Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 21 May 1999:
Vol. 284. no. 5418, pp. 1305 - 1307
DOI: 10.1126/science.284.5418.1305
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

News

MICROBES, IMMUNITY, AND DISEASE
Is It Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?

Elizabeth Pennisi

When full DNA sequences opened the way to comparing many different genes in different organisms, the comparisons proved confounding. Rather than clarifying the tree that seeks to show how life evolved, they often produced new trees that differ from the traditional tree and conflict with each other as well. Now some microbiologists, pointing to evidence that microbes have swapped genes wantonly over evolutionary history, say that many of these genes are an unreliable guide to evolutionary history and the old tree is still basically sound. But others think it's time to uproot the old tree and are proposing candidates for new trees based on specific features of the genome and cell structure. And still others worry that gene swapping has turned the tree of life into a tangled briar whose lineages will be next to impossible to discern.

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Mathematical Modeling of Evolution of Horizontally Transferred Genes.
A. S. Novozhilov, G. P. Karev, and E. V. Koonin (2005)
Mol. Biol. Evol. 22, 1721-1732
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
On the evolution of cells.
C. R. Woese (2002)
PNAS 99, 8742-8747
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Evolutionary Analysis by Whole-Genome Comparisons.
(2002)
J. Bacteriol. 184, 2260-2272
Interpreting the universal phylogenetic tree.
C. R. Woese (2000)
PNAS 97, 8392-8396
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Whole-genome Trees Based on the Occurrence of Folds and Orthologs: Implications for Comparing Genomes on Different Levels.
J. Lin and M. Gerstein (2000)
Genome Res. 10, 808-818
   Abstract »    Full Text »
Lateral Gene Transfer, Genome Surveys, and the Phylogeny of Prokaryotes.
M. Huynen, B. Snel, P. Bork;, J. W. Stiller, B. D. Hall;, R. S. Gupta, B. J. Soltys;, and W. F. Doolittle; (1999)
Science 286, 1443a-1443
   Full Text »


ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)