—LAOdcs are ancient in Firmicutes. (A) Unrooted maximum likelihood phylogeny of LAOdc Cluster I (PhyML, LG+I+G4, 504 sequences, 295 amino-acid positions), displayed as a cladogram. The corresponding phylogram is available at the newick format as supplementary material, Supplementary Material online. Leaf colors correspond to taxonomic groups (Firmicutes: Red, pink, blue, light blue, fade green, and brown, Cyanobacteria: Green, Actinobacteria: Yellow, other: Grey). External colored rings correspond to copy A (blue) and B (red). LAOdc sequences discussed in the text or for which functional information is available are indicated with gray arrows. Red dots correspond to bootstrap values (BV), ranging from 0% (smallest circles) to 100% (largest circles). Sequences that are displayed in their genomic context are mapped with asterisks. (B) Taxonomic distribution of AAT-fold LAOdc mapped on a ribosomal protein tree of Firmicutes (PhyML, LG+I+G4, 38 sequences, 6,133 amino-acid positions). For clarity the tree is displayed as a cladogram. The corresponding phylogram is available at the newick format as supplementary material, Supplementary Material online. Red dots correspond to bootstrap values (BV), ranging from 0% (smallest circles) to 100% (largest circles). Taxa that are represented in (C) are mapped with asterisks. The blue diamonds pinpoint the emergence of copy A and copy B. Rectangles at leaves indicate that at least one genome of the considered taxon encodes one or more AAT-fold LAOdc. A green rectangle indicates that the ancestor of the taxon likely contains one (or more) AAT-fold LAOdc gene, whereas a red rectangle indicates that some members of the taxon acquired secondarily their AAT-fold LAOdc by HGT. (C) Genomic context of LAOdc A and B in a sample of Firmicutes. LAOdc A presents a well-conserved association with thymidylate kinase and DNA polymerase III subunit delta coding genes, while the genomic context of LAOdc B is not conserved. Black arrows: LAOdc coding genes, colored arrows: Conserved neighbor genes.