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      Discovery of Nuclear-Encoded Genes for the Neurotoxin Saxitoxin in Dinoflagellates

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          Abstract

          Saxitoxin is a potent neurotoxin that occurs in aquatic environments worldwide. Ingestion of vector species can lead to paralytic shellfish poisoning, a severe human illness that may lead to paralysis and death. In freshwaters, the toxin is produced by prokaryotic cyanobacteria; in marine waters, it is associated with eukaryotic dinoflagellates. However, several studies suggest that saxitoxin is not produced by dinoflagellates themselves, but by co-cultured bacteria. Here, we show that genes required for saxitoxin synthesis are encoded in the nuclear genomes of dinoflagellates. We sequenced >1.2×10 6 mRNA transcripts from the two saxitoxin-producing dinoflagellate strains Alexandrium fundyense CCMP1719 and A. minutum CCMP113 using high-throughput sequencing technology. In addition, we used in silico transcriptome analyses, RACE, qPCR and conventional PCR coupled with Sanger sequencing. These approaches successfully identified genes required for saxitoxin-synthesis in the two transcriptomes. We focused on sxtA, the unique starting gene of saxitoxin synthesis, and show that the dinoflagellate transcripts of sxtA have the same domain structure as the cyanobacterial sxtA genes. But, in contrast to the bacterial homologs, the dinoflagellate transcripts are monocistronic, have a higher GC content, occur in multiple copies, contain typical dinoflagellate spliced-leader sequences and eukaryotic polyA-tails. Further, we investigated 28 saxitoxin-producing and non-producing dinoflagellate strains from six different genera for the presence of genomic sxtA homologs. Our results show very good agreement between the presence of sxtA and saxitoxin-synthesis, except in three strains of A. tamarense, for which we amplified sxtA, but did not detect the toxin. Our work opens for possibilities to develop molecular tools to detect saxitoxin-producing dinoflagellates in the environment.

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          ProtTest: selection of best-fit models of protein evolution.

          Using an appropriate model of amino acid replacement is very important for the study of protein evolution and phylogenetic inference. We have built a tool for the selection of the best-fit model of evolution, among a set of candidate models, for a given protein sequence alignment. ProtTest is available under the GNU license from http://darwin.uvigo.es
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            Horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotic evolution.

            Horizontal gene transfer (HGT; also known as lateral gene transfer) has had an important role in eukaryotic genome evolution, but its importance is often overshadowed by the greater prevalence and our more advanced understanding of gene transfer in prokaryotes. Recurrent endosymbioses and the generally poor sampling of most nuclear genes from diverse lineages have also complicated the search for transferred genes. Nevertheless, the number of well-supported cases of transfer from both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, many with significant functional implications, is now expanding rapidly. Major recent trends include the important role of HGT in adaptation to certain specialized niches and the highly variable impact of HGT in different lineages.
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              Biosynthetic intermediate analysis and functional homology reveal a saxitoxin gene cluster in cyanobacteria.

              Saxitoxin (STX) and its analogues cause the paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) syndrome, which afflicts human health and impacts coastal shellfish economies worldwide. PSP toxins are unique alkaloids, being produced by both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Here we describe a candidate PSP toxin biosynthesis gene cluster (sxt) from Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii T3. The saxitoxin biosynthetic pathway is encoded by more than 35 kb, and comparative sequence analysis assigns 30 catalytic functions to 26 proteins. STX biosynthesis is initiated with arginine, S-adenosylmethionine, and acetate by a new type of polyketide synthase, which can putatively perform a methylation of acetate, and a Claisen condensation reaction between propionate and arginine. Further steps involve enzymes catalyzing three heterocyclizations and various tailoring reactions that result in the numerous isoforms of saxitoxin. In the absence of a gene transfer system in these microorganisms, we have revised the description of the known STX biosynthetic pathway, with in silico functional inferences based on sxt open reading frames combined with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis of the biosynthetic intermediates. Our results indicate the evolutionary origin for the production of PSP toxins in an ancestral cyanobacterium with genetic contributions from diverse phylogenetic lineages of bacteria and provide a quantum addition to the catalytic collective available for future combinatorial biosyntheses. The distribution of these genes also supports the idea of the involvement of this gene cluster in STX production in various cyanobacteria.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2011
                18 May 2011
                : 6
                : 5
                : e20096
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Microbial Evolution Research Group (MERG), Department of Biology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
                [2 ]Department of Molecular Biology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
                [3 ]School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences and Australian Centre for Astrobiology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
                [4 ]Sydney Institute of Marine Sciences, Mosman, New South Wales, Australia
                [5 ]Department of Biology, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
                East Carolina University, United States of America
                Author notes

                Conceived and designed the experiments: AS RJSO SAM KSJ. Performed the experiments: AS RSJO SAM. Analyzed the data: AS RDJO SAM RK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KSJ SAM BAN. Wrote the paper: AS SAM. Commented and approved the manuscript: RSJO RK BAN KSJ.

                [¤]

                Current address: Hormone Laboratory, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway

                Article
                PONE-D-11-02349
                10.1371/journal.pone.0020096
                3097229
                21625593
                558d992f-2d77-48fd-bc70-309d231f9001
                Stüken et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
                History
                : 2 February 2011
                : 12 April 2011
                Page count
                Pages: 12
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology
                Genomics
                Genome Evolution
                Genome Sequencing
                Microbiology
                Microbial Evolution

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                Uncategorized

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