Three major groups of primarily amoeboid taxa are present across Amoebozoa: Discosea, Evosea, and Tubulinea. While each of these groups were thought to have morphologically unique traits and members, the morphologic boundaries between each group have recently blurred. For example, it is demonstrated that several taxa in each group display monopodial limax amoebae, a characteristic most often associated with Tubulinea. Here we describe a novel discosean amoeba isolated from a freshwater pond, Janelia veilia n. gen. n. sp. Its cells have variable morphologies, but often display monopodial limax amoebae, with a unique trailing structure that appears to be derived from cellular material. In some cases, cells have conical pseudopodia or pointed pseudopodia. Using phylogenomics, we find that this taxon branches as sister to the recently described discosean Mycamoeba gemmipara and the sporocarpic protosteloid amoeba Microglomus paxillus, forming an order-level group we term Mycamoebida. Mycamoebida is fully supported as sister to Dermamoebida, together forming a subclass we term Dermelia. SSU rRNA phylogenies show that Janelia veilia n. gen. n. sp. is molecularly unique from any known organism, but branches with high support in a clade containing Mycamoeba gemmipara and several environmental sequences suggesting a larger diverse clade within Discosea.

Biological soil crusts represent a rich habitat for diverse and complex eukaryotic microbial communities. A unique but extremely common habitat is the urban sidewalk and its cracks that collect detritus. While these habitats are ubiquitous across the globe, little to no work has been conducted to characterize protists found there. Amoeboid protists are major predators of bacteria and other microbial eukaryotes in these microhabitats and therefore play a substantial ecological role. From sidewalk crack soil crusts, we have isolated three naked amoebae with finely tapered subpseudopodia, and a simple life cycle consisting of a trophic amoeba and a cyst stage. Using a holistic approach including light, electron, and fluorescence microscopy as well as phylogenetics using the ribosomal small subunit rRNA gene and phylogenomics using 230 nuclear genes, we find that these amoeboid organisms fail to match any previously described eukaryote genus. However, we determined the amoebae belong to the amoebozoan lineage Variosea based on phylogenetics. The molecular analyses place our isolates in two novel genera forming a grade at the base of the variosean group Protosteliida. These three novel varioseans among two novel genera and species are herein named "Kanabo kenzan" and "Parakanabo toge."

PhyloFisher is a software package written primarily in Python3 that can be used for the creation, analysis, and visualization of phylogenomic datasets that consist of protein sequences from eukaryotic organisms. Unlike many existing phylogenomic pipelines, PhyloFisher comes with a manually curated database of 240 protein-coding genes, a subset of a previous phylogenetic dataset sampled from 304 eukaryotic taxa. The software package can also utilize a user-created database of eukaryotic proteins, which may be more appropriate for shallow evolutionary questions. PhyloFisher is also equipped with a set of utilities to aid in running routine analyses, such as the prediction of alternative genetic codes, removal of genes and/or taxa based on occupancy/completeness of the dataset, testing for amino acid compositional heterogeneity among sequences, removal of heterotachious and/or fast-evolving sites, removal of fast-evolving taxa, supermatrix creation from randomly resampled genes, and supermatrix creation from nucleotide sequences. © 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC. Basic Protocol 1: Constructing a phylogenomic dataset Basic Protocol 2: Performing phylogenomic analyses Support Protocol 1: Installing PhyloFisher Support Protocol 2: Creating a custom phylogenomic database.

The frequently encountered macroscopic slime molds of the genus Ceratiomyxa have long been recognized by mycologists and protistologists for hundreds of years. These organisms are amoebozoan amoebae that live and grow inside and on the surface of decaying wood. When conditions are favorable, they form subaerial sporulating structures called fruiting bodies which take on a variety of forms. These forms are typically some arrangement of column and/or branches, but one is uniquely poroid, forming folds instead. Originally, this poroid morphology was designated as its own species. However, it was not always clear what significance fruiting body morphology held in determining species. Currently, Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa var. porioides, the poroid form, is considered a taxonomic variety of Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa based on morphological designation alone. Despite its long history of observation and study, the genus Ceratiomyxa has been paid little molecular attention to alleviate these morphological issues. We have obtained the first transcriptomes of the taxon C. fruticulosa var. porioides and found single gene phylogenetic and multigene phylogenomic support to separate it from C. fruticulosa. This provides molecular evidence that fruiting body morphology does correspond to species level diversity. Therefore, we formally raise Ceratiomyxa porioides to species level.

We describe here a flexible protocol for eDNA metabarcoding with Oxford Nanopore's MinIon MK1C platform from sampling to sequencing. The first section summarizes some key steps of sampling and sample preservation for both aquatic and terrestrial environments. The second one describes the DNA extraction protocol with the DNeasy PowerSoil Pro Kit of Qiagen for different types of samples (i.e., soil, liquid and dead plant materials). Our DNA amplification and bead purification protocols are characterized in the third section. Finally, the library prep with the Native amplicon Barcoding Kit 96 V14 (SQK-NBD114.96) and sequencing with the R10.4.1 flow cells (FLO-MIN114) and MinION Mk1C device are presented in the last sections. This protocol has been optimized for protists (microbial eukaryotes) and 18S marker, but should be easily adjustable for other organisms, by modifying the sampling and DNA extraction sections, or other markers, even longer ones such as the full ribosomal operon, if need be. Our goal is to teach/train researchers from different fields and different expertise on obtaining nanopore sequences from environmental samples by guiding them from protocol to protocol, focusing on the key steps, and informing them of the expected results based on our 3 runs performed so far. A comprehensive bioinformatic pipeline to treat the data produced, as well as a methodological article discussing this method and the best ways to use it are in preparation.

