Disruption of RNA editing in Leishmania tarentolae by the loss of minicircle-encoded guide RNA genes.
RNA editing in kinetoplastids appears to be a labile genetic trait that is affected by prolonged cell culture. The transcripts of the G1-G5 cryptogenes are pan-edited in the recently isolated LEM125 strain of Leishmania tarentolae, but not in the UC strain which has been in culture for 55 years. At least 32 minicircle-encoded guide RNAs (gRNAs) for the editing of G1-G5 transcripts are present in LEM125 and absent in UC. We hypothesize that specific minicircle sequence classes encoding gRNAs for the editing of these transcripts were lost during the long culture history of the UC strain. The protein products, which include components of complex I of the respiratory chain, are probably not required during the culture stage of the Leishmania life cycle.
Thiemann
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Department of Biology, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024.
Maslov
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DA
Simpson
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D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D015152:Blotting, Northern; D004270:DNA, Circular / Q000235:genetics*; D007891:Leishmania / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017393:RNA Editing; D017394:RNA, Guide, Kinetoplastida / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D016053:RNA, Protozoan / Q000235:genetics*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
D004270:DNA, Circular; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D016053:RNA, Protozoan; D017394:RNA, Guide, Kinetoplastida