The origin of many of the defining features of animal body plans, such as symmetry, nervous system, and the mesoderm, remains shrouded in mystery because of major uncertainty regarding the emergence order of the early branching taxa: the sponge groups, ctenophores, placozoans, cnidarians, and bilaterians. The "phylogenomic" approach [1] has recently provided a robust picture for intrabilaterian relationships [2, 3] but not yet for more early branching metazoan clades. We have assembled a comprehensive 128 gene data set including newly generated sequence data from ctenophores, cnidarians, and all four main sponge groups. The resulting phylogeny yields two significant conclusions reviving old views that have been challenged in the molecular era: (1) that the sponges (Porifera) are monophyletic and not paraphyletic as repeatedly proposed [4-9], thus undermining the idea that ancestral metazoans had a sponge-like body plan; (2) that the most likely position for the ctenophores is together with the cnidarians in a "coelenterate" clade. The Porifera and the Placozoa branch basally with respect to a moderately supported "eumetazoan" clade containing the three taxa with nervous system and muscle cells (Cnidaria, Ctenophora, and Bilateria). This new phylogeny provides a stimulating framework for exploring the important changes that shaped the body plans of the early diverging phyla.

Resolving the relationships between Metazoa and other eukaryotic groups as well as between metazoan phyla is central to the understanding of the origin and evolution of animals. The current view is based on limited data sets, either a single gene with many species (e.g., ribosomal RNA) or many genes but with only a few species. Because a reliable phylogenetic inference simultaneously requires numerous genes and numerous species, we assembled a very large data set containing 129 orthologous proteins ( approximately 30,000 aligned amino acid positions) for 36 eukaryotic species. Included in the alignments are data from the choanoflagellate Monosiga ovata, obtained through the sequencing of about 1,000 cDNAs. We provide conclusive support for choanoflagellates as the closest relative of animals and for fungi as the second closest. The monophyly of Plantae and chromalveolates was recovered but without strong statistical support. Within animals, in contrast to the monophyly of Coelomata observed in several recent large-scale analyses, we recovered a paraphyletic Coelamata, with nematodes and platyhelminths nested within. To include a diverse sample of organisms, data from EST projects were used for several species, resulting in a large amount of missing data in our alignment (about 25%). By using different approaches, we verify that the inferred phylogeny is not sensitive to these missing data. Therefore, this large data set provides a reliable phylogenetic framework for studying eukaryotic and animal evolution and will be easily extendable when large amounts of sequence information become available from a broader taxonomic range.

DNA flows between chromosomes and mobile elements, following rules that are poorly understood. This limited knowledge is partly explained by the limits of current approaches to study the structure and evolution of genetic diversity. Network analyses of 119,381 homologous DNA families, sampled from 111 cellular genomes and from 165,529 phage, plasmid, and environmental virome sequences, offer challenging insights. Our results support a disconnected yet highly structured network of genetic diversity, revealing the existence of multiple "genetic worlds." These divides define multiple isolated groups of DNA vehicles drawing on distinct gene pools. Mathematical studies of the centralities of these worlds' subnetworks demonstrate that plasmids, not viruses, were key vectors of genetic exchange between bacterial chromosomes, both recently and in the past. Furthermore, network methodology introduces new ways of quantifying current sampling of genetic diversity.evolution | lateral gene transfer | mobile genetic elements | phages | plasmids

The phylogenetic relationships of amoebae are poorly resolved. To address this difficult question, we have sequenced 1,280 expressed sequence tags from Mastigamoeba balamuthi and assembled a large data set containing 123 genes for representatives of three phenotypically highly divergent major amoeboid lineages: Pelobionta, Entamoebidae, and Mycetozoa. Phylogenetic reconstruction was performed on Ϸ25,000 aa positions for 30 species by using maximum-likelihood approaches. All well-established eukaryotic groups were recovered with high statistical support, validating our approach. Interestingly, the three amoeboid lineages strongly clustered together in agreement with the Conosa hypothesis [as defined by T. Cavalier-Smith (1998) Biol. Rev. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 73, 203-266]. Two amitochondriate amoebae, the free-living Mastigamoeba and the human parasite Entamoeba, formed a significant sister group to the exclusion of the mycetozoan Dictyostelium. This result suggested that a part of the reductive process in the evolution of Entamoeba (e.g., loss of typical mitochondria) occurred in its free-living ancestors. Applying this inexpensive expressed sequence tag approach to many other lineages will surely improve our understanding of eukaryotic evolution.

