title: Emerging genomic and proteomic evidence on relationships among the animal, plant and fungal kingdoms.
abstract: Sequence-based molecular phylogenies have provided new models of early eukaryotic evolution. This includes the widely accepted hypothesis that animals are related most closely to fungi, and that the two should be grouped together as the Opisthokonta. Although most published phylogenies have supported an opisthokont relationship, a number of genes contain a tree-building signal that clusters animal and green plant sequences, to the exclusion of fungi. The alternative tree-building signal is especially intriguing in light of emerging data from genomic and proteomic studies that indicate striking and potentially synapomorphic similarities between plants and animals. This paper reviews these new lines of evidence, which have yet to be incorporated into models of broad scale eukaryotic evolution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858, USA. stillerj@mail.ecu.edu
authors.forename: John W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Stiller
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000502:physiology; D005658:Fungi / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics*; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D059828:Plant Cells; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics*; D040901:Proteomics; D012315:RNA Caps / Q000096:biosynthesis; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D012315:RNA Caps; D012333:RNA, Messenger