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Richtová J, Bazalová O, Horák A, Tomčala A, Gonepogu VG, Oborník M, Doležel D. Circadian rhythms and circadian clock gene homologs of complex alga Chromera velia. FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE 2023; 14:1226027. [PMID: 38143581 PMCID: PMC10739334 DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1226027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/20/2023] [Accepted: 11/20/2023] [Indexed: 12/26/2023]
Abstract
Most organisms on Earth are affected by periodic changes in their environment. The circadian clock is an endogenous device that synchronizes behavior, physiology, or biochemical processes to an approximately 24-hour cycle, allowing organisms to anticipate the periodic changes of day and night. Although circadian clocks are widespread in organisms, the actual molecular components differ remarkably among the clocks of plants, animals, fungi, and prokaryotes. Chromera velia is the closest known photosynthetic relative of apicomplexan parasites. Formation of its motile stage, zoospores, has been described as associated with the light part of the day. We examined the effects on the periodic release of the zoospores under different light conditions and investigated the influence of the spectral composition on zoosporogenesis. We performed a genomic search for homologs of known circadian clock genes. Our results demonstrate the presence of an almost 24-hour free-running cycle of zoosporogenesis. We also identified the blue light spectra as the essential compound for zoosporogenesis. Further, we developed a new and effective method for zoospore separation from the culture and estimated the average motility speed and lifespan of the C. velia zoospores. Our genomic search identified six cryptochrome-like genes, two genes possibly related to Arabidopsis thaliana CCA/LHY, whereas no homolog of an animal, cyanobacterial, or fungal circadian clock gene was found. Our results suggest that C. velia has a functional circadian clock, probably based mainly on a yet undefined mechanism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jitka Richtová
- Biology Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Parasitology, České Budějovice, Czechia
| | - Olga Bazalová
- Biology Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Entomology, České Budějovice, Czechia
| | - Aleš Horák
- Biology Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Parasitology, České Budějovice, Czechia
- Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czechia
| | - Aleš Tomčala
- Faculty of Fisheries and Protection of Waters, University of South Bohemia, Vodňany, Czechia
| | - Vijaya Geetha Gonepogu
- Biology Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Parasitology, České Budějovice, Czechia
- Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czechia
| | - Miroslav Oborník
- Biology Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Parasitology, České Budějovice, Czechia
- Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czechia
| | - David Doležel
- Biology Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Entomology, České Budějovice, Czechia
- Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czechia
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Sharaf A, Füssy Z, Tomčala A, Richtová J, Oborník M. Isolation of plastids and mitochondria from Chromera velia. PLANTA 2019; 250:1731-1741. [PMID: 31422509 DOI: 10.1007/s00425-019-03259-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/19/2019] [Accepted: 08/08/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
We present an easy and effective procedure to purify plastids and mitochondria from Chromera velia. Our method enables downstream analyses of protein and metabolite content of the organelles. Chromerids are alveolate algae that are the closest known phototrophic relatives to apicomplexan parasites such as Plasmodium or Toxoplasma. While genomic and transcriptomic resources for chromerids are in place, tools and experimental conditions for proteomic studies have not been developed yet. Here we describe a rapid and efficient protocol for simultaneous isolation of plastids and mitochondria from the chromerid alga Chromera velia. This procedure involves enzymatic treatment and breakage of cells, followed by differential centrifugation. While plastids sediment in the first centrifugation step, mitochondria remain in the supernatant. Subsequently, plastids can be purified from the crude pellet by centrifugation on a discontinuous 60%/70% sucrose density gradient, while mitochondria can be obtained by centrifugation on a discontinuous 33%/80% Percoll density gradient. Isolated plastids are autofluorescent, and their multi-membrane structure was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. Fluorescent optical microscopy was used to identify isolated mitochondria stained with MitoTrackerTM green, while their intactness and membrane potential were confirmed by staining with MitoTrackerTM orange CMTMRos. Total proteins were extracted from isolated organellar fractions, and the purity of isolated organelles was confirmed using immunoblotting. Antibodies against the beta subunit of the mitochondrial ATP synthase and the plastid protochlorophyllide oxidoreductase did not cross-react on immunoblots, suggesting that each organellar fraction is free of the residues of the other. The presented protocol represents an essential step for further proteomic, organellar, and cell biological studies of C. velia and can be employed, with minor optimizations, in other thick-walled unicellular algae.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abdoallah Sharaf
- Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, Branišovská 31, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
- Genetic Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Cairo, 11241, Egypt.