Because of functional constraints, substitution rates vary among the positions of a protein but are usually assumed to be constant at a given site during evolution. The distribution of the rates across the sequence positions generally fits a Gamma distribution. Models of sequence evolution were accordingly designed and led to improved phylogenetic reconstruction. However, it has been convincingly demonstrated that the evolutionary rate of a given position is not always constant throughout time. We called such within-site rate variations heterotachy (for "different speed" in Greek). Yet, heterotachy was found among homologous sequences of distantly related organisms, often with different functions. In such cases, the functional constraints are likely different, which would explain the different distribution of variable sites. To evaluate the importance of heterotachy, we focused on amino acid sequences of mitochondrial cytochrome b, for which the function is likely the same in all vertebrates. Using 2,038 sequences, we demonstrate that 95% of the variable positions are heterotachous, i.e., underwent dramatic variations of substitution rate among vertebrate lineages. Heterotachy even occurs at small evolutionary scale, and in these cases it is very unlikely to be related to functional changes. Since a large number of sequences are required to efficiently detect heterotachy, the extent of this phenomenon could not be estimated for all proteins yet. It could be as large as for cytochrome b, since this protein is not a peculiar case. The observations made here open several new avenues of research, such as the understanding of the evolution of functional constraints or the improvement of phylogenetic reconstruction methods.

Despite a rapid increase in the amount of available archaeal sequence information, little is known about the duplication of genetic material in the third domain of life. We identified a single origin of bidirectional replication in Pyrococcus abyssi by means of in silico analyses of cumulative oligomer skew and the identification of an early replicating chromosomal segment. The replication origin in three Pyrococcus species was found to be highly conserved, and several eukaryotic-like DNA replication genes were clustered around it. As in Bacteria, the chromosomal region containing the replication terminus was a hot spot of genome shuffling. Thus, although bacterial and archaeal replication proteins differ profoundly, they are used to replicate chromosomes in a similar manner in both prokaryotic domains.

The current paradigm of eukaryotic evolution is based primarily on comparative analysis of ribosomal RNA sequences. It shows several early-emerging lineages, mostly amitochondriate, which might be living relics of a progressive assembly of the eukaryotic cell. However, the analysis of slow-evolving positions, carried out with the newly developed slow-fast method, reveals that these lineages are, in terms of nucleotide substitution, fast-evolving ones, misplaced at the base of the tree by a long branch attraction artefact. Since the fast-evolving groups are not always the same, depending on which macromolecule is used as a marker, this explains most of the observed incongruent phylogenies. The current paradigm of eukaryotic evolution thus has to be seriously re-examined as the eukaryotic phylogeny is presently best summarized by a multifurcation. This is consistent with the Big Bang hypothesis that all extant eukaryotic lineages are the result of multiple cladogeneses within a relatively brief period, although insufficiency of data is also a possible explanation for the lack of resolution. For further resolution, rare evolutionary events such as shared insertions and/or deletions or gene fusions might be helpful.

Animal scales, hairs, feathers, and cilia are oriented due to cell polarization in the epithelial plane. Genes involved have been identified, but the signal and mechanism remain unknown. In Drosophila wing polarization, the action of a gradient of Frizzled activity is widely assumed; and cell-cell signalling by cadherins such as Flamingo surely plays a major role. We present a computer model where reading the Frizzled gradient occurs through biased, feedback-reinforced formation of Flamingo-based asymmetric intercellular complexes. Through these complexes neighboring cells are able to compare their Frizzled activity levels. Our computations are highly noise-resistant and reproduce both wild-type and all known mutant wing phenotypes; other phenotypes are predicted. The model puts stringent limits on a Frizzled activation signal, which should exhibit unusual properties: (1) the extracellular Frizzled signalling gradient should be counterdirectional-decreasing from proximal (P) to distal (D), whereas during polarization, the intracellular Frizzled gradient builds up from P to D; (2) the external gradient should be relatively weak and short-lived, lest it prevent inversion of intracellular Frizzled. These features, largely independent of model details, may provide useful clues for future experimental efforts. Developmental Dynamics 235: 235-246, 2006.