A neighbor-joining (NJ) tree showing the evolutionary relationships among Achaete-Scute family members. Numbers above branches indicate percent support in bootstrap analyses (1000 replicates). This tree is rooted using the single cnidarian (Hv CNASH) member as outgroup. As in Figure 3, the rooting should be considered arbitrary. The four fly achaete-scute genes are collectively orthologous to the four worm genes and to two subfamilies of vertebrate genes, theMASH-1 and MASH-2 related genes, respectively. The three closely related actinopterygians sequences (TrASH1, OlASHB, and DrASHb) and the two closely related Xenopus sequences are pointed out (black squares). Note also the basal position of theJuonia coenia sequences (Jc ASH1), inside the arthropod clade, that indicates that this gene is most probably the single ortholog of the three or four achaete-scute genes found in diptera. The alignments of which this tree is based as well as maximum parsimony (MP), maximum likelihood (ML), phylogram, and bootstrapped trees can be found on our Web site. Abbreviations are as listed in Figure 1.
