Evidence for multiple xenogenous origins of plastids: comparison of psbA-genes with a xanthophyte sequence

When only plastidic features are considered, it is difficult to distinguish between monophyletic and polyphyletic xenogenous origins of plastids. We suggest that a direct comparison of nuclear and plastidic sequence-similarity pattern will help to solve this problem. The D1 amino acid sequence of six major groups of photosynthetic eukaryotes and of the two groups of photosynthetic prokaryotes are now available, including the psbA-gene product from Bumilleriopsis filiformis, which is the first molecular sequence reported for a xanthophycean alga. Evidence is provided for an independent and polyphyletic origin of plastids from five out of the six major taxa of photosynthetic eukaryotes. This conclusion is reached by comparing a plastid-based pattern of D1 similarity with a nucleus-based similarity pattern published recently. Furthermore, the availability of D1 sequences from five eukaryotic algae led to a re-evaluation of the taxonomic position of Prochlorothrix.