Are Euglena plants or animals?

NEITHER!

• Euglena are protists: a single celled, eukaryotic organism

• Some euglena have chloroplasts

• Some euglena are highly mobile heterotrophs

• So…..let’s revise the question…

Are euglena more closely related to plants or animals?

• We can answer this question using the amino acid sequence of a particular protein

• We must pick a protein that all organisms being studied have in common (we will be using cytochrome c)

I. Retrieving amino acid sequences

Organism name and protein name go here!

Search results:

There are 12 matching proteins, click on this button to see the results

Protein results

Select the protein that most closely matches the one given in your directions!

Getting the amino acid sequence: converting it to FASTA format

• We will compare 2 species of Euglena to 2 species of plant (rice, Arabidopsis thaliana) and 2 species of animal (monkey, mosquito)

• I found the amino acid sequences from Entrez in the same manner and pasted them all into the same wordpad file

Edit the sequences; clear the first line (leave the >), and enter the

species’ common name>Euglena Viridis GDAERGKKLFESRAGQCHSSQKGVNSTGPALYGVYGRTSGTVPGYAYSNANKNAAIVWEDESLNKFLENPKKYVPGTKMAFAGIKAKKDRLDIIAYMKTLKD

>Euglena gracilisGDAERGKKLFESRAAQCHSAQKGVNSTGPSLWGVYGRTSGSVPGYAYSNANKNAAIVWEEETLHKFLENPKKYVPGTKMAFAGIKAKKDRQDIIAYMKTLKD

>Arabidopsis MASFDEAPPGNAKAGEKIFRTKCAQCHTVEAGAGHKQGPNLNGLFGRQSGTTAGYSYSAANKNKAVEWEEKALYDYLLNPKKYIPGTKMVFPGLKKPQDRADLIAYLKESTAPK

>RiceMASFSEAPPGNPKAGEKIFKTKCAQCHTVDKGAGHKQGPNLNGLFGRQSGTTPGYSYSTANKNMAVIWEENTLYDYLLNPKKYIPGTKMVFPGLKKPQERADLISYLKEATS

>Silvered leaf monkeyMGDVEKGKKILIMKCSQCHTVEKGGKHKTGPNHHGLFGRKTGQAPGYSYTAANKNKGITWGEDTLMEYLENPKKYIPGTKMIFVGIKKKEERADLIAYLKKATNE

>Mosquito MGVPAGDVEKGKKLFVQRCAQCHTVEAGGKHKVGPNLHGLFGRKTGQAAGFSYTDANKAKGITWNEDTLFEYLENPKKYIPGTKMVFAGLKKPQERGDLIAYLKSATK

II. Creating the tree

• Copy and paste your sequences from notepad into ClustalW

• Click “execute multiple align”

Results page

• Scroll to the bottom• Select n-j tree and click execute