title: Phylogeny of the SNARE vesicle fusion machinery yields insights into the conservation of the secretory pathway in fungi.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In eukaryotic cells, directional transport between different compartments of the endomembrane system is mediated by vesicles that bud from a donor organelle and then fuse with an acceptor organelle. A family of integral membrane proteins, termed soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment receptor (SNARE) proteins, constitute the key machineries of these different membrane fusion events. Over the past 30 years, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has served as a powerful model organism for studying the organization of the secretory and endocytic pathways, and a few years ago, its entire set of SNAREs was compiled.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Here, we make use of the increasing amount of genomic data to investigate the history of the SNARE family during fungi evolution. Moreover, since different SNARE family members are thought to demarcate different organelles and vesicles, this approach allowed us to compare the organization of the endomembrane systems of yeast and animal cells. Our data corroborate the notion that fungi generally encompass a relatively simple set of SNARE proteins, mostly comprising the SNAREs of the proto-eukaryotic cell. However, all fungi contain a novel soluble SNARE protein, Vam7, which carries an N-terminal PX-domain that acts as a phosphoinositide binding module. In addition, the points in fungal evolution, at which lineage-specific duplications and diversifications occurred, could be determined. For instance, the endosomal syntaxins Pep12 and Vam3 arose from a gene duplication that occurred within the Saccharomycotina clade.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although the SNARE repertoire of baker's yeast is highly conserved, our analysis reveals that it is more deviated than the ones of basal fungi. This highlights that the trafficking pathways of baker's yeast are not only different to those in animal cells but also are somewhat different to those of many other fungi.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany. nkienle@gwdg.de
authors.forename: Nickias
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kienle
authors.forename: Tobias H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Kloepper
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fasshauer
mesh_terms: D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D005658:Fungi / Q000235:genetics*; D020440:Gene Duplication; D016681:Genome, Fungal; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010802:Phylogeny; D050767:Qc-SNARE Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D050600:SNARE Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D050825:Synaptosomal-Associated Protein 25
chemical_list: D005656:Fungal Proteins; D050767:Qc-SNARE Proteins; D050600:SNARE Proteins; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D050825:Synaptosomal-Associated Protein 25; C494205:VAM7 protein, S cerevisiae