In silico analysis of Trypanosomatids? helicases

GARGANTINI, PABLO; LUJAN, HUGO; PEREIRA, CA

FEMS MICROBIOLOGY LETTERS

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2012 vol. 335 p. 123 - 129

0378-1097

Trypanosomatids are unicellular protozoan parasites that cause many diseases in animals,including humans, and plants. These early divergent eukaryotes have many singularstructures and processes, including the hyper-modified ?base J?, a mitochondrial DNAnetwork, RNA editing and trans-splicing; all of these unique features involve a wide varietyof specific DNA/RNA helicases. In this work, the genomes of trypanosomatids were analyzedby data mining, searching for genes coding for DNA/RNA helicases. Specific motifs and fulllengthsequences from all families present in the helicase?s superfamilies (SFs) 1 and 2 wereused as baits for genome analyses. A total of 328 putative helicases were identified; 204genes were assigned to the SF2, 42 genes to the SF1 and 76 genes remain unclassified. Eightspecie-specific SF2 helicases were also found; T. cruzi has three DEAD-box and oneDEAH/RHA specific helicases, while L. major has three Swi2/Snf2 and T. brucei has only oneRigI helicase. Finally, in order to identify helicases that could be used as future therapeutictargets, all obtained genes were compared with those present in the human genome. Fortytwohelicases underrepresented in the human genome were identified; constituting 16orthologs groups from L. major, T. brucei and T. cruzi.