Microsporidian genomes harbor a diverse array of transposable elements that demonstrate an ancestry of horizontal exchange with metazoans.

ABSTRACT: Microsporidian genomes are the leading models to understand the streamlining in response to a pathogenic lifestyle; they are gene-poor and often possess small genomes. In this study, we show a feature of microsporidian genomes that contrasts this pattern of genome reduction. Specifically, genome investigations targeted at Anncaliia algerae, a human pathogen with a genome size of 23 Mb, revealed the presence of a hitherto undetected diversity in transposable elements (TEs). A total of 240 TE families per genome were identified, exceeding that found in many free-living fungi, and searches of microsporidian species revealed that these mobile elements represent a significant portion of their coding repertoire. Their phylogenetic analysis revealed that many cases of ancestry involve recent and

SUBMITTER: Parisot N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4202319 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature