We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Comparative genomics reveals the presence of putative toxin-antitoxin system in <italic>Wolbachia</italic> genomes.
- Authors
Singhal, Kopal; Mohanty, Sujata
- Abstract
Multiple toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are housed in different locations within the bacterial genome and are known to be associated with various cellular processes and stress-related adaptation. In endosymbionts, although, the TA system has scarce occurrence but studies have highlighted its presence in enhancing host-symbiont interactions. <italic>Wolbachia</italic>, an obligate endosymbiont, has recently been proposed as a biocontrol agent which may be helpful in controlling vector-borne diseases. There are reports suggesting the role of TA system in inducing cytoplasmic incompatibility in case of <italic>Wolbachia</italic>, however, the underlying mechanism is still not known. The present study, therefore, aims at exploring the diversity of TA system in four novel (sourced from India) and three reference genomes (NCBI) of <italic>Wolbachia</italic> strains. Interestingly, we found several putative toxins and antitoxins of <italic>RelEB</italic> family of Type II TA system in these <italic>Wolbachia</italic> genomes. The results show <italic>w</italic>Mel genome possessed more number of putative TA loci than <italic>w</italic>Ri genome. In addition, searching through the other sequenced <italic>Wolbachia</italic> genomes in NCBI, a complete absence of TA system was observed in <italic>Wolbachia</italic>-infected nematodes. The sequence-wide analysis of all the putative <italic>RelEB</italic> proteins present amongst the <italic>Wolbachia</italic> endosymbiont and within the free-living bacterial genomes reveal strain-specific similarities and conserved sequences. However, large amount of sequence diversity was observed between <italic>Wolbachia</italic> and free-living bacteria. Understanding this sequence variation may help shed light on the differences between these two forms of bacteria and could also explain their niche preferences.
- Subjects
GENOMES; COMPARATIVE genomics; WOLBACHIA; RICKETTSIACEAE; PLANT diseases
- Publication
Molecular Genetics & Genomics, 2018, Vol 293, Issue 2, p525
- ISSN
1617-4615
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s00438-017-1402-5