Post Genomic Analysis of Putative Amino Acid Transporters from the AAAP Family in Trypanosomes.

BOUVIER, LEON; SILBER, ARIEL; CANEPA, GASPAR; MIRANDA, MARIANA; MANSO ALVES, MARIA; PEREIRA, CA

BIOCHEMICAL AND BIOPHYSICAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

Lugar: Estados Unidos; Año: 2004 vol. 321 p. 547 - 556

0006-291X

The ‘‘amino acid/auxin permeases’’ is probably the most represented family of transporters in the Trypanosoma cruzi genome.Using a high-throughput searching routine and preliminary data from the T. cruzi genome project, more than 15,000 sequences wereiteratively assembled into contigs, and 60 open reading frames corresponding to different putative amino acid transporters, clusteredin 12 groups, were detected and characterized in silico. T. cruzi genomic organization of such sequences showed that these putativeamino acid transporter genes are in an unusually large number and arranged in repeat clusters comprising about 0.2% of the genome.These data suggest that the family has evolved following tandem duplication events and constitutes a novel family of variableproteins in protozoan organisms. The mRNA expression of the predicted genes was demonstrated in infective and non-infectiveparasite forms. Orthologous sequences were also identified in other unicellular parasites such as Leishmania spp., Plasmodiumspp., and Trypanosoma brucei.