Endosymbiont Capture, a Repeated Process of Endosymbiont Transfer with Replacement in Trypanosomatids Angomonas spp

Skalicky, T. et al. (2021) Endosymbiont Capture, a Repeated Process of Endosymbiont Transfer with Replacement in Trypanosomatids Angomonas spp. Pathogens, 10(6), 702. (doi: 10.3390/pathogens10060702) (PMID:34200026) (PMCID:PMC8229890)

Abstract

Trypanosomatids of the subfamily Strigomonadinae bear permanent intracellular bacterial symbionts acquired by the common ancestor of these flagellates. However, the cospeciation pattern inherent to such relationships was revealed to be broken upon the description of Angomonas ambiguus, which is sister to A. desouzai, but bears an endosymbiont genetically close to that of A. deanei. Based on phylogenetic inferences, it was proposed that the bacterium from A. deanei had been horizontally transferred to A. ambiguus. Here, we sequenced the bacterial genomes from two A. ambiguus isolates, including a new one from Papua New Guinea, and compared them with the published genome of the A. deanei endosymbiont, revealing differences below the interspecific level. Our phylogenetic analyses confirmed that the endosymbionts of A. ambiguus were obtained from A. deanei and, in addition, demonstrated that this occurred more than once. We propose that coinfection of the same blowfly host and the phylogenetic relatedness of the trypanosomatids facilitate such transitions, whereas the drastic difference in the occurrence of the two trypanosomatid species determines the observed direction of this process. This phenomenon is analogous to organelle (mitochondrion/plastid) capture described in multicellular organisms and, thereafter, we name it endosymbiont capture.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Funding: This research was supported by the European Regional Funds project “Centre for Research of Pathogenicity and Virulence of Parasites” CZ.02.1.01/16_019/0000759 to V.Y., A.Y.K., J.R., and J.L., the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (grant 20-07186S) to V.Y., J.L., and A.Y.K., State Assignment AAAA-A19-119031390116-9 for ZIN RAS to A.Y.K., São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) grants 2016/07487-0 (to M.M.G.T and E.P.C.) and 2013/14622-3 (to J.M.P.A.), CNPq fellowship to A.C.M., Wellcome Trust grant 206194 for M.S. and J.A.C., National Science Foundation’s Assembling the Tree of Life program to G.A.B. and M.G.S., and a grant from the University of Ostrava SGS/PrF/2021 for J.R. Computational resources were provided to T.S. by the project “e-Infrastruktura CZ” (e-INFRA LM2018140) within the program Projects of Large Research, Development and Innovations Infrastructures and ELIXIR-CZ project (LM2018131), part of the international ELIXIR infrastructure.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Cotton, Professor James
• Authors: Skalicky, T., Alves, J., Morais, A. C., Režnarová, J., Butenko, A., Lukes, J., Serrano, M. G., Buck, G. A., Teixeira, M. M. G., Camargo, E. P., Sanders, M., Cotton, J. A., Yurchenko, V., and Kostygov, A. Y.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine
• Journal Name: Pathogens
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2076-0817
• ISSN (Online): 2076-0817
• Published Online: 04 June 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 by the authors
• First Published: First published in Pathogens 10(6): 702
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License