Preview. The incredible expanding ancestor of eukaryotes.
Comparing the genome sequences of free-living organisms in the five eukaryotic supergroups enables predictions to be made about the genome of the last common ancestor of eukaryotes. The genome sequence of the amoeboflagellate Naegleria gruberi reported by Fritz-Laylin et al. (2010) reveals the surprising complexity of this unicellular organism and, by inference, of the last common eukaryotic ancestor.
Koonin
Eugene V
EV
National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA. koonin@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov