Accelerated evolution of functional plastid rRNA and elongation factor genes due to reduced protein synthetic load after the loss of photosynthesis in the chlorophyte alga Polytoma.

Polytoma obtusum and Polytoma uvella are members of a clade of nonphotosynthetic chlorophyte algae closely related to Chlamydomonas humicola and other photosynthetic members of the Chlamydomonadaceae. Descended from a nonphotosynthetic mutant, these obligate heterotrophs retain a plastid (leucoplast) with a functional protein synthetic system, and a plastid genome (lpDNA) with functional genes encoding proteins required for transcription and translation. Comparative studies of the evolution of genes in chloroplasts and leucoplasts can identify modes of selection acting on the plastid genome. Two plastid genes--rrn16, encoding the plastid small-subunit rRNA, and tufA, encoding elongation factor Tu--retain their functions in protein synthesis after the loss of photosynthesis in two nonphotosynthetic Polytoma clades but show a substantially accelerated rate of base substitution in the P. uvella clade. The accelerated evolution of tufA is due, at least partly, to relaxed codon bias favoring codons that can be read without wobble, mainly in three amino acids. Selection for these codons may be relaxed because leucoplasts are required to synthesize fewer protein molecules per unit time than are chloroplasts (reduced protein synthetic load) and thus require a lower rate of synthesis of elongation factor Tu. Relaxed selection due to a lower protein synthetic load is also a plausible explanation for the accelerated rate of evolution of rrn16, but the available data are insufficient to test the hypothesis for this gene. The tufA and rrn16 genes in Polytoma oviforme, the sole member of a second nonphotosynthetic clade, are also functional but show no sign of relaxed selection.

Phylogeny of Porphyromonas gingivalis by ribosomal intergenic spacer region analysis.

Periodontitis has been associated with the presence of Porphyromonas gingivalis, and previous studies have shown phenotypic differences in the pathogenicities of strains of P. gingivalis. An accurate and comprehensive phylogeny of strains of P. gingivalis would be useful in determining if there is an evolutionary basis to pathogenicity in this species. Previous phylogenies of P. gingivalis strains based on random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis and multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE) show little agreement. While the 16S ribosomal gene is the standard for phylogenetic reconstruction among bacterial species, it is insufficiently variable for this purpose. In the present study, the phylogeny of P. gingivalis was constructed on the basis of the sequence of the most variable region of the ribosomal operon, the intergenic spacer region (ISR). Heteroduplex analysis of the ISR has been used to study the variability of P. gingivalis strains in periodontitis. In the present study, typing by heteroduplex analysis was compared to ISR sequence-based phylogeny and close agreement was observed. The two strains of P. gingivalis whose heteroduplex types are strongly associated with periodontitis were found to be closely related and were well separated from strains whose heteroduplex types are less strongly associated with disease, suggesting a relationship between pathogenicity and phylogeny.

Sequencing of the ribosomal intergenic spacer region for strain identification of Porphyromonas gingivalis.

The ribosomal intergenic spacer regions (ISRs) of 19 laboratory strains and 30 clinical samples of Porphyromonas gingivalis were amplified by PCR and sequenced to provide a strain identifier. The ISR is a variable region of DNA located between the conserved 16S and 23S rRNA genes. This makes it an ideal locus for differentiation of strains within a species: primers specific for the conserved flanking genes were used to amplify the ISR, which was then sequenced to identify the strain. We have constructed a P. gingivalis ISR sequence database to facilitate strain identification. ISR sequence analysis provides a strain identifier that can be easily reproduced among laboratories and catalogued for unambiguous comparison.