| | - Zoltán Füssy
- Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, Branišovská 31, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
| | - Aleš Tomčala
- Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, Branišovská 31, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
| | - Jitka Richtová
- Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, Branišovská 31, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
- Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 31, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
| | - Miroslav Oborník
- Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, Branišovská 31, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
- Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 31, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
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Sharaf A, De Michele R, Sharma A, Fakhari S, Oborník M. Transcriptomic Analysis Reveals the Roles of Detoxification Systems in Response to Mercury in Chromera velia. Biomolecules 2019; 9:E647. [PMID: 31653042 PMCID: PMC6920818 DOI: 10.3390/biom9110647] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2019] [Revised: 10/15/2019] [Accepted: 10/18/2019] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Heavy metal pollution is an increasing global concern. Among heavy metals, mercury (Hg) is especially dangerous because of its massive release into the environment and high toxicity, especially for aquatic organisms. The molecular response mechanisms of algae to Hg exposure are mostly unknown. Here, we combine physiological, biochemical, and transcriptomic analysis to provide, for the first time, a comprehensive view on the pathways activated in Chromera velia in response to toxic levels of Hg. Production of hydrogen peroxide and superoxide anion, two reactive oxygen species (ROS), showed opposite patterns in response to Hg2+ while reactive nitrogen species (RNS) levels did not change. A deep RNA sequencing analysis generated a total of 307,738,790 high-quality reads assembled in 122,874 transcripts, representing 89,853 unigenes successfully annotated in databases. Detailed analysis of the differently expressed genes corroborates the biochemical results observed in ROS production and suggests novel putative molecular mechanisms in the algal response to Hg2+. Moreover, we indicated that important transcription factor (TF) families associated with stress responses differentially expressed in C. velia cultures under Hg stress. Our study presents the first in-depth transcriptomic analysis of C. velia, focusing on the expression of genes involved in different detoxification defense systems in response to heavy metal stress.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abdoallah Sharaf
- Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, 37005 České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
- Genetic Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11241, Egypt.
| | - Roberto De Michele
- Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources (IBBR), National Research Council (CNR) of Italy, 90129 Palermo, Italy.
| | - Ayush Sharma
- Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, 37005 České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
- Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, 37005 České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
| | - Safieh Fakhari
- Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources (IBBR), National Research Council (CNR) of Italy, 90129 Palermo, Italy.
| | - Miroslav Oborník
- Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, 37005 České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
- Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, 37005 České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
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Viruel J, Conejero M, Hidalgo O, Pokorny L, Powell RF, Forest F, Kantar MB, Soto Gomez M, Graham SW, Gravendeel B, Wilkin P, Leitch IJ. A Target Capture-Based Method to Estimate Ploidy From Herbarium Specimens. FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE 2019; 10:937. [PMID: 31396248 PMCID: PMC6667659 DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2019.00937] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2019] [Accepted: 07/04/2019] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
Abstract
Whole genome duplication (WGD) events are common in many plant lineages, but the ploidy status and possible occurrence of intraspecific ploidy variation are unknown for most species. Standard methods for ploidy determination are chromosome counting and flow cytometry approaches. While flow cytometry approaches typically use fresh tissue, an increasing number of studies have shown that recently dried specimens can be used to yield ploidy data. Recent studies have started to explore whether high-throughput sequencing (HTS) data can be used to assess ploidy levels by analyzing allelic frequencies from single copy nuclear genes. Here, we compare different approaches using a range of yam (Dioscorea) tissues of varying ages, drying methods and quality, including herbarium tissue. Our aims were to: (1) explore the limits of flow cytometry in estimating ploidy level from dried samples, including herbarium vouchers collected between 1831 and 2011, and (2) optimize a HTS-based method to estimate ploidy by considering allelic frequencies from nuclear genes obtained using a target-capture method. We show that, although flow cytometry can be used to estimate ploidy levels from herbarium specimens collected up to fifteen years ago, success rate is low (5.9%). We validated our HTS-based estimates of ploidy using 260 genes by benchmarking with dried samples of species of known ploidy (Dioscorea alata, D. communis, and D. sylvatica). Subsequently, we successfully applied the method to the 85 herbarium samples analyzed with flow cytometry, and successfully provided results for 91.7% of them, comprising species across the phylogenetic tree of Dioscorea. We also explored the limits of using this HTS-based approach for identifying high ploidy levels in herbarium material and the effects of heterozygosity and sequence coverage. Overall, we demonstrated that ploidy diversity within and between species may be ascertained from historical collections, allowing the determination of polyploidization events from samples collected up to two centuries ago. This approach has the potential to provide insights into the drivers and dynamics of ploidy level changes during plant evolution and crop domestication.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juan Viruel
