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Protein phylogeny of translation elongation factor EF-1α suggests microsporidians are extremely ancient eukaryotes

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Abstract

Partial regions of the mRNA encoding a major part of translation elongation factor 1α (EF-1α) from a mitochondrion-lacking protozoan,Glugea plecoglossi, that belongs to microsporidians, were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and their primary structures were analyzed. The deduced amino acid sequence was highly divergent from typical EF-1α's of eukaryotes, although it clearly showed a eukaryotic feature when aligned with homologs of the three primary kingdoms. Maximum likelihood (ML) analyses on the basis of six different stochastic models of amino acid substitutions and a maximum parsimony (MP) analysis consistently suggest that among eukaryotic species being analyzed,G. plecoglossi is likely to represent the earliest offshoot of eukaryotes. Microsporidians might be the extremely ancient eukaryotes which have diverged before an occurrence of mitochondrial symbiosis.

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Abbreviations

EF-1α:

translation elongation factor 1α

EF-Tu:

translation elongation factor Tu

SrRNA:

small subunit ribosomal RNA

ML:

maximum likelihood

MP:

maximum parsimony

PCR:

polymerase chain reaction

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Biology, School of Medicine, Showa University, 1-5-8 Hatanodai, Shinagawa-ku, 142, Tokyo, Japan

    Takashi Kamaishi, Fuminori Nakamura & Ken-ichi Okamoto

  2. The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, 4-6-7 Minami-Azabu, Minato-ku, 106, Tokyo, Japan

    Tetsuo Hashimoto & Masami Hasegawa

  3. Laboratory of Gene Manipulation, Showa University, 1-5-8 Hatanodai, Shinagawa-ku, 142, Tokyo, Japan

    Yoshihiro Nakamura

  4. Faculty of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Nagatsuta, Midori-ku, 226, Yokohama, Japan

    Shigenori Murata & Norihiro Okada

  5. Department of Fisheries, Faculty of Agriculture, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, 113, Tokyo, Japan

    Takashi Kamaishi & Makoto Shimizu

Authors
  1. Takashi Kamaishi
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  2. Tetsuo Hashimoto
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  3. Yoshihiro Nakamura
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  4. Fuminori Nakamura
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  5. Shigenori Murata
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  6. Norihiro Okada
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  7. Ken-ichi Okamoto
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  8. Makoto Shimizu
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  9. Masami Hasegawa
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Additional information

Sequence availability: The nucleotide sequence data reported here appear in the GSDB, DDBJ, EMBL, and NCBI databases with the accession number D32139

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Kamaishi, T., Hashimoto, T., Nakamura, Y. et al. Protein phylogeny of translation elongation factor EF-1α suggests microsporidians are extremely ancient eukaryotes. J Mol Evol 42, 257–263 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02198852

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02198852

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