Quantitative Comparison of Tree Pairs Resulted from Gene and Protein Phylogenetic Trees for Sulfite Reductase Flavoprotein Alpha-Component and 5S rRNA and Taxonomic Trees in Selected Bacterial Species

Introduction: FAD is the cofactor of FAD-FR protein family. Sulfite reductase flavoprotein alpha-component is one of the main enzymes of this family. Based on applications of this enzyme in biotechnology and industry, it was chosen as the subject of evolutionary studies in 19 specific species. Method: Gene and protein sequences of sulfite reductase flavoprotein alpha-component, 5S rRNA sequences, and taxonomic tree were extracted from 19 selected bacterial species. Then, phylogenetic trees of 5S rRNA and gene and protein sequences were compared with each other and with taxonomic tree. Phylogenetic trees were drawn by Mega7 software using neighbor-joining algorithm and taxonomic tree was extracted using NCBI taxonomy browser. Results: By comparing the corresponding tree pairs, the percentage of equivalent species and the mean equivalence score of species were calculated for each tree pair. The gene-protein tree was allocated the highest scores in both quantities. In comparing the taxonomic tree with three other trees, gene-taxonomy tree achieved the highest percentage in the mean equivalence score and protein-taxonomy tree obtained the highest percentage of equivalent species. Conclusion: Based on the results of the present research, the best replacement for each of the trees investigated in this study regarding evolutionary relations was identified. In other words, this study helps detect which evolutionary tree can be replaced for another evolutionary tree.