Amino acids biosynthesis and nitrogen assimilation pathways: a great genomic deletion during eukaryotes evolution.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Besides being building blocks for proteins, amino acids are also key metabolic intermediates in living cells. Surprisingly a variety of organisms are incapable of synthesizing some of them, thus named Essential Amino Acids (EAAs). How certain ancestral organisms successfully competed for survival after losing key genes involved in amino acids anabolism remains an open question. Comparative genomics searches on current protein databases including sequences from both complete and incomplete genomes among diverse taxonomic groups help us to understand amino acids auxotrophy distribution.

Results

Here, we applied a methodology based on clustering of homologous genes to seed sequences from autotrophic organisms Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) and Arabidopsis thaliana

SUBMITTER: Guedes RL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3287585 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature