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The evolutionary origin of strong altruism (where the altruist pays an absolute cost in terms of fitness) towards non-kin has never been satisfactorily explained since no mechanism (except genetic drift) seems...
Globin isoforms with variant properties and functions have been found in the pseudocoel, body wall and cuticle of various nematode species and even in the eyespots of the insect-parasite Mermis nigrescens. In fac...
DNA encoding for ribosomal RNA (rDNA) is arranged in tandemly-repeated subunits, each containing ribosomal genes and non-coding spacers. Because tandemly-repeated, rDNA evolves under a balanced influence of se...
The bacterium Listeria monocytogenes is a saprotroph as well as an opportunistic human foodborne pathogen, which has previously been shown to consist of at least two widespread lineages (termed lineages I and II)...
The origin of vertebrate retroviruses (Retroviridae) is yet to be thoroughly investigated, but due to their similarity and identical gag-pol (and env) genome structure, it is accepted that they evolve from Ty3/Gy...
Different regions in a genome evolve at different rates depending on structural and functional constraints. Some genomic regions are highly conserved during metazoan evolution, while other regions may evolve r...
Host-parasite coevolution can result in balancing selection, which maintains genetic variation in the susceptibility of hosts to parasites. It has been suggested that variation in a thioester-containing protei...
Related species, such as humans and chimpanzees, often experience the same disease with varying degrees of pathology, as seen in the cases of Alzheimer's disease, or differing symptomatology as in AIDS. Furthe...
Despite a large agreement between ribosomal RNA and concatenated protein phylogenies, the phylogenetic tree of the bacterial domain remains uncertain in its deepest nodes. For instance, the position of the hyp...
The Mus musculus musculus/M. m. domesticus contact zone in Europe is characterised by sharp frequency discontinuities for sex chromosome markers at the centre of wider clines in allozyme frequencies.
Moths have evolved highly successful mating systems, relying on species-specific mixtures of sex pheromone components for long-distance mate communication. Acyl-CoA desaturases are key enzymes in the biosynthe...
Segmental duplications (SDs) are euchromatic portions of genomic DNA (≥ 1 kb) that occur at more than one site within the genome, and typically share a high level of sequence identity (>90%). Approximately 5% ...
The L-lactate and D-lactate dehydrogenases, which are involved in the reduction of pyruvate to L(-)-lactate and D(+)-lactate, belong to evolutionarily unrelated enzyme families. The genes encoding L-LDH have b...
The remarkable potential of recent forms of life for reliably passing on genetic information through many generations now depends on the coordinated action of thousands of specialized biochemical "machines" (e...
Most human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) invaded our genome at least 25 million years ago. The majority of the viral genes are degenerated, since no selection preserves them within the genome. However, a few...
Molecular evolutionary studies in mammals often estimate nucleotide substitution rates within and outside CpG dinucleotides separately. Frequently, in alignments of two sequences, the division of sites into Cp...
North American Agalinis Raf. species represent a taxonomically challenging group and there have been extensive historical revisions at the species, section, and subsection levels of classification. The genus cont...
The autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is mostly caused by mutations in the PKD1 (polycystic kidney disease 1) gene located in 16p13.3. Moreover, there are six pseudogenes of PKD1 that are locat...
Evolution involves both deterministic and random processes, both of which are known to contribute to directional evolutionary change. A number of studies have shown that when fitness is treated as a random var...
Members of the forkhead gene family act as transcription regulators in biological processes including development and metabolism. The evolution of forkhead genes has not been widely examined and selection pres...
All bilaterian animals share a general genetic framework that controls the formation of their body structures, although their forms are highly diversified. The Hox genes that encode transcription factors play ...
Teleost radiation in the oceans required specific physiological adaptations in eggs and early embryos to survive in the hyper-osmotic seawater. Investigating the evolution of aquaporins (AQPs) in these vertebr...
The animal sialyltransferases, which catalyze the transfer of sialic acid to the glycan moiety of glycoconjugates, are subdivided into four families: ST3Gal, ST6Gal, ST6GalNAc and ST8Sia, based on acceptor sug...
The rate of nucleotide substitutions is not constant across the Tree of Life, and departures from a molecular clock have been commonly reported. Within parmelioid lichens, the largest group of macrolichens, la...
Cyanobacteria produce a wealth of secondary metabolites, including the group of small cyclic heptapeptide hepatotoxins that constitutes the microcystin family. The enzyme complex that directs the biosynthesis ...
Accurately modeling the sequence substitution process is required for the correct estimation of evolutionary parameters, be they phylogenetic relationships, substitution rates or ancestral states; it is also c...
Ever since the theory about two rounds of genome duplication (2R) in the vertebrate lineage was proposed, the Hox gene clusters have served as the prime example of quadruplicate paralogy in mammalian genomes. ...
Female endoparasitic ichneumonid wasps inject virus-like particles into their caterpillar hosts to suppress immunity. These particles are classified as ichnovirus virions and resemble ascovirus virions, which ...
Large pelagic fishes are generally thought to have little population genetic structuring based on their cosmopolitan distribution, large population sizes and high dispersal capacities. However, gene flow can b...
A recent study by Barthélémy et al. described a set of ribosomal protein (RP) genes extracted from a collection of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) of the chaetognath (arrow worm) Spadella cephaloptera. Three main ...
The serpin (serine protease inhibitor) superfamily constitutes a class of functionally highly diverse proteins usually encompassing several dozens of paralogs in mammals. Though phylogenetic classification of ...
The MC1R (melanocortin-1 receptor) locus underlies intraspecific variation in melanin-based dark plumage coloration in several unrelated birds with plumage polymorphisms. There is far less evidence for functional...
Management strategies for coral reefs are dependant on information about the spatial population structure and connectivity of reef organisms. Genetic tools can reveal important information about population str...
We describe a function-driven approach to the analysis of metabolism which takes into account the phylogenetic origin of biochemical reactions to reveal subtle lineage-specific metabolic innovations, undetecta...
The ability to form teeth was lost in an ancestor of all modern birds, approximately 100-80 million years ago. However, experiments in chicken have revealed that the oral epithelium can respond to inductive si...
Grasses are adapted to a wide range of climatic conditions. Species of the subfamily Pooideae, which includes wheat, barley and important forage grasses, have evolved extreme frost tolerance. A class of ice bi...
Hemerythrins, are the non-heme, diiron binding respiratory proteins of brachiopods, priapulids and sipunculans; they are also found in annelids and bacteria, where their functions have not been fully elucidated.
Male killing endosymbionts manipulate their arthropod host reproduction by only allowing female embryos to develop into infected females and killing all male offspring. Because of the reproductive manipulation...
The trade-off between current and future parental investment is often different between males and females. This difference may lead to sexual conflict between parents over care provisioning in animals that bre...
Hair is unique to mammals. Keratin associated proteins (KRTAPs), which contain two major groups: high/ultrahigh cysteine and high glycine-tyrosine, are one of the major components of hair and play essential ro...
The Erratum to this article has been published in BMC Evolutionary Biology 2009 9:213
The bananaquit (Coereba flaveola) is a small nectivorous and frugivorous emberizine bird (order Passeriformes) that is an abundant resident throughout the Caribbean region. We used multi-gene analyses to investig...
Social insects dominate ecological communities because of their sophisticated group behaviors. However, the intricate behaviors of social insects may be exploited by social parasites, which manipulate insect s...
Recent work on the complexity of life highlights the roles played by evolutionary forces at different levels of individuality. One of the central puzzles in explaining transitions in individuality for entities...
Ants of the genus Lasius are ecologically important and an important system for evolutionary research. Progress in evolutionary research has been hindered by the lack of a well-founded phylogeny of the subgenera,...
Exaggerated male ornaments and displays often evolve in species where males only provide females with ejaculates during reproduction. Although "good genes" arguments are typically invoked to explain this pheno...
Genetic estimates of effective population size often generate surprising results, including dramatically low ratios of effective population size to census size. This is particularly true for many marine specie...
Transposable elements (TEs) constitute a substantial amount of all eukaryotic genomes. They induce an important proportion of deleterious mutations by insertion into genes or gene regulatory regions. However, ...
The genus Listeria includes two closely related pathogenic and non-pathogenic species, L. monocytogenes and L. innocua. L. monocytogenes is an opportunistic human foodborne and animal pathogen that includes two c...
ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (AGPase), which catalyses a rate limiting step in starch synthesis, is a heterotetramer comprised of two identical large and two identical small subunits in plants. Although the l...
The ability for an evolving population to adapt to a novel environment is achieved through a balance of robustness and evolvability. Robustness is the invariance of phenotype in the face of perturbation and ev...
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