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Systematic Biology 2007 56(1):83-96; doi:10.1080/10635150601182939
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© 2007 Society of Systematic Biologists

Base-Compositional Heterogeneity in the RAG1 Locus among Didelphid Marsupials: Implications for Phylogenetic Inference and the Evolution of GC Content

Karl F. Gruber1, Robert S. Voss2 and Sharon A. Jansa1

1 Bell Museum of Natural History and Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota St. Paul, Minnesota, 55108, USA E-mail: jansa003{at}umn.edu (S.A.J.)
2 Department of Mammalogy, American Museum of Natural History New York, New York, 10024, USA

Edited by Mark Hafner: Associate Editor


  Abstract

Although theoretical studies have suggested that base-compositional heterogeneity can adversely affect phylogenetic reconstruction, only a few empirical examples of this phenomenon, mostly among ancient lineages (with divergence dates > 100 Mya), have been reported. In the course of our phylogenetic research on the New World marsupial family Didelphidae, we sequenced 2790 bp of the RAG1 exon from exemplar species of most extant genera. Phylogenetic analysis of these sequences recovered an anomalous node consisting of two clades previously shown to be distantly related based on analyses of other molecular data. These two clades show significantly increased GC content at RAG1 third codon positions, and the resulting convergence in base composition is strong enough to overwhelm phylogenetic signal from other genes (and morphology) in most analyses of concatenated datasets. This base-compositional convergence occurred relatively recently (over tens rather than hundreds of millions of years), and the affected gene region is still in a state of evolutionary disequilibrium. Both mutation rate and substitution rate are higher in GC-rich didelphid taxa, observations consistent with RAG1 sequences having experienced a higher rate of recombination in the convergent lineages.

Keywords: Biased gene conversion; Didelphidae; nucleotide composition; phylogeny; RAG1; recombination

Received May 18, 2006; Revised July 11, 2006; Accepted September 5, 2006
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