ALBERT

Description: To provide context for the diversification of archosaurs--the group that includes crocodilians, dinosaurs, and birds--we generated draft genomes of three crocodilians: Alligator mississippiensis (the American alligator), Crocodylus porosus (the saltwater crocodile), and Gavialis gangeticus (the Indian gharial). We observed an exceptionally slow rate of genome evolution within crocodilians at all levels, including nucleotide substitutions, indels, transposable element content and movement, gene family evolution, and chromosomal synteny. When placed within the context of related taxa including birds and turtles, this suggests that the common ancestor of all of these taxa also exhibited slow genome evolution and that the comparatively rapid evolution is derived in birds. The data also provided the opportunity to analyze heterozygosity in crocodilians, which indicates a likely reduction in population size for all three taxa through the Pleistocene. Finally, these data combined with newly published bird genomes allowed us to reconstruct the partial genome of the common ancestor of archosaurs, thereby providing a tool to investigate the genetic starting material of crocodilians, birds, and dinosaurs.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4386873/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉   〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4386873/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Green, Richard E -- Braun, Edward L -- Armstrong, Joel -- Earl, Dent -- Nguyen, Ngan -- Hickey, Glenn -- Vandewege, Michael W -- St John, John A -- Capella-Gutierrez, Salvador -- Castoe, Todd A -- Kern, Colin -- Fujita, Matthew K -- Opazo, Juan C -- Jurka, Jerzy -- Kojima, Kenji K -- Caballero, Juan -- Hubley, Robert M -- Smit, Arian F -- Platt, Roy N -- Lavoie, Christine A -- Ramakodi, Meganathan P -- Finger, John W Jr -- Suh, Alexander -- Isberg, Sally R -- Miles, Lee -- Chong, Amanda Y -- Jaratlerdsiri, Weerachai -- Gongora, Jaime -- Moran, Christopher -- Iriarte, Andres -- McCormack, John -- Burgess, Shane C -- Edwards, Scott V -- Lyons, Eric -- Williams, Christina -- Breen, Matthew -- Howard, Jason T -- Gresham, Cathy R -- Peterson, Daniel G -- Schmitz, Jurgen -- Pollock, David D -- Haussler, David -- Triplett, Eric W -- Zhang, Guojie -- Irie, Naoki -- Jarvis, Erich D -- Brochu, Christopher A -- Schmidt, Carl J -- McCarthy, Fiona M -- Faircloth, Brant C -- Hoffmann, Federico G -- Glenn, Travis C -- Gabaldon, Toni -- Paten, Benedict -- Ray, David A -- 1U41HG006992-2/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- 1U41HG007234-01/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- 5U01HG004695/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG002939/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- U41 HG006992/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Dec 12;346(6215):1254449. doi: 10.1126/science.1254449. Epub 2014 Dec 11.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. ed@soe.ucsc.edu david.a.ray@ttu.edu. ; Department of Biology and Genetics Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. ; Department of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. ; Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. ; Department of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. ; Bioinformatics and Genomics Programme, Centre for Genomic Regulation, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. ; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO 80045, USA. Department of Biology, University of Texas, Arlington, TX 76019, USA. ; Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19717, USA. ; Department of Biology, University of Texas, Arlington, TX 76019, USA. ; Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Evolutivas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile. ; Genetic Information Research Institute, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. ; Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA 98109, USA. ; Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. ; Department of Environmental Health Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. ; Institute of Experimental Pathology (ZMBE), University of Munster, D-48149 Munster, Germany. Department of Evolutionary Biology (EBC), Uppsala University, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden. ; Porosus Pty. Ltd., Palmerston, NT 0831, Australia. Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Centre for Crocodile Research, Noonamah, NT 0837, Australia. ; Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. ; Departamento de Desarrollo Biotecnologico, Instituto de Higiene, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo, Uruguay. ; Moore Laboratory of Zoology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041, USA. ; College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. ; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. ; School of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. ; Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27607, USA. ; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. ; Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. ; Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. ; Institute of Experimental Pathology (ZMBE), University of Munster, D-48149 Munster, Germany. ; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO 80045, USA. ; Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. ; Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. ; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China. Center for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. ; Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. ; Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. ; Department of Animal and Food Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19717, USA. ; School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90019, USA. Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. ; Bioinformatics and Genomics Programme, Centre for Genomic Regulation, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats, 08010 Barcelona, Spain. ; Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. ; Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA. ed@soe.ucsc.edu david.a.ray@ttu.edu.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25504731" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris ssp. vulgaris) is an important crop of temperate climates which provides nearly 30% of the world's annual sugar production and is a source for bioethanol and animal feed. The species belongs to the order of Caryophylalles, is diploid with 2n = 18 chromosomes, has an estimated genome size of 714-758 megabases and shares an ancient genome triplication with other eudicot plants. Leafy beets have been cultivated since Roman times, but sugar beet is one of the most recently domesticated crops. It arose in the late eighteenth century when lines accumulating sugar in the storage root were selected from crosses made with chard and fodder beet. Here we present a reference genome sequence for sugar beet as the first non-rosid, non-asterid eudicot genome, advancing comparative genomics and phylogenetic reconstructions. The genome sequence comprises 567 megabases, of which 85% could be assigned to chromosomes. The assembly covers a large proportion of the repetitive sequence content that was estimated to be 63%. We predicted 27,421 protein-coding genes supported by transcript data and annotated them on the basis of sequence homology. Phylogenetic analyses provided evidence for the separation of Caryophyllales before the split of asterids and rosids, and revealed lineage-specific gene family expansions and losses. We sequenced spinach (Spinacia oleracea), another Caryophyllales species, and validated features that separate this clade from rosids and asterids. Intraspecific genomic variation was analysed based on the genome sequences of sea beet (Beta vulgaris ssp. maritima; progenitor of all beet crops) and four additional sugar beet accessions. We identified seven million variant positions in the reference genome, and also large regions of low variability, indicating artificial selection. The sugar beet genome sequence enables the identification of genes affecting agronomically relevant traits, supports molecular breeding and maximizes the plant's potential in energy biotechnology.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Dohm, Juliane C -- Minoche, Andre E -- Holtgrawe, Daniela -- Capella-Gutierrez, Salvador -- Zakrzewski, Falk -- Tafer, Hakim -- Rupp, Oliver -- Sorensen, Thomas Rosleff -- Stracke, Ralf -- Reinhardt, Richard -- Goesmann, Alexander -- Kraft, Thomas -- Schulz, Britta -- Stadler, Peter F -- Schmidt, Thomas -- Gabaldon, Toni -- Lehrach, Hans -- Weisshaar, Bernd -- Himmelbauer, Heinz -- England -- Nature. 2014 Jan 23;505(7484):546-9. doi: 10.1038/nature12817. Epub 2013 Dec 18.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉1] Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestrasse 63-73, 14195 Berlin, Germany [2] Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), C. Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain [3] Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), C. Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain [4]. ; Bielefeld University, CeBiTec and Department of Biology, Universitatsstrasse 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany. ; 1] Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), C. Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain [2] Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), C. Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. ; TU Dresden, Department of Biology, Zellescher Weg 20b, 01217 Dresden, Germany. ; University of Leipzig, Department of Computer Science, Hartelstrasse 16-18, 04107 Leipzig, Germany. ; Max Planck Genome Centre Cologne, Carl-von-Linne-Weg 10, 50829 Koln, Germany. ; Syngenta, Box 302, 26123 Landskrona, Sweden. ; KWS SAAT AG, Grimsehlstrasse 31, 37574 Einbeck, Germany. ; 1] Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), C. Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain [2] Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), C. Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain [3] Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats (ICREA), Pg. Lluis Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain. ; Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestrasse 63-73, 14195 Berlin, Germany. ; 1] Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestrasse 63-73, 14195 Berlin, Germany [2] Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), C. Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain [3] Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), C. Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24352233" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: To better determine the history of modern birds, we performed a genome-scale phylogenetic analysis of 48 species representing all orders of Neoaves using phylogenomic methods created to handle genome-scale data. We recovered a highly resolved tree that confirms previously controversial sister or close relationships. We identified the first divergence in Neoaves, two groups we named Passerea and Columbea, representing independent lineages of diverse and convergently evolved land and water bird species. Among Passerea, we infer the common ancestor of core landbirds to have been an apex predator and confirm independent gains of vocal learning. Among Columbea, we identify pigeons and flamingoes as belonging to sister clades. Even with whole genomes, some of the earliest branches in Neoaves proved challenging to resolve, which was best explained by massive protein-coding sequence convergence and high levels of incomplete lineage sorting that occurred during a rapid radiation after the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event about 66 million years ago.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4405904/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉   〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4405904/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Jarvis, Erich D -- Mirarab, Siavash -- Aberer, Andre J -- Li, Bo -- Houde, Peter -- Li, Cai -- Ho, Simon Y W -- Faircloth, Brant C -- Nabholz, Benoit -- Howard, Jason T -- Suh, Alexander -- Weber, Claudia C -- da Fonseca, Rute R -- Li, Jianwen -- Zhang, Fang -- Li, Hui -- Zhou, Long -- Narula, Nitish -- Liu, Liang -- Ganapathy, Ganesh -- Boussau, Bastien -- Bayzid, Md Shamsuzzoha -- Zavidovych, Volodymyr -- Subramanian, Sankar -- Gabaldon, Toni -- Capella-Gutierrez, Salvador -- Huerta-Cepas, Jaime -- Rekepalli, Bhanu -- Munch, Kasper -- Schierup, Mikkel -- Lindow, Bent -- Warren, Wesley C -- Ray, David -- Green, Richard E -- Bruford, Michael W -- Zhan, Xiangjiang -- Dixon, Andrew -- Li, Shengbin -- Li, Ning -- Huang, Yinhua -- Derryberry, Elizabeth P -- Bertelsen, Mads Frost -- Sheldon, Frederick H -- Brumfield, Robb T -- Mello, Claudio V -- Lovell, Peter V -- Wirthlin, Morgan -- Schneider, Maria Paula Cruz -- Prosdocimi, Francisco -- Samaniego, Jose Alfredo -- Vargas Velazquez, Amhed Missael -- Alfaro-Nunez, Alonzo -- Campos, Paula F -- Petersen, Bent -- Sicheritz-Ponten, Thomas -- Pas, An -- Bailey, Tom -- Scofield, Paul -- Bunce, Michael -- Lambert, David M -- Zhou, Qi -- Perelman, Polina -- Driskell, Amy C -- Shapiro, Beth -- Xiong, Zijun -- Zeng, Yongli -- Liu, Shiping -- Li, Zhenyu -- Liu, Binghang -- Wu, Kui -- Xiao, Jin -- Yinqi, Xiong -- Zheng, Qiuemei -- Zhang, Yong -- Yang, Huanming -- Wang, Jian -- Smeds, Linnea -- Rheindt, Frank E -- Braun, Michael -- Fjeldsa, Jon -- Orlando, Ludovic -- Barker, F Keith -- Jonsson, Knud Andreas -- Johnson, Warren -- Koepfli, Klaus-Peter -- O'Brien, Stephen -- Haussler, David -- Ryder, Oliver A -- Rahbek, Carsten -- Willerslev, Eske -- Graves, Gary R -- Glenn, Travis C -- McCormack, John -- Burt, Dave -- Ellegren, Hans -- Alstrom, Per -- Edwards, Scott V -- Stamatakis, Alexandros -- Mindell, David P -- Cracraft, Joel -- Braun, Edward L -- Warnow, Tandy -- Jun, Wang -- Gilbert, M Thomas P -- Zhang, Guojie -- DP1 OD000448/OD/NIH HHS/ -- DP1OD000448/OD/NIH HHS/ -- R24 GM092842/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Dec 12;346(6215):1320-31. doi: 10.1126/science.1253451.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Neurobiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. jarvis@neuro.duke.edu tandywarnow@gmail.com mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn zhanggj@genomics.cn. ; Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. ; Scientific Computing Group, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Heidelberg, Germany. ; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. College of Medicine and Forensics, Xi'an Jiaotong University Xi'an 710061, China. Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA. ; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. ; CNRS UMR 5554, Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier, Universite Montpellier II Montpellier, France. ; Department of Neurobiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. ; Department of Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, SE-752 36 Uppsala Sweden. ; Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. ; Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA. Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Onna-son, Okinawa 904-0495, Japan. ; Department of Statistics and Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. ; Laboratoire de Biometrie et Biologie Evolutive, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Universite de Lyon, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France. ; Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia. ; Bioinformatics and Genomics Programme, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats, Barcelona, Spain. ; Bioinformatics and Genomics Programme, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. ; Joint Institute for Computational Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA. ; Bioinformatics Research Centre, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ; The Genome Institute, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MI 63108, USA. ; Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. ; Organisms and Environment Division, Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University Cardiff CF10 3AX, Wales, UK. ; Organisms and Environment Division, Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University Cardiff CF10 3AX, Wales, UK. Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. ; International Wildlife Consultants, Carmarthen SA33 5YL, Wales, UK. ; College of Medicine and Forensics, Xi'an Jiaotong University Xi'an, 710061, China. ; State Key Laboratory for Agrobiotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100094, China. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA. Museum of Natural Science and Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. ; Center for Zoo and Wild Animal Health, Copenhagen Zoo Roskildevej 38, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark. ; Museum of Natural Science and Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. ; Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR 97239, USA. Brazilian Avian Genome Consortium (CNPq/FAPESPA-SISBIO Aves), Federal University of Para, Belem, Para, Brazil. ; Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR 97239, USA. ; Brazilian Avian Genome Consortium (CNPq/FAPESPA-SISBIO Aves), Federal University of Para, Belem, Para, Brazil. Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Para, Belem, Para, Brazil. ; Brazilian Avian Genome Consortium (CNPq/FAPESPA-SISBIO Aves), Federal University of Para, Belem, Para, Brazil. Institute of Medical Biochemistry Leopoldo de Meis, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro RJ 21941-902, Brazil. ; Centre for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark Kemitorvet 208, 2800 Kgs Lyngby, Denmark. ; Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. ; Dubai Falcon Hospital, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. ; Canterbury Museum Rolleston Avenue, Christchurch 8050, New Zealand. ; Trace and Environmental DNA Laboratory Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia 6102, Australia. ; Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. ; Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, National Cancer Institute Frederick, MD 21702, USA. Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, SB RAS and Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russia. ; Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC 20013, USA. ; BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. ; Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Republic of Singapore. ; Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Suitland, MD 20746, USA. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. ; Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN 55108, USA. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK. Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK. ; Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA. ; Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Washington, DC 20008, USA. ; Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia 199004. Oceanographic Center, Nova Southeastern University, Ft Lauderdale, FL 33004, USA. ; Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, UCSC, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. ; San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, Escondido, CA 92027, USA. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. Department of Vertebrate Zoology, MRC-116, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA. ; Department of Environmental Health Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. ; Moore Laboratory of Zoology and Department of Biology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041, USA. ; Department of Genomics and Genetics, The Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh, Easter Bush Campus, Midlothian EH25 9RG, UK. ; Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Box 7007, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. ; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. ; Scientific Computing Group, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Heidelberg, Germany. Institute of Theoretical Informatics, Department of Informatics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, D- 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany. ; Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA. ; Department of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA. ; Department of Biology and Genetics Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. ; Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. Departments of Bioengineering and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. jarvis@neuro.duke.edu tandywarnow@gmail.com mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn zhanggj@genomics.cn. ; BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Ole Maaloes Vej 5, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark. Princess Al Jawhara Center of Excellence in the Research of Hereditary Disorders, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia. Macau University of Science and Technology, Avenida Wai long, Taipa, Macau 999078, China. Department of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. jarvis@neuro.duke.edu tandywarnow@gmail.com mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn zhanggj@genomics.cn. ; Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. Trace and Environmental DNA Laboratory Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia 6102, Australia. jarvis@neuro.duke.edu tandywarnow@gmail.com mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn zhanggj@genomics.cn. ; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, Universitetsparken 15, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. jarvis@neuro.duke.edu tandywarnow@gmail.com mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn zhanggj@genomics.cn.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25504713" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Reconstructing the evolutionary relationships of species is a major goal in biology. Despite the increasing number of completely sequenced genomes, a large number of phylogenetic projects rely on targeted sequencing and analysis of a relatively small sample of marker genes. The selection of these phylogenetic markers should ideally be based on accurate predictions of their combined, rather than individual, potential to accurately resolve the phylogeny of interest. Here we present and validate a new phylogenomics strategy to efficiently select a minimal set of stable markers able to reconstruct the underlying species phylogeny. In contrast to previous approaches, our methodology does not only rely on the ability of individual genes to reconstruct a known phylogeny, but it also explores the combined power of sets of concatenated genes to accurately infer phylogenetic relationships of species not previously analyzed. We applied our approach to two broad sets of cyanobacterial and ascomycetous fungal species, and provide two minimal sets of six and four genes, respectively, necessary to fully resolve the target phylogenies. This approach paves the way for the informed selection of phylogenetic markers in the effort of reconstructing the tree of life.

Description: Summary The Quest for Orthologs (QfO) is an open collaboration framework for experts in comparative phylogenomics and related research areas who have an interest in highly accurate orthology predictions and their applications. We here report highlights and discussion points from the QfO meeting 2015 held in Barcelona. Achievements in recent years have established a basis to support developments for improved orthology prediction and to explore new approaches. Central to the QfO effort is proper benchmarking of methods and services, as well as design of standardized datasets and standardized formats to allow sharing and comparison of results. Simultaneously, analysis pipelines have been improved, evaluated and adapted to handle large datasets. All this would not have occurred without the long-term collaboration of Consortium members. Meeting regularly to review and coordinate complementary activities from a broad spectrum of innovative researchers clearly benefits the community. Highlights of the meeting include addressing sources of and legitimacy of disagreements between orthology calls, the context dependency of orthology definitions, special challenges encountered when analyzing very anciently rooted orthologies, orthology in the light of whole-genome duplications, and the concept of orthologous versus paralogous relationships at different levels, including domain-level orthology. Furthermore, particular needs for different applications (e.g. plant genomics, ancient gene families and others) and the infrastructure for making orthology inferences available (e.g. interfaces with model organism databases) were discussed, with several ongoing efforts that are expected to be reported on during the upcoming 2017 QfO meeting. Contact selewis@lbl.gov or c.dessimoz@ucl.ac.uk

Description: Motivation: Multiple sequence alignments are generally reconstructed using a progressive approach that follows a guide-tree. During this process, gaps are introduced at a cost to maximize residue pairing, but it is unclear whether inferred gaps reflect actual past events of sequence insertions or deletions. It has been found that patterns of inferred gaps in alignments contain information towards the true phylogeny, but it is as yet unknown whether gaps are simply reflecting information that was already present in the guide-tree. Results: We here develop a framework to disentangle the phylogenetic signal carried by gaps from that which is already present in the guide-tree. Our results indicate that most gaps are incorrectly inserted in patterns that, nevertheless, follow the guide-tree. Thus, most gap patterns in current alignments are not informative per se . This affects different programs to various degrees, PRANK being the most sensitive to the guide-tree. Contact: tgabaldon@crg.es Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Description: Phylogenetic trees representing the evolutionary relationships of homologous genes are the entry point for many evolutionary analyses. For instance, the use of a phylogenetic tree can aid in the inference of orthology and paralogy relationships, and in the detection of relevant evolutionary events such as gene family expansions and contractions, horizontal gene transfer, recombination or incomplete lineage sorting. Similarly, given the plurality of evolutionary histories among genes encoded in a given genome, there is a need for the combined analysis of genome-wide collections of phylogenetic trees (phylomes). Here, we introduce a new release of PhylomeDB ( http://phylomedb.org ), a public repository of phylomes. Currently, PhylomeDB hosts 120 public phylomes, comprising 〉1.5 million maximum likelihood trees and multiple sequence alignments. In the current release, phylogenetic trees are annotated with taxonomic, protein-domain arrangement, functional and evolutionary information. PhylomeDB is also a major source for phylogeny-based predictions of orthology and paralogy, covering 〉10 million proteins across 1059 sequenced species. Here we describe newly implemented PhylomeDB features, and discuss a benchmark of the orthology predictions provided by the database, the impact of proteome updates and the use of the phylome approach in the analysis of newly sequenced genomes and transcriptomes.