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Plasmodium parasites of birds have the most AT-rich genes of eukaryotes
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...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Microbiology Society
2018
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5857377/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29360019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000150 |
Sumario: | 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. |
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