Prokaryotic ancestry and gene fusion of a dual localized peroxiredoxin in malaria parasites
Authors:Carine F. Djuika1, Jaime Huerta-Cepas2, Jude M. Przyborski3, Sophia Deil1, Cecilia P. Sanchez1, Tobias Doerks2, Peer Bork2, Michael Lanzer1 and Marcel Deponte1
doi: 10.15698/mic2015.01.182
Volume 2, pp. 5 to 13, published 05/01/2015.
1 Department of Parasitology, Ruprecht-Karls University, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
2 Structural and Computational Biology Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
3 Department of Parasitology, Philipps University, D-35043 Marburg, Germany.
Keywords:
peroxiredoxin, molecular evolution, horizontal gene transfer, apicomplexa, malaria
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Please cite this article as:
Carine F. Djuika, Jaime Huerta-Cepas, Jude M. Przyborski, Sophia Deil, Cecilia P. Sanchez, Tobias Doerks, Peer Bork, Michael Lanzer, and Marcel Deponte (2015). Prokaryotic ancestry and gene fusion of a dual localized peroxiredoxin in malaria parasites. Microbial Cell 2(1): 5-13.
© 2015 Djuika et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Horizontal gene transfer has emerged as a crucial driving force for the evolution of eukaryotes. This also includes Plasmodium falciparum and related economically and clinically relevant apicomplexan parasites, whose rather small genomes have been shaped not only by natural selection in different host populations but also by horizontal gene transfer following endosymbiosis. However, there is rather little reliable data on horizontal gene transfer between animal hosts or bacteria and apicomplexan parasites. Here we show that apicomplexan homologues of peroxiredoxin 5 (Prx5) have a prokaryotic ancestry and therefore represent a special subclass of Prx5 isoforms in eukaryotes. Using two different immunobiochemical approaches, we found that the P. falciparum Prx5 homologue is dually localized to the parasite plastid and cytosol. This dual localization is reflected by a modular Plasmodium-specific gene architecture consisting of two exons. Despite the plastid localization, our phylogenetic analyses contradict an acquisition by secondary endosymbiosis and support a gene fusion event following a horizontal prokaryote-to-eukaryote gene transfer in early apicomplexans. The results provide unexpected insights into the evolution of apicomplexan parasites as well as the molecular evolution of peroxiredoxins, an important family of ubiquitous, usually highly concentrated thiol-dependent hydroperoxidases that exert functions as detoxifying enzymes, redox sensors and chaperones.