Massive annotation of bacterial L-asparaginases reveals their puzzling distribution and frequent gene transfer events.

ABSTRACT: L-Asparaginases, which convert L-asparagine to L-aspartate and ammonia, come in five types, AI-AV. Some bacterial type AII enzymes are a key element in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children, but new L-asparaginases with better therapeutic properties are urgently needed. Here, we search publicly available bacterial genomes to annotate L-asparaginase proteins belonging to the five known types. We characterize taxonomic, phylogenetic, and genomic patterns of L-asparaginase occurrences pointing to frequent horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events, also occurring multiple times in the same recipient species. We show that the reference AV gene, encoding a protein originally found and structurally studied in Rhizobium etli, was acquired via HGT from Burkholderia. We also describe

SUBMITTER: Zielezinski A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9500103 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature