A horizontally transferred bacterial gene aids the freezing tolerance of Antarctic bdelloid rotifers.

ABSTRACT: Bdelloid rotifers are well known for their abilities to survive long periods of freezing as well as acquire foreign genes. Recently sequenced genomes of some bdelloid rotifers in England were found to encode several proteins similar to ice-binding proteins (IBPs) that are usually associated with freeze-thaw tolerance. Here, I describe bdelloid rotifers inhabiting an algal patch in Antarctica that have multiple homologs of these genes. Structures of the proteins predicted by AlphaFold show that they are well designed for ice-binding and a recombinant protein made for one of them showed strong ice-binding activity. The existence of multiple copies of these proteins is another characteristic of IBPs. Furthermore, multiple bdelloid rotifers in the algal patch were revived in less than an hour

SUBMITTER: Raymond JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11912409 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature