Discovery of EMRE in fungi resolves the true evolutionary history of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter.

ABSTRACT: Calcium (Ca²⁺) influx into mitochondria occurs through a Ca²⁺-selective uniporter channel, which regulates essential cellular processes in eukaryotic organisms. Previous evolutionary analyses of its pore-forming subunits MCU and EMRE, and gatekeeper MICU1, pinpointed an evolutionary paradox: the presence of MCU homologs in fungal species devoid of any other uniporter components and of mt-Ca²⁺ uptake. Here, we trace the mt-Ca²⁺ uniporter evolution across 1,156 fully-sequenced eukaryotes and show that animal and fungal MCUs represent two distinct paralogous subfamilies originating from an ancestral duplication. Accordingly, we find EMRE orthologs outside Holoza and uncover the existence of an animal-like uniporter within chytrid fungi, which enable

SUBMITTER: Pittis AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7423614 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature