The DOI matches its Crossref record; 33 of the 34 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Closest Unicellular Relatives of Animals
Open accessAbstract
Molecular phylogenies support a common ancestry between animals (Metazoa) and Fungi, but the evolutionary descent of the Metazoa from single-celled eukaryotes (protists) and the nature and taxonomic affiliation of these ancestral protists remain elusive. We addressed this question by sequencing complete mitochondrial genomes from taxonomically diverse protists to generate a large body of molecular data for phylogenetic analyses. Trees inferred from multiple concatenated mitochondrial protein sequences demonstrate that animals are specifically affiliated with two morphologically dissimilar unicellular protist taxa: Monosiga brevicollis (Choanoflagellata), a flagellate, and Amoebidium parasiticum (Ichthyosporea), a fungus-like organism. Statistical evaluation of competing evolutionary hypotheses confirms beyond a doubt that Choanoflagellata and multicellular animals share a close sister group relationship, originally proposed more than a century ago on morphological grounds. For the first time, our trees convincingly resolve the currently controversial phylogenetic position of the Ichthyosporea, which the trees place basal to Choanoflagellata and Metazoa but after the divergence of Fungi. Considering these results, we propose the new taxonomic group Holozoa, comprising Ichthyosporea, Choanoflagellata, and Metazoa. Our findings provide insight into the nature of the animal ancestor and have broad implications for our understanding of the evolutionary transition from unicellular protists to multicellular animals.
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Metadata
- Authors
- Lang, B. F., O'Kelly, C., Nerad, T., Gray, M. W., & Burger, G.
- Affiliations
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CA)
- American Type Culture Collection (US)
- Corresponding author
- Burger, G.
- Venue
- Current Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2002-10
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 20
- Pages
- 1773-1778
- ISSN
- 0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1999681000
- Semantic Scholar
- 26c2303c5a2ec3062bf9727ca5b9a6cfeda5155c
- Cited by
- 326
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 7.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Current Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Protist diversity and phylogeny
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Animal Science and Zoology › Marine Invertebrate Physiology and Ecology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
- Keywords
- animal origins, Choanoflagellata, Ichthyosporea, Monosiga brevicollis, mitochondrial genome, evolution of multicellularity, protist phylogeny
- MeSH terms
- Animals, DNA, Mitochondrial, Biological Evolution, Fungi, Molecular Sequence Data, Phylogeny, Plants, Eukaryota
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