Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 105, Issue 12, Pages 4781-4785Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0707827105
Keywords
endosymbiont; gene transfer; protein targeting; transit peptide
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Funding
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute Funding Source: Medline
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The transfer of genes from an endosymbiont to its host typically requires acquisition of targeting signals by the gene product to ensure its return to the endosymbiont for function. Many hundreds of plastid-derived genes must have acquired transit peptides for successful relocation to the nucleus. Here, we explore potential evolutionary origins of plastid transit peptides in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. We show that exons of the A falciparum genome could serve as transit peptides after exon shuffling. We further demonstrate that numerous randomized peptides and even whimsical sequences based on English words can also function as transit peptides in vivo. Thus, facile acquisition of transit peptides from existing sequence likely expedited endosymbiont integration through intracellular gene transfer.
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