The Mitochondrial Genome Of Kinetoplastid Protozoa: Genomic Organization, Transcription, Replication, And Evolution (original) (raw)
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Transcription of kinetoplast DNA minicircles
Cell, 1987
The mitochondrial DNA of trypanosomes is organized as a network of catenated circular DNA molecules called the kinetoplast. The minicircles of the kinetoplast are 1 kb circular DNA molecules present at 5,000-10,000 copies per network. The maxicircles are 20 kb circular molecules present at 50-100 copies per network. Maxicircles are transcribed and are thus analogous to mitochondrial DNAs. Here we show that, contrary to previous reports, the minicircles of T. brucei an? also transcribed. A minicircle transcript of approximately 240 nucleotides is present in bloodstream and insect developmental stages of the parasite, is enriched in purified mitochondrial preparations, and is efficiently synthesized in vitro. The minicircle cDNA overlaps the conserved region of the T. brucei minicircle and is juxtaposed to a 12 base sequence common to all minicircles. These findings indicate that minicircles, in addition to their previously proposed structural role, are transcribed.
Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology, 1994
Trypanosomatids are characterized by the presence of kinetoplast DNA (kDNA), a peculiar form of mitochondrial DNA that consists of several thousand minicircles and a few dozen maxicircles catenated in a network. Within a species, the minicircles are known to differ in nucleotide sequence, but are homogeneous in size and always cross-hybridize. In all species of trypanosomatids, kDNA minicircles have at least one copy of a conserved 100-200 nucleotide region containing an almost invariant 'universal' 12-mer sequence (5'-GGGGTFGGTGTA-3'). We here report that Trypanosoma rangeli, a non-pathogenic parasite of man, contains two distinct classes of kDNA, minicircles called KP1 and KP2, which differ in size and molecular organization. Both were cloned and sequenced in both directions. KP2 was 1587 bases long and contained two copies of the conserved region as direct repeats 180 ° apart. In contrast, KP1 had 1764 bases and showed a single conserved region. Moreover, KP1 differed further from KP2 and from most other previously sequenced trypanosomatid minicircles by containing a nucleotide substitution (5'-GGGGTI'AGTGTA-3') in the 12-mer universal sequence tag. Polymerase chain reaction and hybridization studies suggest that the sequence of KP1 is very conserved in several other T. rangeli strains from Honduras, Colombia and Venezuela. It thus could provide a good target for the molecular diagnosis of infection with this parasite.
Complete nucleotide sequence of minicircle kinetoplast DNA from Trypanosoma equiperdum
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1981
The kinetoplast DNA of Trjpanosoma equiperdum is composed of about 3000 supercoiled minicircles of 1000 base pairs and about 50 supercoiled maxicircles of 23,000 base pairs topologically interlocked so as to form a compact network. Minicircles of T. equiperdum, which are homogeneous in base sequence, were purified by equilibrium CsCI centrifugation and used as starting material for DNA sequence analysis. One minicircle is composed of 1012 base pairs and has an adenine-thymine base pair content of 72.8%. The termination codons are uniformly distributed along the molecule and restrict the coding potentiality ofthe molecule to oligopeptides ofabout 20 amino acids. The molecule contains three dyad symmetries and a sequence of 12 nucleotides is repeated six times. We also noted the presence of a region of about 130 base pairs that is almost perfectly homologous with that of the minicircles from the closely related species T. brucei.
Evidence that the entire length of a kinetoplast DNA minicircle is transcribed in Trypanosoma cruzi
Molecular Microbiology, 1991
A 1.3 kb cDNA (cDNA52) was derived from Trypanosoma cruz/trypomastigote mRNA. Using single stranded probes in Northern blots, we identified the putative coding strand of cDNA52. In addition, a minor band was detected in RNA from epimastigotes that was absent in RNA from trypomastigotes. Nucleotide sequenoe analysis revealed that cDNA52 was highly homologous to T. cruzi kinetoplast DNA minicircle sequences. All four conserved regions of T. cruzi minicircles were identified in cDNA52. Using several criteria, we demonstrated that the hybridization signals were not caused by contaminating minicircle DNA in the RNA preparations. The data provide direct evidence for the unprecedented finding that the entire length of a kDNA minicircle is transcribed in T. cruzi.
