Recombination between elongation factor 1α genes from distantly related archaeal lineages

Homologous recombination (HR) and lateral gene transfer are major processes in genome evolution. The combination of the two processes, HR between genes in different species, has been documented but is thought to be restricted to very similar sequences in relatively closely related organisms. Here we report two cases of interspecific HR in the gene encoding the core translational protein translation elongation factor 1 alpha (EF-1 alpha) between distantly related archaeal groups. Maximum-likelihood sliding window analyses indicate that a fragment of the EF-1 alpha gene from the archaeal lineage represented by Methanopyrus kandleri was recombined into the orthologous gene in a common ancestor of the Thermococcales. A second recombination event appears to have occurred between the EF-1 alpha gene of the genus Methanothermobacter and its ortholog in a common ancestor of the Methanosarcinales, a distantly related euryarchaeal lineage. These findings suggest that HR occurs across a much larger evolutionary distance than generally accepted and affects highly conserved essential "informational" genes. Although difficult to detect by standard whole-gene phylogenetic analyses, interspecific HR in highly conserved genes may occur at an appreciable frequency, potentially confounding deep phylogenetic inference and hypothesis testing.