Gene tree and species tree reconciliation with endosymbiotic gene transfer

Predicting horizontal gene transfers with perfect transfer networks

BACKGROUND

Horizontal gene transfer inference approaches are usually based on gene sequences: parametric methods search for patterns that deviate from a particular genomic signature, while phylogenetic methods use sequences to reconstruct the gene and species trees. However, it is well-known that sequences have difficulty identifying ancient transfers since mutations have enough time to erase all evidence of such events. In this work, we ask whether character-based methods can predict gene transfers. Their advantage over sequences is that homologous genes can have low DNA similarity, but still have retained enough important common motifs that allow them to have common character traits, for instance the same functional or expression profile. A phylogeny that has two separate clades that acquired the same character independently might indicate the presence of a transfer even in the absence of sequence similarity.

OUR CONTRIBUTIONS

We introduce perfect transfer networks, which are phylogenetic networks that can explain the character diversity of a set of taxa under the assumption that characters have unique births, and that once a character is gained it is rarely lost. Examples of such traits include transposable elements, biochemical markers and emergence of organelles, just to name a few. We study the differences between our model and two similar models: perfect phylogenetic networks and ancestral recombination networks. Our goals are to initiate a study on the structural and algorithmic properties of perfect transfer networks. We then show that in polynomial time, one can decide whether a given network is a valid explanation for a set of taxa, and show how, for a given tree, one can add transfer edges to it so that it explains a set of taxa. We finally provide lower and upper bounds on the number of transfers required to explain a set of taxa, in the worst case.

On the complexity of non-binary tree reconciliation with endosymbiotic gene transfer

Reconciling a non-binary gene tree with a binary species tree can be done efficiently in the absence of horizontal gene transfers, but becomes NP-hard in the presence of gene transfers. Here, we focus on the special case of endosymbiotic gene transfers (EGT), i.e. transfers between the mitochondrial and nuclear genome of the same species. More precisely, given a multifurcated (non-binary) gene tree with leaves labeled 0 or 1 depending on whether the corresponding genes belong to the mitochondrial or nuclear genome of the corresponding species, we investigate the problem of inferring a most parsimonious Duplication, Loss and EGT (DLE) Reconciliation of any binary refinement of the tree. We present a general two-steps method: ignoring the 0-1 labeling of leaves, output a binary resolution minimizing the Duplication and Loss (DL) Reconciliation and then, for such resolution, assign a known number of 0s and 1s to the leaves in a way minimizing EGT events. While the first step corresponds to the well studied non-binary DL-Reconciliation problem, the complexity of the label assignment problem corresponding to the second step is unknown. We show that this problem is NP-complete, even when the tree is restricted to a single polytomy, and even if transfers can occur in only one direction. We present a general algorithm solving each polytomy separately, which is shown optimal for a unitary cost of operation, and a polynomial-time algorithm for solving a polytomy in the special case where genes are specific to a single genome (mitochondrial or nuclear) in all but one species. This work represents the first algorithmic study for reconciliation with endosymbiotic gene transfers in the case of a multifurcated gene tree.