Figure 2

Phylogenetic analyses of Brachionus Vasa and Nanos related predicted protein sequences. (A) Rooted phylogenetic tree, produced using Bayesian approaches, of Vasa and related proteins. Two Vasa-like DEAD box RNA helicases from Brachionus are analysed with Vasa and p68-like sequences from animals. BpVasa (red box) groups with Vasa sequences from other animals, against p68-like sequences (with which the tree is rooted); BpVasa-like (green box) clusters with p68-like sequences. (B) Unrooted phylogenetic analysis of Nanos-like protein sequences including BpNos. BpNos clusters closely with Nos from Philodina, a bdelloid rotifer with a posterior probability of 1. As there are no closely related sequences to Nos in animal genomes with which to root this tree we also examined the protein alignment (C) for the highly conserved residues of the Nos zinc-finger domains (arrows) all of which are present.