BMC Genomics, 2006
The mitochondrial DNA of kinetoplastid flagellates is distinctive in the eukaryotic world due to its massive size, complex form and large sequence content. Comprised of catenated maxicircles that contain rRNA and protein-coding genes and thousands of heterogeneous minicircles encoding small guide RNAs, the kinetoplast network has evolved along with an extreme form of mRNA processing in the form of uridine insertion and deletion RNA editing. Many maxicircle-encoded mRNAs cannot be translated without this post-transcriptional sequence modification.
Peculiar sequence organization of kinetoplast DNA minicircles from Trypanosoma cruzi
Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology, 1988
The sequences of two minicircles from the kinetoplast DNA of the CL strain and one of the Y strain of Trypanosoma cruzi are reported. These 1.4 kb molecules have a peculiar sequence organization, the most distinctive feature being the occurrence of a 120 bp sequence repeated four times, located at 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees along each circle. We have termed these conserved regions in this species 'minirepeats'. Minirepeats have a 3-fold higher concentration of cytosine residues in comparison with the variable regions and contain the universal 12-mer motif GGGGTTGGTGTA present in all sequenced minicircles and which was shown to be involved in DNA replication. A consensus sequence of T. cruzi minirepeats was determined using the 20 minirepeats present in five known T. cruzi minicircle sequences. This consensus sequence contains regions which have been remarkably well preserved in strains which show great biological diversity. In addition a low level of intraminicircle sequence similarity was also observed within the variable region, but this similarity did not extend between strains. The abundance of conserved minirepeat sequences containing invariant restriction sites in T. cruzi cells may prove valuable for the development of new direct diagnostic methods for Chagas' disease based on DNA probe technology.
PloS one, 2017
In trypanosomatids, the kinetoplast is the portion of the single mitochondrion that is connected to the basal body and contains the kDNA, a network composed by circular and interlocked DNA. The kDNA packing is conducted by Kinetoplast Associated Proteins (KAPs), which are similar to eukaryotic histone H1. In symbiont-harboring trypanosomatids (SHTs) such as Angomonas deanei and Strigomonas culicis, a ß-proteobacterium co-evolves with the host in a mutualistic relationship. The prokaryote confers nutritional benefits to the host and affects its cell structure. Atomic force microscopy showed that the topology of isolated kDNA networks is quite similar in the two SHT species. Ultrastructural analysis using high-resolution microscopy techniques revealed that the DNA fibrils are more compact in the kinetoplast region that faces the basal body and that the presence of the symbiotic bacterium does not interfere with kDNA topology. However, RT-PCR data revealed differences in the expression...
Molecular and cellular biology, 1993
Replication of the kinetoplast DNA minicircle light strand initiates at a highly conserved 12-nucleotide sequence, termed the universal minicircle sequence. A Crithidia fasciculata single-stranded DNA-binding protein interacts specifically with the guanine-rich heavy strand of this origin-associated sequence (Y. Tzfati, H. Abeliovich, I. Kapeller, and J. Shlomai, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 89:6891-6895, 1992). Using the universal minicircle sequence heavy-strand probe to screen a C. fasciculata cDNA expression library, we have isolated two overlapping cDNA clones encoding the trypanosomatid universal minicircle sequence-binding protein. The complete cDNA sequence defines an open reading frame encoding a 116-amino-acid polypeptide chain consisting of five repetitions of a CCHC zinc finger motif. A significant similarity is found between this universal minicircle sequence-binding protein and two other single-stranded DNA-binding proteins identified in humans and in Leishmania major. A...
Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology, 1984
Some restriction fragments of kinetoplast minicircles from several trypanosomatid species (Leishmania tarentolae, Trypanosoma brucei, T. equiperdum, Herpetomonas muscarum, Crithidia fasciculata, but not T. cruzi) migrate anomalously on polyacrylamide gels. This behavior is probably due to a natural curvature of the helix. Bent helices appear to be a common property of kinetoplast minicircles, and may be important for minicircle function. In the case of T. equiperdum, we present evidence that each minicircle has a single bent region which resides in or near the "conserved sequence'.