Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
1 Department of Animal Biology and Genetics, University of Florence, Via Romana 17/19, 50125 Florence, Italy
2 Laboratory of Molecular Evolution, Institute of Genetics and Biophysics 'Adriano Buzzati Traverso', CNR, Via P. Castellino, 111, 80131 Naples, Napoli, Italy
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Using sequences of ribosomal RNA from organisms belonging exclusively to the Archaea domain and by means of two methods to remove the phylogenetic noise, we investigate the phylogenetic position of Nanoarchaeum equitans. The results obtained are compatible with the hypothesis that N. equitans represents a new phylum within the Archaea domain because the characteristic long branch of N. equitans in phylogenetic trees is conserved even after most of the phylogenetic noise has been removed, thus implying that its rRNA might indeed be singular. However, our analysis is unable to be equally as clear on the phylogenetic position of Methanopyrus kandleri.