Evolutionary Analysis of Cystatins of Early-Emerging Metazoans Reveals a Novel Subtype in Parasitic Cnidarians

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60076658%3A12310%2F21%3A43903655" target="_blank" >RIV/60076658:12310/21:43903655 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/60077344:_____/21:00552127

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/10/2/110" target="_blank" >https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/10/2/110</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology10020110" target="_blank" >10.3390/biology10020110</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Evolutionary Analysis of Cystatins of Early-Emerging Metazoans Reveals a Novel Subtype in Parasitic Cnidarians

Original language description

Simple Summary Cysteine protease inhibitors (cystatins) are molecules that play key protective roles in protein degradation and are involved in the immunomodulation of host responses to parasites. Little is known about the cystatin gene repertoire, evolution, and lineage-specific adaptations of early-emerging metazoans. Using bioinformatics searches, we identified orthologues of cystatins in basal animal lineages including free-living and parasite taxa. We aimed to explore whether their cystatin gene repertoire and evolution follow similar patterns recognized for derived metazoans and whether the modifications are linked to the organism&apos;s life history. We revealed that cysteine protease inhibitors from early-emerging animal groups are highly diverse, with modifications in gene organization and protein architecture. A new subtype of cystatins was discovered in the parasitic cnidarians, the Myxozoa, which has so far been only reported for a group of derived animals: trematode flukes. We set out hypotheses to describe the driving forces for the origins of this unique cystatin subtype and propose evolutionary scenarios elucidating the current existence of cystatins in the Metazoa, especially in their early-emerging lineages. Our research identified molecules for which future functional studies may help to identify their roles in host-parasite interactions and for the parasite itself. The evolutionary aspects of cystatins are greatly underexplored in early-emerging metazoans. Thus, we surveyed the gene organization, protein architecture, and phylogeny of cystatin homologues mined from 110 genomes and the transcriptomes of 58 basal metazoan species, encompassing free-living and parasite taxa of Porifera, Placozoa, Cnidaria (including Myxozoa), and Ctenophora. We found that the cystatin gene repertoire significantly differs among phyla, with stefins present in most of the investigated lineages but with type 2 cystatins missing in several basal metazoan groups. Similar to liver and intestinal flukes, myxozoan parasites possess atypical stefins with chimeric structure that combine motifs of classical stefins and type 2 cystatins. Other early metazoan taxa regardless of lifestyle have only the classical representation of cystatins and lack multi-domain ones. Our comprehensive phylogenetic analyses revealed that stefins and type 2 cystatins clustered into taxonomically defined clades with multiple independent paralogous groups, which probably arose due to gene duplications. The stefin clade split between the subclades of classical stefins and the atypical stefins of myxozoans and flukes. Atypical stefins represent key evolutionary innovations of the two parasite groups for which their origin might have been linked with ancestral gene chimerization, obligate parasitism, life cycle complexity, genome reduction, and host immunity.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10608 - Biochemistry and molecular biology

Project

Result was created during the realization of more than one project. More information in the Projects tab.

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Biology - Basel

ISSN

2079-7737

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

10

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

CH - SWITZERLAND

Number of pages

16

Pages from-to

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UT code for WoS article

000622108400001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85100726185