Abstract
BackgroundTrichomonas vaginalis is a human-infecting trichomonad and as such the best studied and the only for which the full genome sequence is available considering its parasitic lifestyle, T. vaginalis encodes an unusually high number of proteins. Many gene families are massively expanded and some genes are speculated to have been acquired from prokaryotic sources. Among the latter are two gene families that harbour domains which share similarity with proteins of Bacteroidales/Spirochaetales and Chlamydiales: the BspA and the Pmp proteins, respectively.ResultsWe sequenced the transcriptomes of five trichomonad species and screened for the presence of BspA and Pmp domain-containing proteins and characterized individual candidate proteins from both families in T. vaginalis. Here, we demonstrate that (i) BspA and Pmp domain-containing proteins are universal to trichomonads, but specifically expanded in T. vaginalis; (ii) in line with a concurrent expansion of the endocytic machinery, there is a high number of BspA and Pmp proteins which carry C-terminal endocytic motifs; and (iii) both families traffic through the ER and have the ability to increase adhesion performance in a non-virulent T. vaginalis strain and Tetratrichomonas gallinarum by a so far unknown mechanism.ConclusionsOur results initiate the functional characterization of these two broadly distributed protein families and help to better understand the origin and evolution of BspA and Pmp domains in trichomonads.
Highlights
Trichomonas vaginalis is a human-infecting trichomonad and as such the best studied and the only for which the full genome sequence is available considering its parasitic lifestyle, T. vaginalis encodes an unusually high number of proteins
RNA‐Seq on five trichomonads We first generated RNA-Seq data for five trichomonad species that infect a variety of different hosts (Table 1), namely Pentatrichomonas hominis, Tetratrichomonas gallinarum, Trichomitus batrachorum, Trichomonas gallinae and Trichomonas tenax
With 57% overlap, the lowest number of homologs in T. vaginalis were found for Tri. batrachorum and with 89% overlap the highest number in both T. gallinae and T. tenax, which is in accordance with their phylogenetic relationships [57, 58]
Summary
Trichomonas vaginalis is a human-infecting trichomonad and as such the best studied and the only for which the full genome sequence is available considering its parasitic lifestyle, T. vaginalis encodes an unusually high number of proteins. T. vaginalis scavenges host cell substrate, likely through a mechanism similar to the trogocytosis of Entamoeba histolytica [17]. Another critical component is the endocytic uptake of food particles. During this process, extracellular material is recognized at the plasma membrane by specific receptors and usually placed into clathrin-coated vesicles by the assistance of the AP2 adaptor complex [18]. This process is further mediated by surface proteins, which carry specific sorting signals located at the cytosolic end of the proteins and which
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