Yeong-Shin Lin

Prediction of the bonding states of cysteines Using the support vector machines based on multiple feature vectors and cysteine state sequences

The support vector machine (SVM) method is used to predict the bonding states of cysteines. Besides using local descriptors such as the local sequences, we include global information, such as amino acid compositions and the patterns of the states of cysteines (bonded or nonbonded), or cysteine state sequences, of the proteins. We found that SVM based on local sequences or global amino acid compositions yielded similar prediction accuracies for the data set comprising 4136 cysteine‐containing segments extracted from 969 nonhomologous proteins. However, the SVM method based on multiple feature vectors (combining local sequences and global amino acid compositions) significantly improves the prediction accuracy, from 80% to 86%. If coupled with cysteine state sequences, SVM based on multiple feature vectors yields 90% in overall prediction accuracy and a 0.77 Matthews correlation coefficient, around 10% and 22% higher than the corresponding values obtained by SVM based on local sequence information. Proteins 2004;55:000–000.

Codon-usage bias versus gene conversion in the evolution of yeast duplicate genes

Many Saccharomyces cerevisiae duplicate genes that were derived from an ancient whole-genome duplication (WGD) unexpectedly show a small synonymous divergence (KS), a higher sequence similarity to each other than to orthologues in Saccharomyces bayanus, or slow evolution compared with the orthologue in Kluyveromyces waltii, a non-WGD species. This decelerated evolution was attributed to gene conversion between duplicates. Using ≈300 WGD gene pairs in four species and their orthologues in non-WGD species, we show that codon-usage bias and protein-sequence conservation are two important causes for decelerated evolution of duplicate genes, whereas gene conversion is effective only in the presence of strong codon-usage bias or protein-sequence conservation. Furthermore, we find that change in mutation pattern or in tDNA copy number changed codon-usage bias and increased the KS distance between K. waltii and S. cerevisiae. Intriguingly, some proteins showed fast evolution before the radiation of WGD species but little or no sequence divergence between orthologues and paralogues thereafter, indicating that functional conservation after the radiation may also be responsible for decelerated evolution in duplicates.

Evolutionary information hidden in a single protein structure

The knowledge of conserved sequences in proteins is valuable in identifying functionally or structurally important residues. Generating the conservation profile of a sequence requires aligning families of homologous sequences and having knowledge of their evolutionary relationships. Here, we report that the conservation profile at the residue level can be quantitatively derived from a single protein structure with only backbone information. We found that the reciprocal packing density profiles of protein structures closely resemble their sequence conservation profiles. For a set of 554 nonhomologous enzymes, 74% (408/554) of the proteins have a correlation coefficient > 0.5 between these two profiles. Our results indicate that the three‐dimensional structure, instead of being a mere scaffold for positioning amino acid residues, exerts such strong evolutionary constraints on the residues of the protein that its profile of sequence conservation essentially reflects that of its structural characteristics. Proteins 2012;.

The complete mitochondrial genome of the great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias (Chondrichthyes, Lamnidae)

Abstract The complete mitochondrial genome of the great white shark having 16,744 bp and including 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA, 22 transfer RNA genes, 1 replication origin region and 1 control region. The mitochondrial gene arrangement of the great white shark is the same as the one observed in the most vertebrates. Base composition of the genome is A (30.6%), T (28.7%), C (26.9%) and G (13.9%).

Complete mitochondrial genome of the megamouth shark Megachasma pelagios (Chondrichthyes, Megachasmidae)

Abstract Here we describe the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of the megamouth shark, Megachasma pelagios, which is an extremely rare species of deepwater shark. The circle genome (16,694 bp) consists of 13 protein coding, 22 tRNA, 2 rRNA genes and 1 control region. It has the typical vertebrate mitochondrial gene arrangement.

Fast Evolution of Core Promoters in Primate Genomes

Despite much interest in regulatory evolution, how promoters have evolved remains poorly studied, mainly owing to paucity of data on promoter regions. Using a new set of high-quality experimentally determined core promoters of the human genome, we conducted a comparative analysis of 2,492 human and rhesus macaque promoters and their neighboring nearly neutral regions. We found that the core promoters have an average rate of nucleotide substitution substantially higher than that at 4-fold degenerate sites and only slightly lower than that for the assumed neutral controls of neighboring noncoding regions, suggesting that core promoters are subject to very weak selective constraints. Interestingly, we identified 24 core promoters (at false discovery rate = 50%) that have evolved at an accelerated rate compared with the neutral controls, suggesting that they may have undergone positive selection. The inferred positively selected genes show strong bias in molecular function. We also used population genetic approaches to examine the evolution of core promoters in human populations and found evidence of positive selection at some loci. Taken together, our results suggest that positive selection has played a substantial role in the evolution of transcriptional regulation in primates.

Reassessment of morphological characteristics in freshwater eels (genus Anguilla, Anguillidae) shows congruence with molecular phylogeny estimates

The morphology‐based phylogeny of freshwater eels, proposed by V. Ege in 1939, has been accepted as the basis of eel classification since that time. However, this has been called into question by recent molecular studies. Most of the morphological characteristics recognized by Ege are morphometric. Since methods for the application of morphometric data to phylogeny construction have not been fully established, it is unclear whether the observed discrepancies between morphological and molecular data arise from intrinsic differences or from flawed analyses. Here, we have used two methods to assemble evolutionary trees from distance matrices constructed according to Eges data, the neighbor‐joining (NJ) method and the minimum network (MinNet) method; the latter is based on an evolutionary algorithm. After reanalysing Eges morphological data, we found that both methods gave results consistent with those based on molecular data, although not with Eges original classification. Therefore, we speculate that some morphological features Ege used to subdivide the eel groups may not be synapomorphic as he proposed, but symplesiomorphic or convergent . The method developed here may prove useful for constructing phylogeny for taxon groups where only continuous morphometric characteristics are recognized, such as the freshwater eels.

The complete mitochondrial genome of the big-eye thresher shark, Alopias superciliosus (Chondrichthyes, Alopiidae)

Abstract The complete mitochondrial genome of the big-eye thresher shark was sequenced using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based method. The total length of mitochondrial DNA is 16,719 bp and includes 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA, 22 transfer RNA genes, 1 replication origin region and 1 control region. The mitochondrial gene arrangement of the big-eye thresher shark is the same as the one observed in the most vertebrates. Base composition of the genome is A (31.8%), T (28.9%), C (25.8%) and G (13.5%).

The complete mitochondrial genome of the sand tiger shark, Carcharias taurus (Chondrichthyes, Odontaspididae).

Abstract The complete mitochondrial genome of the sand tiger shark consists of 16,773 bp and including 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA, 22 transfer RNA genes, 1 replication origin region and 1 control region. The mitochondrial gene arrangement of the sand tiger shark is the same as the one observed in most vertebrates. Base composition of the genome is A (31.8%), T (28.7%), C (26.3%) and G (13.2%).

The complete mitochondrial genome of the shortfin mako, Isurus oxyrinchus (Chondrichthyes, Lamnidae)

Abstract The complete mitochondrial genome of the shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) was determined by using a PCR-based method. The total length of mitochondrial DNA is 16,701 bp and includes 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA, 22 transfer RNA genes, 1 replication origin region, and 1 control region. The mitochondrial gene arrangement of the tiger tail seahorse is also matching the one observed in the most vertebrate creatures. Base composition of the genome is A (28.8%), T (28.0%), C (28.0%), and G (15.2%) with an A + T rich hallmark as that of other vertebrate mitochondrial genomes.