Error Detection and Correction of Gene Trees

Reconstructing the phylogeny of a gene family and reconciling the obtained gene tree with the species tree reveals the history of duplications, losses and other events that have shaped the gene family, with important implications towards the functional specificity of genes. However, evolutionary histories inferred by reconciliation are strongly dependent upon the accuracy of the trees, and few misplaced leaves will lead to a completely different history. Furthermore, sequence data alone often lack the information to confidently support a gene tree topology. We outline a number of criteria that can be used to detect erroneous gene trees. Analysing Ensembl gene trees of the fish genomes Stickleback, Medaka, Tetraodon, and Zebrafish reveals a significant number of erroneous gene trees. Finally, some potential directions for error correction of gene trees are explored.