Investigation of fungal phylogeny on the basis of small ribosomal subunit RNA sequences

Abstract

A study published in 1989 [15] on the evolutionary position of fungi within the eukaryotic realm as derived from the structure of small ribosomal subunit RNA comprised only 4 fungal SSU rRNA sequences (SSU rRNA is small ribosomal subunit RNA, i.e. the 16S rRNA of prokaryotes, the 18S rRNA of eukaryotes). At present, December 1993, more than 110 complete or nearly complete SSU rRNA sequences from fungi have been published. This increase can be ascribed to the fact that SSU rRNA has proven an excellent molecule for the reconstruction of phylogeny of bacterial as well as eukaryotic lineages, for reasons enumerated by Woese [41] and Sogin [30].