Discovery of highly reactive self-splicing group II introns within the mitochondrial genomes of human pathogenic fungi.

ABSTRACT: Fungal pathogens represent an expanding global health threat for which treatment options are limited. Self-splicing group II introns have emerged as promising drug targets, but their development has been limited by a lack of information on their distribution and architecture in pathogenic fungi. To meet this challenge, we developed a bioinformatic workflow for scanning sequence data to identify unique RNA structural signatures within group II introns. Using this approach, we discovered a set of ubiquitous introns within thermally dimorphic fungi (genera of Blastomyces, Coccidioides and Histoplasma). These introns are the most biochemically reactive group II introns ever reported, and they self-splice rapidly under near-physiological conditions without protein cofactors. Moreover, we demons

SUBMITTER: Liu T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8643640 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature