The Evolutionary Loss of RNAi Key Determinants in Kinetoplastids as a Multiple Sporadic Phenomenon.

ABSTRACT: We screened the genomes of a broad panel of kinetoplastid protists for genes encoding proteins associated with the RNA interference (RNAi) system using probes from the Argonaute (AGO1), Dicer1 (DCL1), and Dicer2 (DCL2) genes of Leishmania brasiliensis and Crithidia fasciculata. We identified homologs for all the three of these genes in the genomes of a subset of these organisms. However, several of these organisms lacked evidence for any of these genes, while others lacked only DCL2. The open reading frames encoding these putative proteins were structurally analyzed in silico. The alignments indicated that the genes are homologous with a high degree of confidence, and three-dimensional structural models strongly supported a functional relationship to previously characterized AGO1, DCL1, an

SUBMITTER: Matveyev AV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5744689 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature