Edina Harsay
Assistant Professor
7041 Haworth Hall
(785) 864-5854
E-mail:

Figure 3.  Avl9 is a member of a paralogous group of eukaryotic genes.  Most of these genes (all but ANR2) are present in both unikonts (animals, fungi, amoebae) and bikonts (plants and protozoa), indicating that they are ancient genes that emerged early in eukaryotic evolution and are likely function in basic eukaryotic cell processes.  In this inferred phylogenetic tree (simplified from Harsay and Schekman, 2007), the DENN branch represents the least-divergent DENN domains.  For other families, two branches are shown in cases where rate of evolution significantly varied between lineages.  Deutero. = deuterostomes (chordates and echinoderms); Opist. = opisthokonts (metazoans and fungi); Dicty = Dictyostelium.