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom
| | | | - Oriane Hidalgo
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom
- Laboratori de Botànica, Facultat de Farmàcia i Ciències de l’Alimentació, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Lisa Pokorny
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom
| | | | - Félix Forest
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom
| | - Michael B. Kantar
- Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Hawai’i at Mânoa, Honolulu, HI, United States
| | - Marybel Soto Gomez
- Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- UBC Botanical Garden & Centre for Plant Research, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Sean W. Graham
- Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- UBC Botanical Garden & Centre for Plant Research, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Barbara Gravendeel
- Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Endless Forms, Leiden, Netherlands
- Institute of Biology Leiden, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
- Science and Technology Faculty, University of Applied Sciences Leiden, Leiden, Netherlands
| | - Paul Wilkin
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom
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Füssy Z, Faitová T, Oborník M. Subcellular Compartments Interplay for Carbon and Nitrogen Allocation in Chromera velia and Vitrella brassicaformis. Genome Biol Evol 2019; 11:1765-1779. [PMID: 31192348 PMCID: PMC6668581 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evz123] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/10/2019] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Endosymbioses necessitate functional cooperation of cellular compartments to avoid pathway redundancy and streamline the control of biological processes. To gain insight into the metabolic compartmentation in chromerids, phototrophic relatives to apicomplexan parasites, we prepared a reference set of proteins probably localized to mitochondria, cytosol, and the plastid, taking advantage of available genomic and transcriptomic data. Training of prediction algorithms with the reference set now allows a genome-wide analysis of protein localization in Chromera velia and Vitrella brassicaformis. We confirm that the chromerid plastids house enzymatic pathways needed for their maintenance and photosynthetic activity, but for carbon and nitrogen allocation, metabolite exchange is necessary with the cytosol and mitochondria. This indeed suggests that the regulatory mechanisms operate in the cytosol to control carbon metabolism based on the availability of both light and nutrients. We discuss that this arrangement is largely shared with apicomplexans and dinoflagellates, possibly stemming from a common ancestral metabolic architecture, and supports the mixotrophy of the chromerid algae.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zoltán Füssy
- Faculty of Science, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
- Department of Evolutionary Protistology, Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
| | - Tereza Faitová
- Faculty of Science, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
- Department of Evolutionary Protistology, Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
- Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Department of Computer Science, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
| | - Miroslav Oborník
- Faculty of Science, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
- Department of Evolutionary Protistology, Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
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White MW, Suvorova ES. Apicomplexa Cell Cycles: Something Old, Borrowed, Lost, and New. Trends Parasitol 2018; 34:759-771. [PMID: 30078701 PMCID: PMC6157590 DOI: 10.1016/j.pt.2018.07.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/05/2018] [Revised: 07/09/2018] [Accepted: 07/10/2018] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
Abstract
Increased parasite burden is linked to the severity of clinical disease caused by Apicomplexa parasites such as Toxoplasma gondii, Plasmodium spp, and Cryptosporidium. Pathogenesis of apicomplexan infections is greatly affected by the growth rate of the parasite asexual stages. This review discusses recent advances in deciphering the mitotic structures and cell cycle regulatory factors required by Apicomplexa parasites to replicate. As the molecular details become clearer, it is evident that the highly unconventional cell cycles of these parasites is a blending of many ancient and borrowed elements, which were then adapted to enable apicomplexan proliferation in a wide variety of different animal hosts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael W White
- Department of Global Health, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA
| | - Elena S Suvorova
- Department of Global Health, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA.
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