Presence of a mitochondrial-type 70-kDa heat shock protein in Trichomonas vaginalis suggests a very early mitochondrial endosymbiosis in eukaryotes.

ABSTRACT: Molecular phylogenetic analyses, based mainly on ribosomal RNA, show that three amitochondriate protist lineages, diplomonads, microsporidia, and trichomonads, emerge consistently at the base of the eukaryotic tree before groups having mitochondria. This suggests that these groups could have diverged before the mitochondrial endosymbiosis. Nevertheless, since all these organisms live in anaerobic environments, the absence of mitochondria might be due to secondary loss, as demonstrated for the later emerging eukaryote Entamoeba histolytica. We have now isolated from Trichomonas vaginalis a gene encoding a chaperone protein (HSP70) that in other lineages is addressed to the mitochondrial compartment. The phylogenetic reconstruction unambiguously located this HSP70 within a large set of mitoc

SUBMITTER: Germot A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC26182 | biostudies-literature | 1996 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature