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The mtDNA of the mycoparasitic fusion parasite
Parasitella parasitica: Sequence and comparative analysis
Sabrina Ellenberger, Anke Burmester, and Johannes Wöstemeyer
Chair of General Microbiology and Microbial Genetics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, 07743 Jena, Neugasse 24, Germany
Sabrina.Ellenberger@uni-jena.de
References
[1] A. Burmester, S. Karimi, J. Wetzel and J. Wöstemeyer. Complementation of a stable Met2-1 mutant of the zygomycete Absidia glauca by the corresponding wild-type allele of the mycoparasite Parasitella parasitica, transferred
during infection. Microbiology, 159:1639–1648, 2013.
[2] K. Rutherford, J. Parkhill, J. Crook, T. Horsnell, P. Rice, M.-A. Rajandream and B. Barrell. Artemis: sequence visualization and annotation. Bioinformatics, 16:944–945, 2000.
[3] T.M. Lowe and S.R. Eddy. tRNAscan-SE: A program for improved detection of transfer RNA genes in genomic sequence. Nucleic Acids Res, 25:955–964, 1997.
[4] G.C. Conant and K.H. Wolfe. GenomeVx: simple web-based creation of editable circular chromosome maps. Bioinformatics, 24:861–862, 2008.
[5] S. Ellenberger, A. Burmester and J. Wöstemeyer. Complete mtDNA sequence of the mucoralean fusion parasite Parasitella parasitica. Genome Announce., under review, 2014.
[6] V.P.S. Shakya and I. Idnurm. Sex determination directs uniparental mitochondrial inheritance in Phycomyces. Eukaryot Cell, 13:186–189, 2014.
We sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of P. parasitica, which turned out to be larger than the mtDNA of other zygomycetes.
The Parasitella chondriome harbours genes for those proteins that are normally found in fungi, the small and large subunit rRNAs,
as well as 26 tRNA genes.
The data support the idea that introns, rendered mobile by acquisition of homing nuclease genes, develop an evolutionary tendency for
enrichment in an organism acting as gene donor. Apart from being spread through different populations of the same species after sexual
fusion, P. parasitica’s mobile introns seem to have found a way for spreading over the host range of the parasite.
The mtDNA sequence of P. parasitica constitutes the starting point for experimental approaches towards following the fate of
mitochondria after infection. Experiments along this line have become especially interesting since it is known that mitochondria are
uniparentally inherited in the zygomycete Phycomyces blakesleeanus [6].
Introduction
Summary
The mucoralean mold Parasitella parasitica is a facultative parasite of many zygomycetes. The parasitic lifestyle is
accompanied by fusion of specialized, spatially limited structures at the hyphal tips with the hosts [1]. Parasitism is
thus necessarily linked with unidirectional transport of organelles from the parasite to the host. Transfer and
expression of genes residing in nuclei have been verified, for example, for several genes involved in amino acids
biosynthesis [1]. In order to initiate the analysis of mitochondrial information after transfer, we sequenced the mtDNA
of P. parasitica.
Development of infection structures between
P. parasitica and its hosts [1].
Results
GC content higher than the average GC content
GC content lower than the average GC content
Parasitella parasitica Lichtheimia hongkongensis Phycomyces blakesleeanus Rhizopus oryzae
length (bp) 83,361 31,830 62,082 54,178
average GC content (%) 30 34 37 26
number of protein-coding genes 14 + 27 endonucleases 14 + 0 endonucleases 14 + 12 endonucleases 14 + 6 endonucleases
number of tRNAs 26 25 24 24
homing endonucleases
LAGLIDADG domain containing 12 - 3 -
LAGLIDADG/HNH domains containing 8 - 6 4
GYI-YIG domain containing 7 - 3 2
References Ellenberger et al., Genome
Announce. under review, 2014 Leung et al., Genome Announce.
2:e00644-14, 2014
Sequence data were produced by
the US Department of Energy Joint
Genome Institute.
Self et al., Nucl. Acids Res.
33:734–44, 2005
The chondriome of Parasitella parasitica was obtained by Illumina
sequencing (Eurofins Genomics, Ebersberg, Germany).
We used Artemis [2] to denote putative open reading frames (ORFs)
of the circular mitochondrial DNA. We used the genetic code of mold.
Functional annotation was performed through a BLASTp search
against the GenBank database. The exon/intron boundaries were
adjusted manually. tRNAs were predicted by a local version of
tRNAscan-SE 1.3.1 [3]. rRNAs were identified by a BLASTn
comparison with other zygomycetous mitochondrial DNAs.
GenomeVx [4] was used for visualization of mtDNA together with a
self-written Java application for drawing a circular graph of the GC
content.
Methods
mtDNA and the ratio of endonucleases of P. parasitica in comparison with other fungi
Garcia-Hermoso et al., J. Clin. Microbiol., 2009 http://genome.jgi-psf.org/Phybl2/Phybl2.home.html http://genome.jgi.doe.gov/Rhior3/Rhior3.home.html
The complete mtDNA sequence of the Mucor-related fungus
Parasitella parasitica has been sequenced (GenBank: KM382275).
It has a GC content of 30 % and a
total length of 83,361 bp. All protein-
coding genes, normally found in fungi,
are present. A special feature is the
remarkably high number of 27 endo-
nucleases [5]. Nearly all of them are
intron-situated and thus must be
addressed as true homing endo-
nucleases.