ABSTRACT Phylogenies built from multiple genes have become a common component of evolutionary biology studies. Molecular phylogenomic matrices used to build multi-gene phylogenies can be built from either nucleotide or protein matrices. Nucleotide-based analyses are often more appropriate for addressing phylogenetic questions in evolutionarily shallow timescales (i.e., less than 100 million years) while protein-based analyses are often more appropriate for addressing deep phylogenetic questions. PhyloFisher is a phylogenomic software package written in Python3. The manually curated PhyloFisher database contains 240 protein-coding genes from 304 eukaryotic taxa. Here we present nucl_matrix_constructor.py , an expansion of the PhyloFisher starting database, and an update to PhyloFisher that maintains DNA sequences. This combination will allow users the ability to easily build nucleotide phylogenomic matrices while retaining the benefits of protein-based pre-processing used to identify contaminants and paralogy.

We describe here a flexible protocol for eDNA metabarcoding with Oxford Nanopore's MinIon MK1C platform from sampling to sequencing. The first section summarizes some key steps of sampling and sample preservation for both aquatic and terrestrial environments. The second one describes the DNA extraction protocol with the DNeasy PowerSoil Pro Kit of Qiagen for different types of samples (i.e., soil, liquid and dead plant materials). Our DNA amplification and bead purification protocols are characterized in the third section. Finally, the library prep with the Native amplicon Barcoding Kit 96 V14 (SQK-NBD114.96) and sequencing with the R10.4.1 flow cells (FLO-MIN114) and MinION Mk1C device are presented in the last sections. This protocol has been optimized for protists (microbial eukaryotes) and 18S marker, but should be easily adjustable for other organisms, by modifying the sampling and DNA extraction sections, or other markers, even longer ones such as the full ribosomal operon, if need be. Our goal is to teach/train researchers from different fields and different expertise on obtaining nanopore sequences from environmental samples by guiding them from protocol to protocol, focusing on the key steps, and informing them of the expected results based on our 3 runs performed so far. A comprehensive bioinformatic pipeline to treat the data produced, as well as a methodological article discussing this method and the best ways to use it are in preparation.

Phylogenomic analyses of hundreds of protein-coding genes aimed at resolving phylogenetic relationships is now a common practice. However, no software currently exists that includes tools for dataset construction and subsequent analysis with diverse validation strategies to assess robustness. Furthermore, there are no publicly available high-quality curated databases designed to assess deep (>100 million years) relationships in the tree of eukaryotes. To address these issues, we developed an easy-to-use software package, PhyloFisher (https://github.com/TheBrownLab/PhyloFisher), written in Python 3. PhyloFisher includes a manually curated database of 240 protein-coding genes from 304 eukaryotic taxa covering known eukaryotic diversity, a novel tool for ortholog selection, and utilities that will perform diverse analyses required by state-of-the-art phylogenomic investigations. Through phylogenetic reconstructions of the tree of eukaryotes and of the Saccharomycetaceae clade of budding yeasts, we demonstrate the utility of the PhyloFisher workflow and the provided starting database to address phylogenetic questions across a large range of evolutionary time points for diverse groups of organisms. We also demonstrate that undetected paralogy can remain in phylogenomic “single-copy orthogroup” datasets constructed using widely accepted methods such as all vs. all BLAST searches followed by Markov Cluster Algorithm (MCL) clustering and application of automated tree pruning algorithms. Finally, we show how the PhyloFisher workflow helps detect inadvertent paralog inclusions, allowing the user to make more informed decisions regarding orthology assignments, leading to a more accurate final dataset.

Integrins are transmembrane receptors that activate signal transduction pathways upon extracellular matrix binding. The integrin-mediated adhesive complex (IMAC) mediates various cell physiological processes. Although the IMAC was thought to be specific to animals, in the past ten years these complexes were discovered in other lineages of Obazoa, the group containing animals, fungi, and several microbial eukaryotes. Very recently, many genomes and transcriptomes from Amoebozoa (the eukaryotic supergroup sister to Obazoa), other obazoans, orphan protist lineages, and the eukaryotes' closest prokaryotic relatives, have become available. To increase the resolution of where and when IMAC proteins exist and have emerged, we surveyed these newly available genomes and transcriptomes for the presence of IMAC proteins. Our results highlight that many of these proteins appear to have evolved earlier in eukaryote evolution than previously thought and that co-option of this apparently ancient protein complex was key to the emergence of animal-type multicellularity. The role of the IMACs in amoebozoans is unknown, but they play critical adhesive roles in at least some unicellular organisms.

Integrins are transmembrane receptor proteins that activate signal transduction pathways upon extracellular matrix binding. The Integrin Mediated Adhesion Complex (IMAC), mediates various cell physiological process. The IMAC was thought to be an animal specific machinery until over the last decade these complexes were discovered in Obazoa, the group containing animals, fungi, and several microbial eukaryote lineages. Amoebozoa is the eukaryotic supergroup sister to Obazoa. Even though Amoebozoa represents the closest outgroup to Obazoa, little genomic-level data and attention to gene inventories has been given to the supergroup. To examine the evolutionary history of the IMAC, we examine gene inventories of deeply sampled set of 100+ Amoebozoa taxa, including new data from several taxa. From these robust data sampled from the entire breadth of known amoebozoan clades, we show the presence of an ancestral complex of integrin adhesion proteins that predate the evolution of the Amoebozoa. Our results highlight that many of these proteins appear to have evolved earlier in eukaryote evolution than previously thought. Co-option of an ancient protein complex was key to the emergence of animal type multicellularity. The role of the IMAC in a unicellular context is unknown but must also play a critical role for at least some unicellular organisms.