Trypanosoma cruzi mitochondrial maxicircles display species- and strain-specific variation and a conserved element in the non-coding region.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The mitochondrial DNA of kinetoplastid flagellates is distinctive in the eukaryotic world due to its massive size, complex form and large sequence content. Comprised of catenated maxicircles that contain rRNA and protein-coding genes and thousands of heterogeneous minicircles encoding small guide RNAs, the kinetoplast network has evolved along with an extreme form of mRNA processing in the form of uridine insertion and deletion RNA editing. Many maxicircle-encoded mRNAs cannot be translated without this post-transcriptional sequence modification.

Results

We present the complete sequence and annotation of the Trypanosoma cruzi maxicircles for the CL Brener and Esmeraldo strains. Gene order is syntenic with Trypanosoma brucei and Leishmania tarentolae maxicircles. T

SUBMITTER: Westenberger SJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1559615 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature