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Peculiar features of the plastids of the colourless alga Euglena longa and photosynthetic euglenophytes unveiled by transcriptome analyses

View ORCID ProfileKristína Záhonová, Zoltán Füssy, Erik Birčák, Anna M. G. Novák Vanclová, Vladimír Klimeš, Matej Vesteg, Juraj Krajčovič, Miroslav Oborník, Marek Eliáš
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/358895
Kristína Záhonová
1Life Science Research Centre, Department of Biology and Ecology and Institute of Environmental Technologies, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, 701 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic;
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  • ORCID record for Kristína Záhonová
Zoltán Füssy
2Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, 370 05 České Bud ě jovice, Czech Republic;
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Erik Birčák
3Department of Genetics, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, 842 15 Bratislava, Slovakia;
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Anna M. G. Novák Vanclová
4Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic;
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Vladimír Klimeš
1Life Science Research Centre, Department of Biology and Ecology and Institute of Environmental Technologies, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, 701 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic;
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Matej Vesteg
5Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Matej Bel University, 974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovakia;
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Juraj Krajčovič
6Department of Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, 917 01 Trnava, Slovakia;
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Miroslav Oborník
2Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, 370 05 České Bud ě jovice, Czech Republic;
7University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Science, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
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Marek Eliáš
1Life Science Research Centre, Department of Biology and Ecology and Institute of Environmental Technologies, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, 701 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic;
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  • For correspondence: marek.elias@osu.cz
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Abstract

Background: Euglenophytes are an interesting algal group that emerged within the ancestrally plastid-lacking Euglenozoa phylum by acquiring a plastid from a green algal donor. However, the knowledge of euglenophyte plastid biology and evolution is highly incomplete, partly because euglenophytes have so far been little studied on a genome- and transcriptome-wide scale. Transcriptome data from only a single species, Euglena gracilis, have been exploited to functional insights, but aspects of the plastid biology have been largely neglected.

Results: To expand the resources for studying euglenophyte biology and to improve our knowledge of the euglenophyte plastid function and evolution, we sequenced and analysed the transcriptome of the non-photosynthetic species Euglena longa. The transcriptomic data confirmed the absence of genes for the photosynthetic machinery in this species, but provided a number of candidate plastid-localized proteins bearing the same type of N-terminal bipartite topogenic signals (BTSs) as known from the photosynthetic species E. gracilis. Further comparative analyses using transcriptome assemblies available for E. gracilis and two additional photosynthetic euglenophytes of the genus Eutreptiella enabled us to unveil several salient aspects of the basic plastid infrastructure in euglenophytes. First, a number of plastidial proteins seem to reach the organelle as C-terminal translational fusions with other BTS-bearing proteins. Second, the conventional eubacteria-derived plastidial ribosomal protein L24 is missing and seems to have been replaced by very different homologs of the archaeo-eukaryotic origin. Third, no homologs of any key component of the TOC/TIC system (translocon of the outer/inner chloroplast membrane) and the plastid division apparatus are discernible in euglenophytes, and the machinery for intraplastidial protein targeting has been simplified by the loss of the cpSRP/cpFtsY system and the SEC2 translocon. Lastly, euglenophytes proved to encode a plastid-targeted homolog of the termination factor Rho horizontally acquired from a Lambdaproteobacteria-related donor, suggesting an unprecedented modification of the transcription mechanism in their plastid.

Conclusions: Our study suggests that the euglenophyte plastid has been substantially remodelled comparted to its green algal progenitor by both loss of original and acquisition of novel molecular components, making it a particularly interesting subject for further studies.

Footnotes

  • E-mail addresses of the authors: KZ: kika.zahonova{at}gmail.com, ZF: zoltan.fussy{at}gmail.com, EB: skalarmvp{at}gmail.com, AMGNV: vanclova{at}gmail.com, VK: thorin0{at}seznam.cz, MV: matej.vesteg{at}umb.sk, JK: Juraj.Krajcovic{at}ucm.sk, MO: obornik{at}paru.cas.cz, ME: marek.elias{at}osu.cz

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted June 29, 2018.
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Peculiar features of the plastids of the colourless alga Euglena longa and photosynthetic euglenophytes unveiled by transcriptome analyses
Kristína Záhonová, Zoltán Füssy, Erik Birčák, Anna M. G. Novák Vanclová, Vladimír Klimeš, Matej Vesteg, Juraj Krajčovič, Miroslav Oborník, Marek Eliáš
bioRxiv 358895; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/358895
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Peculiar features of the plastids of the colourless alga Euglena longa and photosynthetic euglenophytes unveiled by transcriptome analyses
Kristína Záhonová, Zoltán Füssy, Erik Birčák, Anna M. G. Novák Vanclová, Vladimír Klimeš, Matej Vesteg, Juraj Krajčovič, Miroslav Oborník, Marek Eliáš
bioRxiv 358895; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/358895

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