BMC Evolutionary Biology BioMed Central Research article Open Access Evolution of mal ABC transporter operons in the Thermococcales and Thermotogales KennethMNoll*1, Pascal Lapierre2, J Peter Gogarten1 and Dhaval M Nanavati3 Address: 1Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-3125, USA, 2Biotechnology Bioservices Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-3125, USA and 3Analytical Biochemistry Section, Laboratory of Neurotoxicology, NIMH, Bethesda, MD 20892-1262, USA Email: Kenneth M Noll* -
[email protected]; Pascal Lapierre -
[email protected]; J Peter Gogarten -
[email protected]; Dhaval M Nanavati -
[email protected] * Corresponding author Published: 15 January 2008 Received: 27 August 2007 Accepted: 15 January 2008 BMC Evolutionary Biology 2008, 8:7 doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-7 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/8/7 © 2008 Noll et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: The mal genes that encode maltose transporters have undergone extensive lateral transfer among ancestors of the archaea Thermococcus litoralis and Pyrococcus furiosus. Bacterial hyperthermophiles of the order Thermotogales live among these archaea and so may have shared in these transfers. The genome sequence of Thermotoga maritima bears evidence of extensive acquisition of archaeal genes, so its ancestors clearly had the capacity to do so. We examined deep phylogenetic relationships among the mal genes of these hyperthermophiles and their close relatives to look for evidence of shared ancestry.