Recovery of an Acanthamoeba strain with two group I introns in the nuclear 18S rRNA gene

Abstract

Nuclear group I introns are parasitic mobile genetic elements occurring in the ribosomal RNA genes of a large variety of microbial eukaryotes. In Acanthamoeba, group I introns were found occurring in the 18S rDNA at four distinct insertion sites. Introns are present as single elements in various strains belonging to four genotypes, T3 (A. griffini), T4 (A. castellanii complex), T5 (A. lenticulata) and T15 (A. jacobsi). While multiple introns can frequently be found in the rDNA of several algae, fungi and slime moulds, they are usually rare and present as single elements in amoebae. We reported herein the characterization of an A. lenticulata strain containing two introns in its 18S rDNA. They are located to already known sites and show basal relationships with respective homologous introns present in the other T5 strains. This is the first and unique reported case of multiple nuclear introns in Acanthamoeba.