Abstract
The genomic architecture of organisms, including nucleotide composition, can be highly variable, even among closely-related species. To better understand the causes leading to structural variation in genomes, information on distinct and diverse genomic features is needed. Malaria parasites are known for encompassing a wide range of genomic GC-content and it has long been thought that Plasmodium falciparum, the virulent malaria parasite of humans, has the most AT-biased eukaryotic genome. Here, I perform comparative genomic analyses of the most AT-rich eukaryotes sequenced to date, and show that the avian malaria parasites Plasmodium gallinaceum, P. ashfordi, and P. relictum have the most extreme coding sequences in terms of AT-bias. Their mean GC-content is 21.21, 21.22 and 21.60 %, respectively, which is considerably lower than the transcriptome of P. falciparum (23.79 %) and other eukaryotes. This information enables a better understanding of genome evolution and raises the question of how certain organisms are able to prosper despite severe compositional constraints.
Highlights
Genomes constitute highly-dynamic landscapes which can exhibit both structural and physical variation, and their compositional architecture can have major impacts on evolutionary processes
A major challenge in evolutionary genomics has been to explain the substantial variation in the genomic guanine+cytosine (GC) content observed across species
GC-content is highly associated with several genomic features, such as gene density, proteome size, chromosomal region, distribution of repeat elements, and methylation patterns [1,2,3]
Summary
Genomes constitute highly-dynamic landscapes which can exhibit both structural and physical variation, and their compositional architecture can have major impacts on evolutionary processes. A major challenge in evolutionary genomics has been to explain the substantial variation in the genomic guanine+cytosine (GC) content observed across species. GC-content is highly associated with several genomic features, such as gene density, proteome size, chromosomal region, distribution of repeat elements, and methylation patterns [1,2,3]. It has been significantly correlated with recombination rate and gene expression levels [4,5,6]. The biological relevance of genomic GC-content raises important questions regarding its evolutionary causes and consequences
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