The phylogenetic relationship of tetrapod, coelacanth, and lungfish revealed by the sequences of forty-four nuclear genes

Naoko Takezaki, Felipe Figueroa, Zofia Zaleska-Rutczynska, Naoyuki Takahata, Jan Klein

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

132 Scopus citations

Abstract

The origin of tetrapods is a major outstanding issue in vertebrate phylogeny. Each of the three possible principal hypotheses (coelacanth, lungfish, or neither being the sister group of tetrapods) has found support in different sets of data. In an attempt to resolve the controversy, sequences of 44 nuclear genes encoding amino acid residues at 10,404 positions were obtained and analyzed. However, this large set of sequences did not support conclusively one of the three hypotheses. Apparently, the coelacanth, lungfish, and tetrapod lineages diverged within such a short time interval that at this level of analysis, their relationships appear to be an irresolvable trichotomy.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1512-1524
Number of pages13
JournalMolecular biology and evolution
Volume21
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2004

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Molecular Biology
  • Genetics

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