Chong Jasmine, Jackson Christopher, Kim Jong Im, Yoon Hwan Su, Reyes-Prieto Adrian
Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, 10 Bailey Drive, Fredericton, New Brunswick E3B 5A3, Canada; Integrated Microbiology Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Canada.
Department of Biological Sciences, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 440-746, Republic of Korea; Department of Biology, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, Republic of Korea.
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2014 Jul;76:181-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2014.03.019. Epub 2014 Mar 28.
Glaucophytes are the least studied of the three major Archaeplastida (Plantae sensu lato) lineages. It has been largely recognized that comprehensive investigations of glaucophyte genetic and species diversity will shed light on the early evolution of photosynthetic eukaryotes. Here we used molecular phylogenetics and genetic distance estimations of diverse molecular markers to explore strain and species diversity within the glaucophyte genera Cyanophora and Glaucocystis. Single gene and concatenated maximum likelihood analyses of markers from three different genetic compartments consistently recovered similar intrageneric genetic groups. Distance analyses of plastid (psbA and rbcL) and mitochondrial (cob and cox1) genes, and the nuclear internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, revealed substantial genetic divergence between some Cyanophora paradoxa and Glaucocystis nostochinearum strains. The genetic distances estimated between some glaucophyte strains currently considered the same species are similar or greater than divergence values calculated between different species in other unicellular algae, such as certain green algae and diatoms. The analyzed molecular markers are prospective candidates for future studies of species diversity in glaucophytes. Overall, our results unveil previously unrecognized cryptic diversity within Cyanophora and Glaucocystis species.
灰胞藻是三大主要泛植物（广义植物）谱系中研究最少的。人们普遍认识到，对灰胞藻遗传和物种多样性进行全面研究将有助于揭示光合真核生物的早期进化。在这里，我们使用分子系统发育学和多种分子标记的遗传距离估计来探索蓝载藻属和灰胞藻属内的菌株和物种多样性。对来自三个不同遗传区域的标记进行单基因和串联最大似然分析，一致地恢复了相似的属内遗传群体。对质体（psbA和rbcL）、线粒体（cob和cox1）基因以及核内转录间隔区（ITS）区域的距离分析表明，一些蓝氏蓝载藻和念珠灰胞藻菌株之间存在显著的遗传差异。目前被认为是同一物种的一些灰胞藻菌株之间估计的遗传距离，与其他单细胞藻类（如某些绿藻和硅藻）不同物种之间计算的差异值相似或更大。所分析的分子标记是未来研究灰胞藻物种多样性的潜在候选标记。总体而言，我们的结果揭示了蓝载藻属和灰胞藻属物种中以前未被认识到的隐秘多样性。
