TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heidel, Andrew
A1  - Lawal, Hajara
A1  - Felder, Marius
A1  - Schilde, Christina
A1  - Helps, Nicholas
A1  - Tunggal, Budi
A1  - Rivero, Francisco
A1  - John, Uwe
A1  - Schleicher, Michael
A1  - Eichinger, Ludwig
A1  - Platzer, Matthias
A1  - Noegel, Angelika
A1  - Schaap, Pauline
A1  - Glöckner, Gernot
T1  - Phylogeny-wide analysis of social amoeba genomes highlights ancient origins for complex intercellular communication
Y1  - 2011/07/14 
JF  - Genome Research 
JO  - Genome Research 
DO  - 10.1101/gr.121137.111 
SP  - gr.121137.111 
UR  - http://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2011/07/14/gr.121137.111.abstract 
N2  - Dictyostelium discoideum (DD), an extensively studied model organism for cell and developmental biology, belongs to the most derived group 4 of social amoebas, a clade of altruistic multicellular organisms. To understand genome evolution over long time periods and the genetic basis of social evolution, we sequenced the genomes of Dictyostelium fasciculatum (DF) and Polysphondylium pallidum (PP), that represent the early diverging groups 1 and 2, respectively. In contrast to DD, PP and DF have conventional telomere organisation and strongly reduced numbers of transposable elements. The number of protein coding genes is similar between species, but only half of them comprise an identifiable set of orthologous genes. In general, genes involved in primary metabolism, cytoskeletal functions and signal transduction are conserved, while genes involved in secondary metabolism, export and signal perception underwent large differential gene family expansions. This most likely signifies involvement of the conserved set in core cell and developmental mechanisms, and of the diverged set in niche- and species-specific adaptations for defence and food, mate and kin selection. Phylogenetic dating using a concatenated data set and extensive loss of synteny indicate that DF, PP and DD split from their last common ancestor at least 0.6 billion years ago. 
ER  -