The Lungfish Transcriptome: A Glimpse into Molecular Evolution Events at the Transition from Water to Land

Lungfish and coelacanths are the only living sarcopterygian fish. The phylogenetic relationship of lungfish to the last common ancestor of tetrapods and their close morphological similarity to their fossil ancestors make this species uniquely interesting. However their genome size, the largest among...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2016-02, Vol.6 (1), p.21571-21571, Article 21571
Main Authors: Biscotti, Maria Assunta, Gerdol, Marco, Canapa, Adriana, Forconi, Mariko, Olmo, Ettore, Pallavicini, Alberto, Barucca, Marco, Schartl, Manfred
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Evolution, Molecular
Female
Fish Proteins - genetics
Fish Proteins - metabolism
Fishes - genetics
Fishes - metabolism
Gene families
Genomes
Male
Molecular evolution
Molecular Sequence Annotation
Nucleotide sequence
Phylogeny
Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Transcriptome
Vertebrates
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Summary:Lungfish and coelacanths are the only living sarcopterygian fish. The phylogenetic relationship of lungfish to the last common ancestor of tetrapods and their close morphological similarity to their fossil ancestors make this species uniquely interesting. However their genome size, the largest among vertebrates, is hampering the generation of a whole genome sequence. To provide a partial solution to the problem, a high-coverage lungfish reference transcriptome was generated and assembled. The present findings indicate that lungfish, not coelacanths, are the closest relatives to land-adapted vertebrates. Whereas protein-coding genes evolve at a very slow rate, possibly reflecting a "living fossil" status, transposable elements appear to be active and show high diversity, suggesting a role for them in the remarkable expansion of the lungfish genome. Analyses of single genes and gene families documented changes connected to the water to land transition and demonstrated the value of the lungfish reference transcriptome for comparative studies of vertebrate evolution.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep21571