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Nucleotide sequence of a DNA region comprising the gene for elongation factor 1α (EF-1α) from the ultrathermophilic archaeotePyrococcus woesei: Phylogenetic implications

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Summary

The gene encoding elongation factor 1α (EF-1α, 1290 bp) of the ultrathermophilic, sulfur-reducing archaeotePyrococcus woesei was localized within aBglII fragment of chromosomal DNA. Sequence analysis showed that the EF-1α gene is the upstream unit of a three-gene cluster comprising the genes for ribosomal protein S10 (306 bp) and transfer RNAser (GGA). The three genes follow each other immediately in the order EF-1α·S10·tRNAser after a putative promoter located 55 bp upstream of the EF-1α gene. Alignment of the derived EF-1α sequence with the corresponding sequences from Eukarya, Bacteria/organelles, and with available archaeal sequences (Sulfolobus, Thermococcus, Methanococcus, Halobacterium) showed thatPyrococcus EF-1α is highly homologous (89% identity) toThermococcus celer EF-1α, both being strikingly more similar to eukaryotic EF-1α than to bacterial EF-Tu. Unrooted dendrograms computed from aligned sequences by distance matrix and DNA parsimony methods, including evolutionary parsimony, showed the Archaea to be a monophyletic-holophyletic cluster closer to Eukarya than to Bacteria. Both distance matrix and DNA parsimony-although not evolutionary parsimony-support the partition of the known archaeal lineages between the kingdoms Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota, and the affiliation of thePyrococcus-Thermococcus lineage to the Euryarchaeota, of which it is the most primitive offspring. A closer relation ofPyrococcus to Euryarchaeota than to Crenarchaeota was also inferred from sequence analysis of S10 ribosomal proteins.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Biopatologia Umana, Sezione di Biologia Cellulare, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Policlinico Umberto Io, I-00161, Roma, Italy

    Roberta Creti, Franca Citarella & Piero Cammarano

  2. Dipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia “A. Buzzati-Traverso”, Universita' di Pavia, Via Abbiategrasso 207, Pavia, Italy

    Orsola Tiboni & Annamaria Sanangelantoni

  3. Max-Planck Institut für Biochemie, D-8033, Martinsried, FRG

    Peter Palm

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  1. Roberta Creti
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  2. Franca Citarella
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  3. Orsola Tiboni
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  4. Annamaria Sanangelantoni
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  5. Peter Palm
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  6. Piero Cammarano
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Creti, R., Citarella, F., Tiboni, O. et al. Nucleotide sequence of a DNA region comprising the gene for elongation factor 1α (EF-1α) from the ultrathermophilic archaeotePyrococcus woesei: Phylogenetic implications. J Mol Evol 33, 332–342 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02102864

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02102864

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