein, semisynthesis was used to substitute porphyrin by two hydrophobic surrogates, one based on biphenyl and the other on phenanthrene, which have different degrees of planarity and rigidity. The expected two-armed covalent attachment of each surrogate was confirmed in the protein products by a variety of methods including mass spectrometry and NMR. Despite being only about half the size of the porphyrin macrocycle, and lacking any possibility for ligation or polar group interactions with the surrounding protein, the two surrogates confer helix contents that are comparable to that of the molten globule formed by porphyrin cytochrome c under similar solution conditions. The pH titrations of the derivatives monitored by circular dichroism exhibit reversible, bell-shaped folding and unfolding transitions, implying that charge group interactions in the protein are involved in stabilizing the helical structures formed. The thermal transitions of the two derivatives at neutral pH are cooperative, with similar midpoints. The similarity of helical content and structural stability in the two derivatives indicates that the increase in conformational freedom by the biphenyl surrogate does not substantially reduce protein structural stability. The similarity of the two derivatives to porphyrin cytochrome c suggests that the common feature among the three covalently attached groups-their hydrophobicity-is by far the dominant factor in organizing stable structures in the protein.

A new clustering system for protein sequences and its application to constraints discovery in protein evolution

A conceptual clustering system, CLUSMOL/S, has been developed to classify protein sequences from a user-defined point of view. Given a grouping of amino acids as a viewpoint, the system constructs taxonomic trees of sequences based on minimum information criterion. Every tree node expresses itself as a generic consensus sequence that consists of specific consensus amino acids insertion/deletion points, and generic amino acids with a specified character. The resulting tree and generic sequences show the similarity-based relationships among sequences and their characteristics. Application to vertebrate cytochromes c yields an acceptable cladrogram only when amino acids are grouped by volume and length of sidechains. The result indicates that the steric factor is the most important constraint in the process of protein evolution.

Dollo's law and the death and resurrection of genes

Dollo's law, the concept that evolution is not substantively reversible, implies that the degradation of genetic information is sufficiently fast that genes or developmental pathways released from selective pressure will rapidly become nonfunctional. Using empirical data to assess the rate of loss of coding information in genes for proteins with varying degrees of tolerance to mutational change, we show that, in fact, there is a significant probability over evolutionary time scales of 0.5-6 million years for successful reactivation of silenced genes or "lost" developmental programs. Conversely, the reactivation of long (> 10 million years)-unexpressed genes and dormant developmental pathways is not possible unless function is maintained by other selective constraints; the classic example of the resurrection of "hen's teeth" is most likely an experimental artifact, and the experimental reactivation of the Archaeopteryx limb developmental program has been shown to be a misinterpretation. For groups undergoing adaptive radiations, lost features may "flicker" on and off, resulting in a distribution of character states that does not reflect the phylogeny of the group.

The superoxide dismutase molecular clock revisited

The Cu,Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD) was examined earlier and found to behave in a very unclock-like manner despite (accepted point mutation, or PAM) corrections for multiple replacements per site. Depending upon the time span involved, rates could differ 5-fold. We have sought to determine whether the data might be clock-like if a covarion model were used. We first determined that the number of concomitantly variable codons (covarions) in SOD is 28. With that value fixed we found that the observations for SOD could fit reasonably well a molecular clock if, given 28 covarions, (i) there are approximately six replacements every 10 million years, (ii) the total number of codons is 162, (iii) the number of codons that are permanently invariable across the range of taxa from fungi to mammals is 44, and (iv) the persistence of variability is quite low (0.01). Thus, the inconsistent number of amino acid differences between various pairs of descendent sequences could well be the result of a fairly accurate molecular clock. The general conclusion has two sides: (i) the inference that a given gene is a bad clock may sometimes arise through a failure to take all the relevant biology into account and (ii) one should examine the possibility that different subsets of amino acids are evolving at different rates, because otherwise the assumption of a clock may yield erroneous estimates of divergence times on the basis of the observed number of amino acid differences.

