Gene order phylogeny of the genus Prochlorococcus.
BACKGROUND
Using gene order as a phylogenetic character has the potential to resolve previously unresolved species relationships. This character was used to resolve the evolutionary history within the genus Prochlorococcus, a group of marine cyanobacteria.


RESULTS
Orthologous gene sets and their genomic positions were identified from 12 species of Prochlorococcus and 1 outgroup species of Synechococcus. From this data, inversion and breakpoint distance-based phylogenetic trees were computed by GRAPPA and FastME. Statistical support of the resulting topology was obtained by application of a 50% jackknife resampling technique. The result was consistent and congruent with nucleotide sequence-based and gene-content based trees. Also, a previously unresolved clade was resolved, that of MIT9211 and SS120.


CONCLUSIONS
This is the first study to use gene order data to resolve a bacterial phylogeny at the genus level. It suggests that the technique is useful in resolving the Tree of Life.
Luo
Haiwei
H
Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA.
Shi
Jian
J
Arndt
William
W
Tang
Jijun
J
Friedman
Robert
R
D000818:Animals; D019457:Chromosome Breakage; D007446:Chromosome Inversion; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D023061:Gene Order; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D010802:Phylogeny; D048929:Prochlorococcus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D046940:Synechococcus / Q000235:genetics
D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S