title: Congruence of evidence for a Methanopyrus-proximal root of life based on transfer RNA and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase genes.
abstract: Among 60 organisms, the intraspecies genetic distances between tRNAs cognate for different amino acids, between the initiator and elongator tRNAs for Met, and between potentially paralogous pairs of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases are found to be at a minimum within the Methanopyrus kandleri genome. These results indicate an exact congruence between the evidence from tRNA and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase genes locating the root of life closest to this organism.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Applied Genomics Laboratory, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, PR China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.forename: Siu-Kin
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.forename: Ka-Lok
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Tong
authors.forename: J Tze-Fei
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000096:biosynthesis; D000604:Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases / Q000235:genetics*; D001105:Archaea / Q000235:genetics*; D019605:Euryarchaeota; D010802:Phylogeny; D012343:RNA, Transfer / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D012343:RNA, Transfer; D000604:Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases