Evolution of Translational Elongation Factor (EF) Sequences: Reliability of Global Phylogenies Inferred from EF-1α(Tu) and EF-2(G) Proteins

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 1994-04, Vol.91 (8), p.3255-3259
• Main Authors: CRETI, R, CECCARELLI, E, BOCCHETTA, M, SANANGELANTONI, A. M, TIBONI, O, PALM, P, CAMMARANO, P
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Bacterial Proteins - genetics; Biological and medical sciences; Biological evolution; Desulfurococcus mobilis; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genetics of eukaryotes. Biological and molecular evolution; Likelihood Functions; Molecular Sequence Data; Peptide Elongation Factor 1; Peptide Elongation Factor G; Peptide Elongation Factors - genetics; Phylogeny; Pyrococcus woesei; Sequence Alignment; Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
• ISSN: 0027-8424; 1091-6490
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.91.8.3255

The EF-2 coding genes of the Archaea Pyrococcus woesei and Desulfurococcus mobilis were cloned and sequenced. Global phylogenies were inferred by alternative tree-making methods from available EF-2(G) sequence data and contrasted with phylogenies constructed from the more conserved but shorter EF-1α(Tu) sequences. Both the monophyly (sensu Hennig) of Archaea and their subdivision into the kingdoms Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota are consistently inferred by analysis of EF-2(G) sequences, usually at a high bootstrap confidence level. In contrast, EF-1α(Tu) phylogenies tend to be inconsistent with one another and show low bootstrap confidence levels. While evolutionary distance and DNA maximum parsimony analyses of EF-1α(Tu) sequences do show archaeal monophyly, protein parsimony and DNA maximum-likelihood analyses of these data do not. In no case, however, do any of the tree topologies inferred from EF-1α(Tu) sequence analyses receive significant bootstrap support.