Analysis of horizontal genetic transfer in red algae in the post-genomics age

Abstract

The recently published genome of the unicellular red alga Porphyridium purpureum revealed a gene-rich, intron-poor species, which is surprising for a free-living mesophile. Of the 8,355 predicted protein-coding regions, up to 773 (9.3%) were implicated in horizontal genetic transfer (HGT) events involving other prokaryote and eukaryote lineages. A much smaller number, up to 174 (2.1%) showed unambiguous evidence of vertical inheritance. Together with other red algal genomes, nearly all published in 2013, these data provide an excellent platform for studying diverse aspects of algal biology and evolution. This novel information will help investigators test existing hypotheses about the impact of endosymbiosis and HGT on algal evolution and enable comparative analysis within a more-refined, hypothesis-driven framework that extends beyond HGT. Here we explore the impacts of this infusion of red algal genome data on addressing questions regarding the complex nature of algal evolution and highlight the need for scalable phylogenomic approaches to handle the forthcoming deluge of sequence information.

Keywords: :

• red algae
• phylogenomics
• horizontal genetic transfer
• endosymbiosis
• algal evolution

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Published online: 01/02/2014

Citation: Chan CX, Bhattacharya D. Analysis of horizontal genetic transfer in red algae in the post-genomics age. Mobile Genetic Elements 2014; 3:e27669; 10.4161/mge.27669

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Acknowledgments

CXC is supported by a ResTeach Fellowship from The University of Queensland. The red algal genome research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation awarded to DB (0936884).