Codon Pairs are Phylogenetically Conserved: Codon pairing as a novel phylogenetic character state for parsimony and alignment-free methods
Authors
Justin Miller
Lauren McKinnon
Michael Whiting
Perry Ridge
Novelty of Approach
-Recovers phylogenies using codon pairing under both alignment-free and parsimony frameworks
-Analyzes the extent of codon pairing across 23,423
Results
-Co-tRNA and identical codon pairing are prevalent in all domains of life.
-The optimal window size for codon pairs is typically smaller than the length of a ribosome.
-Combined, the alignment-free and parsimony-based approaches recover the most congruent trees compared with the established phylogenies in six out of ten taxonomic groups and ties maximum likelihood in another taxonomic group.
-Codon pairing should be considered as a novel character state in future phylogenomic studies.
Implications
-Novel character state in phylogenomic studies
-Faster and more accurate than maximum likelihood in some instances
-Another avenue of phylogenomic research
Comparisons with the Open Tree of Life
Comparisons with the NCBI Taxonomy