Substitution rate variation among sites in hypervariable region 1 of human mitochondrial DNA

More than an order of magnitude difference in substitution rate exists among sites within hypervariable region 1 of the control region of human mitochondrial DNA. A two-rate Poisson mixture and a negative binomial distribution are used to describe the distribution of the inferred number of changes per nucleotide site in this region. When three data sets are pooled, however, the two-rate model cannot explain the data. The negative binomial distribution always fits, suggesting that substitution rates are approximately gamma distributed among sites. Simulations presented here provide support for the use of a biased, yet commonly employed, method of examining rate variation. The use of parsimony in the method to infer the number of changes at each site introduces systematic errors into the analysis. These errors preclude an unbiased quantification of variation in substitution rate but make the method conservative overall. The method can be used to distinguish sites with highly elevated rates, and 29 such sites are identified in hypervariable region 1. Variation does not appear to be clustered within this region. Simulations show that biases in rates of substitution among nucleotides and non-uniform base composition can mimic the effects of variation in rate among sites. However, these factors contribute little to the levels of rate variation observed in hypervariable region 1.

Confidence limits on the branching order of phylogenetic trees

We describe a confidence test for branching order that can aid protein phylogeny reconstruction as well as the evaluation of the optimal tree. It is proposed that the process resulting in the observed amino acid residue differences, which is the basis for the identification of the order and relative times of divergence events, is appropriately described by a modification of the negative binomial distribution. The relative total numbers of mutations (accepted and nonaccepted), which result in a given number of amino acid differences, may be obtained as the expectation of this distribution. The associated variances enable significant differences in tree branching order to be established. If the total rates of mutation of the genes encoding the compared proteins are equal, the expected total mutations and their associated variances map identically to their relative times of divergence. In addition, significantly different rates of change (due to differences in total mutation rate and/or acceptance rate) may be identified without the requirement of outlying reference group. The method is equally applicable to phylogenies derived from DNA or RNA sequence information.

Molecular considerations in the evolution of bacterial genes

Synonymous and nonsynonymous substitution rates at the loci encoding glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (gap) and outer membrane protein 3A (ompA) were examined in 12 species of enteric bacteria. By examining homologous sequences in species of varying degrees of relatedness and of known phylogenetic relationships, we analyzed the patterns of synonymous and nonsynonymous substitutions within and among these genes. Although both loci accumulate synonymous substitutions at reduced rates due to codon usage bias, portions of the gap and ompA reading frames show significant deviation in synonymous substitution rates not attributable to local codon bias. A paucity of synonymous substitutions in portions of the ompA gene may reflect selection for a novel mRNA secondary structure. In addition, these studies allow comparisons of homologous protein-coding sequences (gap) in plants, animals, and bacteria, revealing differences in evolutionary constraints on this glycolytic enzyme in these lineages.

An experimental approach to testing modular evolution: directed replacement of alpha-helices in a bacterial protein

We have used oligonucleotide site-directed mutagenesis to ask whether certain structural motifs in proteins are determined mainly by local interactions among amino acids. Multiple consecutive amino acids in three alpha-helices in the alkaline phosphatase (EC 3.1.3.1) of Escherichia coli have been replaced with helical sequences from four other sources. Altogether, 12 distinct helical replacements were created, 9 of which retain enzymatic activity. Most short stretches of helical sequence can be replaced with unrelated helical sequences without eliminating enzyme activity. Replacements of the carboxyl half of an alpha-helix are less harmful than those of the amino half, and the two together are synergistic rather than additive. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that proteins originally evolved by the assembly of small functional folding units.

