PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Ajith Harish
AU  - Aare Abroi
AU  - Julian Gough
AU  - Charles Kurland
TI  - Did viruses evolve as a distinct supergroup from common ancestors of cells?
AID  - 10.1101/049171
DP  - 2016 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 049171
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/04/18/049171.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/04/18/049171.full
AB  - The evolutionary origins of viruses according to marker gene phylogenies, as well as their relationships to the ancestors of host cells remains unclear. In a recent article Nasir and Caetano-Anollés reported that their genome-scale phylogenetic analyses identify an ancient origin of the “viral supergroup” (Nasir et al (2015) A phylogenomic data-driven exploration of viral origins and evolution. Science Advances, 1(8):e1500527). It suggests that viruses and host cells evolved independently from a universal common ancestor. Examination of their data and phylogenetic methods indicates that systematic errors likely affected the results. Reanalysis of the data with additional tests shows that small-genome attraction artifacts distort their phylogenomic analyses. These new results indicate that their suggestion of a distinct ancestry of the viral supergroup is not well supported by the evidence.