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Molecular evolution of the vesicle coat component βCOP in Toxoplasma gondii by Sherri S. Smith; Stacy L. Pfluger; Elizabeth Hjort; Andrew G. McArthur; Kristin M. Hager is a Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Molecular evolution of the vesicle coat component βCOP in Toxoplasma gondii about?

Coatomer coated (COPI) vesicles play a pivotal role for multiple membrane trafficking steps throughout the eukaryotic cell. Our focus is on bCOP, one of the most well known components of the COPI multi-protein complex. Amino acid differences in bCOP may dictate functional divergence across species during the course of evolution, especially with regards to the evolutionary pressures on obligate intracellular parasites. A bioinformatic analysis of bCOP amino acid sequences was conducted for 49 eukaryotic species. Cloning and sequence analysis of the Toxoplasma gondii bCOP homologue revealed several amino acid insertions unique to T. gondii and one C-terminal insertion that is unique to apicomplexan parasites. These findings led us to investigate the possibility that bCOP experienced functional divergence during the course of its evolution. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis revealed a tree consistent with pan eukaryote distribution and long-branch lengths were observed among the apicomplexans. Further analysis revealed that kinetoplast bCOP underwent the most amount of change, leading to perhaps an overall change of function. In comparison, T. gondii exhibited subtle yet specific amino a

Who reads Molecular evolution of the vesicle coat component βCOP in Toxoplasma gondii?

Author

Sherri S. Smith; Stacy L. Pfluger; Elizabeth Hjort; Andrew G. McArthur; Kristin M. Hager

Publisher

Elsevier Science; Elsevier ; Elsevier Inc.; Elsevier BV (ISSN 1055-7903)

Published

2007

Language

EN

Field

Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (Life Sciences)