The complete nucleotide sequence of the small-subunit ribosomal RNA coding region for the cycad Zamia pumila: phylogenetic implications

The DNA sequence of the small-subunit ribosomal RNA coding region for the cycad Zamia pumila L. was determined. The Zamia small-subunit rRNA was found to be 1813 nucleotides in length and approximately 92% identical to published angiosperm small-subunit rRNA sequences. Conserved regions interspersed with variable regions are observed corresponding to those found in other eukaryotic small-subunit sequences. Using representatives from protist, fungal, plant, and animal groups, a distance matrix was constructed of average nucleotide substitution rates for pairs of organisms. Phylogenetic trees were inferred from similarities between sequences. The sequence of Zamia represents the earliest divergence from the higher plant lineage reported to date for small-subunit rRNA data. Inferred phylogenies also support a monophyletic origin for the angiosperms consistent with studies citing phenotypic characters.

Comparative biochemistry of mammalian arylsulfatases A and B

1. Arylsulfatases A and B occurred as a major anionic and cationic isozyme, respectively, among eleven eutherian mammalian species. 2. Minor anionic arylsulfatase B isozymes were observed in rodents, dog, whale and pig, and were either monomeric (vole, Mr = 67 +/- 2 kDa), an apparent aggregate (dog, whale, pig; Mr = 192 +/- 10 kDa), or both (rat, mouse; monomeric Mr = 57 +/- 2 kDa; apparent dimeric Mr = 114 +/- 3 kDa). 3. Minor cationic arylsulfatase A isozymes were isolated from the deer, whale and pig. 4. Opossum arylsulfatases A and B were both anionic, had similar relative molecular weights, were not inhibited by silver, and were not precipitated by anti-murine arylsulfatase B nor anti-bovine arylsulfatase A IgG preparations.

Accumulation pattern of amino acid substitutions in protein evolution

A simple method for the evolutionary analysis of amino acid sequence data is presented and used to examine whether the number of variable sites (NVS) of a protein is constant during its evolution. The NVSs for hemoglobin and for mitochondrial cytochrome c are each found to be almost constant, and the ratio between the NVSs is close to the ratio between the unit evolutionary periods. This indicates that the substitution rate per variable site is almost uniform for these proteins, as the neutral theory claims. An advantage of the present analysis is that it can be done without knowledge of paleontological divergence times and can be extended to bacterial proteins such as bacterial c-type cytochromes. It is suggested that the NVS of cytochrome c has been almost constant even over the long period (ca. 3.0 billion years) of bacterial evolution but that at least two different substitution rates are necessary to describe the accumulated changes in the sequence. This "two clock" interpretation is consistent with fossil evidence for the appearance times of photosynthetic bacteria and eukaryotes.

Evolutionary diversity of eukaryotic small-subunit rRNA genes

The small-subunit rRNA gene sequences of the flagellated protists Euglena gracilis and Trypanosoma brucei were determined and compared to those of other eukaryotes. A phylogenetic tree was constructed in which the earliest branching among the eukaryotes is represented by E. gracilis. The E. gracilis divergence far antedates a period of massive evolutionary radiation that gave rise to the plants, animals, fungi, and certain groups of protists such as ciliates and the acanthamoebae. The genetic diversity in this collection of eukaryotes is seen to exceed that displayed within either the eubacterial or the archaebacterial lines of descent.

Sequence of the 16S rRNA gene from the thermoacidophilic archaebacterium Sulfolobus solfataricus and its evolutionary implications

The sequence of the small-subunit rRNA from the thermoacidophilic archaebacterium Sulfolobus solfataricus has been determined and compared with its counterparts from halophilic and methanogenic archaebacteria, eukaryotes, and eubacteria. The S. solfataricus sequence is specifically related to those of the other archaebacteria, to the exclusion of the eukaryotic and eubacterial sequences, when examined either by evolutionary distance matrix analyses or by the criterion of minimum change (maximum parsimony). The archaebacterial 16S rRNA sequences all conform to a common secondary structure, with the S. solfataricus structure containing a higher proportion of canonical base pairs and fewer helical irregularities than the rRNAs from the mesophilic archaebacteria. S. solfataricus is unusual in that its 16S rRNA-23S rRNA intergenic spacer lacks a tRNA gene.

