Cloning and characterization of the BSL-like gene in Toxoplasma gondii

JAVIER BIANCHI; VALENTINA MARTIN; SERGIO ANGEL; SANTIAGO MORA-GARCIA

Tucuman, Argentina

Congreso; XLV Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2009

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular

<!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> BSL protein Ser/Thr phosphatases have been shown to modulate the strength of the signal delivered to the transcriptional effectors of the steroid-hormone pathway in plants. BSL phosphatases belong to a poorly characterized group of PPP phosphatases found in several organisms, except metazoans and fungi. Diagnostic features of BSL phosphatases are two recognisable domains and a set of conserved positions in the catalytic domain. These phosphatases are only found in land plants, green algae and certain groups of protists, thus spanning a broad range of both unicellular and pluricellular organisms. In order to understand how signalling pathways present in unicellular organisms were co-opted in the transition to multicellularity, we set out to characterize the homologous gene in Toxoplasma gondii. Toxoplasma was chosen as a tractable model for unicellular organisms, loosely related to photosynthetic organisms through an ancestral event of secondary endosymbiosis. The TgBSL gene was only predicted from the annotated genomic sequence. We first isolated the full-length coding region of TgBSL from tachizoites’ RNA, and found several alternatively spliced forms. We also report the initial characterization of this single-gene encoded protein phosphatase from Toxoplasma gondii.