Bacillus DNA in fossil bees: an ancient symbiosis? Journal Articles

abstract

• We report here the isolation of DNA from abdominal tissue of four extinct stingless bees (Proplebeia dominicana) in Dominican amber, PCR amplification of a 546-bp fragment of the 16S rRNA gene from Bacillus spp., and their corresponding nucleotide sequences. These sequences were used in basic local alignment search tool searches of nonredundant nucleic acid data bases, and the highest scores were obtained with 16S rRNA sequences from Bacillus spp. Phylogenetic inference analysis by the maximum-likelihood method revealed close phylogenetic relationships of the four presumed ancient Bacillus sequences with Bacillus pumilus, B. firmus, B. subtilis, and B. circulans. These four extant Bacillus spp. are commonly isolated from abdominal tissue of stingless bees. The close phylogenetic association of the extracted DNA sequences with these bee colonizers suggests that a similar bee-Bacillus association existed in the extinct species P. dominicana.

authors

• Cano, RJ
• Borucki, MK
• Higby-Schweitzer, M
• Poinar, Hendrik
• Poinar, GO
• Pollard, KJ

status

• published 

publication date

• June 1994

has subject area

• Animals (MeSH)
• Bacillus (MeSH)
• Base Sequence (MeSH)
• Bees (MeSH)
• DNA, Bacterial (MeSH)
• Fossils (MeSH)
• Microbiology (Science Metrix)
• Molecular Sequence Data (MeSH)
• Phylogeny (MeSH)
• Polymerase Chain Reaction (MeSH)
• Symbiosis (MeSH)

published in

• Applied and Environmental Microbiology  Journal

keywords

• Animals
• Bacillus
• Base Sequence
• Bees
• DNA, Bacterial
• Fossils
• Molecular Sequence Data
• Phylogeny
• Polymerase Chain Reaction
• Symbiosis

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1128/aem.60.6.2164-2167.1994

start page

• 2164

end page

• 2167

volume

• 60

issue

• 6