Conserved features of eukaryotic hsp70 genes revealed by comparison with the nucleotide sequence of human hsp70

We have determined the nucleotide sequence of the human hsp70 gene and 5' flanking region. The hsp70 gene is transcribed as an uninterrupted primary transcript of 2440 nucleotides composed of a 5' noncoding leader sequence of 212 nucleotides, a 3' noncoding region of 242 nucleotides, and a continuous open reading frame of 1986 nucleotides that encodes a protein with predicted molecular mass of 69,800 daltons. Upstream of the 5' terminus are the canonical TATAAA box, the sequence ATTGG that corresponds in the inverted orientation to the CCAAT motif, and the dyad sequence CTGGAAT/ATTCCCG that shares homology in 12 of 14 positions with the consensus transcription regulatory sequence common to Drosophila heat shock genes. Comparison of the predicted amino acid sequences of human hsp70 with the published sequences of Drosophila hsp70 and Escherichia coli dnaK reveals that human hsp70 is 73% identical to Drosophila hsp70 and 47% identical to E. coli dnaK. Surprisingly, the nucleotide sequences of the human and Drosophila genes are 72% identical and human and E. coli genes are 50% identical, which is more highly conserved than necessary given the degeneracy of the genetic code. The lack of accumulated silent nucleotide substitutions leads us to propose that there may be additional information in the nucleotide sequence of the hsp70 gene or the corresponding mRNA that precludes the maximum divergence allowed in the silent codon positions.

Structure of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe cytochrome c gene

The cytochrome c gene of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe has been cloned by using the Saccharomyces cerevisiae iso-1-cytochrome c gene as a molecular hybridization probe. The DNA sequence and the 5' termini of the mRNA transcripts of the gene have been determined. The DNA sequence has confirmed, with two exceptions, the previously determined protein sequence. The nonrandom distribution of silent third base differences which was observed between the two cytochrome c genes of S. cerevisiae does not extend to the S. pombe cytochrome c gene, suggesting that there are no constraints other than protein function and codon usage which have acted to conserve the cytochrome DNA sequences of the two yeasts. Introduction of the S. pombe cytochrome c gene on a yeast plasmid into a S. cerevisiae mutant which lacked functional cytochrome c transformed that recipient strain for the ability to grow on a nonfermentable carbon source. This implies that the S. pombe cytochrome c gene has all the regulatory signals which are required for its expression in S. cerevisiae, and that none of the amino acid differences between the cytochrome c proteins of the two yeasts has a drastic effect on the function of the protein in vivo.

Structure of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe cytochrome c gene

The cytochrome c gene of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe has been cloned by using the Saccharomyces cerevisiae iso-1-cytochrome c gene as a molecular hybridization probe. The DNA sequence and the 5' termini of the mRNA transcripts of the gene have been determined. The DNA sequence has confirmed, with two exceptions, the previously determined protein sequence. The nonrandom distribution of silent third base differences which was observed between the two cytochrome c genes of S. cerevisiae does not extend to the S. pombe cytochrome c gene, suggesting that there are no constraints other than protein function and codon usage which have acted to conserve the cytochrome DNA sequences of the two yeasts. Introduction of the S. pombe cytochrome c gene on a yeast plasmid into a S. cerevisiae mutant which lacked functional cytochrome c transformed that recipient strain for the ability to grow on a nonfermentable carbon source. This implies that the S. pombe cytochrome c gene has all the regulatory signals which are required for its expression in S. cerevisiae, and that none of the amino acid differences between the cytochrome c proteins of the two yeasts has a drastic effect on the function of the protein in vivo.

An evaluation of the phylogenetic position of the dinoflagellate Crypthecodinium cohnii based on 5S rRNA characterization

Partial nucleotide sequences for the 5S and 5.8S rRNAs from the dinoflagellate Crypthecodinium cohnii have been determined, using a rapid chemical sequencing method, for the purpose of studying dinoflagellate phylogeny. The 5S RNA sequence shows the most homology (75%) with the 5S sequences of higher animals and the least homology (less than 60%) with prokaryotic sequences. In addition, it lacks certain residues which are highly conserved in prokaryotic molecules but are generally missing in eukaryotes. These findings suggest a distant relationship between dinoflagellates and the prokaryotes. Using two different sequence alignments and several different methods for selecting an optimum phylogenetic tree for selecting an optimum phylogenetic tree for a collection of 5S sequences including higher plants and animals, fungi, and bacteria in addition to the C. cohnii sequence, the dinoflagellate lineage was joined to the tree at the point of the plant-animal divergence well above the branching point of the fungi. This result is of interest because it implies that the well-documented absence in dinoflagellates of histones and the typical nucleosomal subunit structure of eukaryotic chromatin is the result of secondary loss, and not an indication of an extremely primitive state, as was previously suggested. Computer simulations of 5S RNA evolution have been carried out in order to demonstrate that the above-mentioned phylogenetic placement is not likely to be the result of random sequence convergence. We have also constructed a phylogeny for 5.8S RNA sequences in which plants, animals, fungi and the dinoflagellates are again represented. While the order of branching on this tree is the same as in the 5S tree for the organisms represented, because it lacks prokaryotes, the 5.8S tree cannot be considered a strong independent confirmation of the 5S result. Moreover, 5.8S RNA appears to have experienced very different rates of evolution in different lineages indicating that it may not be the best indicator of evolutionary relationships. We have also considered the existing biological data regarding dinoflagellate evolution in relation to our molecular phylogenetic evidence.

The estimation of genetic divergence

We have independently repeated the computer simulations on which Nei and Tateno (1978) base their criticism of REH theory and have extended the analysis to include mRNAs as well as proteins. The simulation data confirm the correctness of the REH method. The high average value of the fixation intensity mu 2 found by Nei and Tateno is due to two factors: 1) they reported only the five replications in which mu 2 was high, excluding the forty-five replications containing the more representative data; and 2) the lack of information, inherent to protein sequence data, about fixed mutations at the third nucleotide position within codons, as the values are lower when the estimate is made from the mRNAs that code for the proteins. REH values calculated from protein or nucleic acid data on the basis of the equiprobability of genetic events underestimate, not overestimate, the total fixed mutations. In REH theory the experimental data determine the estimate T2 of the time average number of codons that have been free to fix mutations during a given period of divergence. In the method of Nei and Tateno it is assumed, despite evidence to the contrary, that every amino acid position may fix a mutation. Under the latter assumption, the measure X2 of genetic divergence suggested by Nei and Tateno is not tenable: values of X2 for a alpha hemoglobin divergences are less than the minimum number of fixed substitutions known to have occurred. Within the context of REH theory, a paradox, first posed by Zuckerkandl, with respect to the high rate of covarion turnover and the nature of general function sites in proteins is resolved.

A graph theoretic approach to the development of minimal phylogenetic trees

The problem of determining the minimal phylogenetic tree is discussed in relation to graph theory. It is shown that this problem is an example of the Steiner problem in graphs which is to connect a set of points by a minimal length network where new points can be added. There is no reported method of solving realistically-sized Steiner problems in reasonable computing time. A heuristic method of approaching the phylogenetic problem is presented, together with a worked example with 7 mammalian cytochrome c sequences. It is shown in this case that the method develops a phylogenetic tree that has the smallest possible number of amino acid replacements. The potential and limitations of the method are discussed. It is stressed that objective methods must be used for comparing different trees. In particular it should be determined how close a given tree is to a mathematically determined lower bound. A theorem is proved which is used to establish a lower bound on the lenghtof any tree and if a tree is found with a length equal to the lower bound, then no shorter tree can exist.