RT Journal
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
JF Genome Research 
JO Genome Research 
YR 2011 
FD July 14 
DO 10.1101/gr.121137.111 
SP gr.121137.111 
UL http://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2011/07/14/gr.121137.111.abstract 
AB 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.