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Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2020

Chlamydial contribution to anaerobic metabolism during eukaryotic evolution

Stairs, Courtney W.; Dharamshi, Jennah E.; Tamarit, Daniel; Eme, Laura; Jorgensen, Steffen L.; Spang, Anja; Ettema, Thijs J. G.

Abstract

The origin of eukaryotes is a major open question in evolutionary biology. Multiple hypotheses posit that eukaryotes likely evolved from a syntrophic relationship between an archaeon and an alphaproteobacterium based on H-2 exchange. However, there are no strong indications that modern eukaryotic H-2 metabolism originated from archaea or alphaproteobacteria. Here, we present evidence for the origin of H-2 metabolism genes in eukaryotes from an ancestor of the Anoxychlamydiales-a group of anaerobic chlamydiae, newly described here, from marine sediments. Among Chlamydiae, these bacteria uniquely encode genes for H-2 metabolism and other anaerobiosis-associated pathways. Phylogenetic analyses of several components of H-2 metabolism reveal that Anoxychlamydiales homologs are the closest relatives to eukaryotic sequences. We propose that an ancestor of the Anoxychlamydiales contributed these key genes during the evolution of eukaryotes, supporting a mosaic evolutionary origin of eukaryotic metabolism.

Published in

Science Advances
2020, Volume: 6, number: 35, article number: eabb7258
Publisher: AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE

    UKÄ Subject classification

    Evolutionary Biology

    Publication identifier

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb7258

    Permanent link to this page (URI)

    https://res.slu.se/id/publ/107812