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. 1994 Apr 12;91(8):3255–3259. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.8.3255

Evolution of translational elongation factor (EF) sequences: reliability of global phylogenies inferred from EF-1 alpha(Tu) and EF-2(G) proteins.

R Creti 1, E Ceccarelli 1, M Bocchetta 1, A M Sanangelantoni 1, O Tiboni 1, P Palm 1, P Cammarano 1
PMCID: PMC43555  PMID: 8159735

Abstract

The EF-2 coding genes of the Archaea Pyrococcus woesei and Desulfurococcus mobilis were cloned and sequenced. Global phylogenies were inferred by alternative tree-making methods from available EF-2(G) sequence data and contrasted with phylogenies constructed from the more conserved but shorter EF-1 alpha(Tu) sequences. Both the monophyly (sensu Hennig) of Archaea and their subdivision into the kingdoms Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota are consistently inferred by analysis of EF-2(G) sequences, usually at a high bootstrap confidence level. In contrast, EF-1 alpha(Tu) phylogenies tend to be inconsistent with one another and show low bootstrap confidence levels. While evolutionary distance and DNA maximum parsimony analyses of EF-1 alpha(Tu) sequences do show archaeal monophyly, protein parsimony and DNA maximum-likelihood analyses of these data do not. In no case, however, do any of the tree topologies inferred from EF-1 alpha(Tu) sequence analyses receive significant bootstrap support.

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Selected References

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