Patrick J. Keeling

Horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotic evolution

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT; also known as lateral gene transfer) has had an important role in eukaryotic genome evolution, but its importance is often overshadowed by the greater prevalence and our more advanced understanding of gene transfer in prokaryotes. Recurrent endosymbioses and the generally poor sampling of most nuclear genes from diverse lineages have also complicated the search for transferred genes. Nevertheless, the number of well-supported cases of transfer from both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, many with significant functional implications, is now expanding rapidly. Major recent trends include the important role of HGT in adaptation to certain specialized niches and the highly variable impact of HGT in different lineages.

The endosymbiotic origin, diversification and fate of plastids

Plastids and mitochondria each arose from a single endosymbiotic event and share many similarities in how they were reduced and integrated with their host. However, the subsequent evolution of the two organelles could hardly be more different: mitochondria are a stable fixture of eukaryotic cells that are neither lost nor shuffled between lineages, whereas plastid evolution has been a complex mix of movement, loss and replacement. Molecular data from the past decade have substantially untangled this complex history, and we now know that plastids are derived from a single endosymbiotic event in the ancestor of glaucophytes, red algae and green algae (including plants). The plastids of both red algae and green algae were subsequently transferred to other lineages by secondary endosymbiosis. Green algal plastids were taken up by euglenids and chlorarachniophytes, as well as one small group of dinoflagellates. Red algae appear to have been taken up only once, giving rise to a diverse group called chromalveolates. Additional layers of complexity come from plastid loss, which has happened at least once and probably many times, and replacement. Plastid loss is difficult to prove, and cryptic, non-photosynthetic plastids are being found in many non-photosynthetic lineages. In other cases, photosynthetic lineages are now understood to have evolved from ancestors with a plastid of different origin, so an ancestral plastid has been replaced with a new one. Such replacement has taken place in several dinoflagellates (by tertiary endosymbiosis with other chromalveolates or serial secondary endosymbiosis with a green alga), and apparently also in two rhizarian lineages: chlorarachniophytes and Paulinella (which appear to have evolved from chromalveolate ancestors). The many twists and turns of plastid evolution each represent major evolutionary transitions, and each offers a glimpse into how genomes evolve and how cells integrate through gene transfers and protein trafficking.

A common red algal origin of the apicomplexan, dinoflagellate, and heterokont plastids

The discovery of a nonphotosynthetic plastid in malaria and other apicomplexan parasites has sparked a contentious debate about its evolutionary origin. Molecular data have led to conflicting conclusions supporting either its green algal origin or red algal origin, perhaps in common with the plastid of related dinoflagellates. This distinction is critical to our understanding of apicomplexan evolution and the evolutionary history of endosymbiosis and photosynthesis; however, the two plastids are nearly impossible to compare due to their nonoverlapping information content. Here we describe the complete plastid genome sequences and plastid-associated data from two independent photosynthetic lineages represented by Chromera velia and an undescribed alga CCMP3155 that we show are closely related to apicomplexans. These plastids contain a suite of features retained in either apicomplexan (four plastid membranes, the ribosomal superoperon, conserved gene order) or dinoflagellate plastids (form II Rubisco acquired by horizontal transfer, transcript polyuridylylation, thylakoids stacked in triplets) and encode a full collective complement of their reduced gene sets. Together with whole plastid genome phylogenies, these characteristics provide multiple lines of evidence that the extant plastids of apicomplexans and dinoflagellates were inherited by linear descent from a common red algal endosymbiont. Our phylogenetic analyses also support their close relationship to plastids of heterokont algae, indicating they all derive from the same endosymbiosis. Altogether, these findings support a relatively simple path of linear descent for the evolution of photosynthesis in a large proportion of algae and emphasize plastid loss in several lineages (e.g., ciliates, Cryptosporidium, and Phytophthora).

The Marine Microbial Eukaryote Transcriptome Sequencing Project (MMETSP): Illuminating the Functional Diversity of Eukaryotic Life in the Oceans through Transcriptome Sequencing.

Current sampling of genomic sequence data from eukaryotes is relatively poor, biased, and inadequate to address important questions about their biology, evolution, and ecology; this Community Page describes a resource of 700 transcriptomes from marine microbial eukaryotes to help understand their role in the worlds oceans.

Dinoflagellate nuclear SSU rRNA phylogeny suggests multiple plastid losses and replacements.

Abstract. Dinoflagellates are a trophically diverse group of protists with photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic members that appears to incorporate and lose endosymbionts relatively easily. To trace the gain and loss of plastids in dinoflagellates, we have sequenced the nuclear small subunit rRNA gene of 28 photosynthetic and four non-photosynthetic species, and produced phylogenetic trees with a total of 81 dinoflagellate sequences. Patterns of plastid gain, loss, and replacement were plotted onto this phylogeny. With the exception of the apparently early-diverging Syndiniales and Noctilucales, all non-photosynthetic dinoflagellates are very likely to have had photosynthetic ancestors with peridinin-containing plastids. The same is true for all dinoflagellates with plastids other than the peridinin-containing plastid: their ancestors have replaced one type of plastid for another, in some cases most likely through a non-photosynthetic intermediate. Eight independent instances of plastid loss and three of replacement can be inferred from existing data, but as more non-photosynthetic lineages are characterized these numbers will surely grow.

CBOL Protist Working Group: Barcoding Eukaryotic Richness beyond the Animal, Plant, and Fungal Kingdoms

A group of protist experts proposes a two-step DNA barcoding approach, comprising a universal eukaryotic pre-barcode followed by group-specific barcodes, to unveil the hidden biodiversity of microbial eukaryotes.

Algal genomes reveal evolutionary mosaicism and the fate of nucleomorphs

Cryptophyte and chlorarachniophyte algae are transitional forms in the widespread secondary endosymbiotic acquisition of photosynthesis by engulfment of eukaryotic algae. Unlike most secondary plastid-bearing algae, miniaturized versions of the endosymbiont nuclei (nucleomorphs) persist in cryptophytes and chlorarachniophytes. To determine why, and to address other fundamental questions about eukaryote–eukaryote endosymbiosis, we sequenced the nuclear genomes of the cryptophyte Guillardia theta and the chlorarachniophyte Bigelowiella natans. Both genomes have >21,000 protein genes and are intron rich, and B. natans exhibits unprecedented alternative splicing for a single-celled organism. Phylogenomic analyses and subcellular targeting predictions reveal extensive genetic and biochemical mosaicism, with both host- and endosymbiont-derived genes servicing the mitochondrion, the host cell cytosol, the plastid and the remnant endosymbiont cytosol of both algae. Mitochondrion-to-nucleus gene transfer still occurs in both organisms but plastid-to-nucleus and nucleomorph-to-nucleus transfers do not, which explains why a small residue of essential genes remains locked in each nucleomorph.

Lateral gene transfer and the evolution of plastid-targeted proteins in the secondary plastid-containing alga Bigelowiella natans

Chlorarachniophytes are amoeboflagellate algae that acquired photosynthesis secondarily by engulfing a green alga and retaining its plastid (chloroplast). An important consequence of secondary endosymbiosis in chlorarachniophytes is that most of the nuclear genes encoding plastid-targeted proteins have moved from the nucleus of the endosymbiont to the host nucleus. We have sequenced and analyzed 83 cDNAs encoding 78 plastid-targeted proteins from the model chlorarachniophyte Bigelowiella natans (formerly Chlorarachnion sp. CCMP621). Phylogenies inferred from the majority of these genes are consistent with a chlorophyte green algal origin. However, a significant number of genes (≈21%) show signs of having been acquired by lateral gene transfer from numerous other sources: streptophyte algae, red algae (or algae with red algal endosymbionts), as well as bacteria. The chlorarachniophyte plastid proteome may therefore be regarded as a mosaic derived from various organisms in addition to the ancestral chlorophyte plastid. In contrast, the homologous genes from the chlorophyte Chlamydomonas reinhardtii do not show any indications of lateral gene transfer. This difference is likely a reflection of the mixotrophic nature of Bigelowiella (i.e., it is photosynthetic and phagotrophic), whereas Chlamydomonas is strictly autotrophic. These results underscore the importance of lateral gene transfer in contributing foreign proteins to eukaryotic cells and their organelles, and also suggest that its impact can vary from lineage to lineage.

The Number, Speed, and Impact of Plastid Endosymbioses in Eukaryotic Evolution

Plastids (chloroplasts) have long been recognized to have originated by endosymbiosis of a cyanobacterium, but their subsequent evolutionary history has proved complex because they have also moved between eukaryotes during additional rounds of secondary and tertiary endosymbioses. Much of this history has been revealed by genomic analyses, but some debates remain unresolved, in particular those relating to secondary red plastids of the chromalveolates, especially cryptomonads. Here, I examine several fundamental questions and assumptions about endosymbiosis and plastid evolution, including the number of endosymbiotic events needed to explain plastid diversity, whether the genetic contribution of the endosymbionts to the host genome goes far beyond plastid-targeted genes, and whether organelle origins are best viewed as a singular transition involving one symbiont or as a gradual transition involving a long line of transient food/symbionts. I also discuss a possible link between transporters and the evolution of protein targeting in organelle integration.

Microsporidia Evolved from Ancestral Sexual Fungi

Microsporidia are obligate, intracellular eukaryotic pathogens that infect animal cells, including humans [1]. Previous studies suggested microsporidia share a common ancestor with fungi [2-7]. However, the exact nature of this phylogenetic relationship is unclear because of unusual features of microsporidial genomes, which are compact with fewer and highly divergent genes [8]. As a consequence, it is unclear whether microsporidia evolved from a specific fungal lineage, or whether microsporidia are a sister group to all fungi. Here, we present evidence addressing this controversial question that is independent of sequence-based phylogenetic reconstruction, but rather based on genome structure. In the zygomycete basal fungal lineage, the sex locus is a syntenic gene cluster governing sexual reproduction in which a high mobility group (HMG) transcription-factor gene is flanked by triose-phosphate transporter (TPT) and RNA helicase genes [9]. Strikingly, microsporidian genomes harbor a sex-related locus with the same genes in the same order. Genome-wide synteny analysis reveals multiple other loci conserved between microsporidia and zygomycetes to the exclusion of all other fungal lineages with sequenced genomes. These findings support the hypothesis that microsporidia are true fungi that descended from a zygomycete ancestor and suggest microsporidia may have an extant sexual cycle.