title: Archaeal origin of tubulin.
abstract: Tubulins are a family of GTPases that are key components of the cytoskeleton in all eukaryotes and are distantly related to the FtsZ GTPase that is involved in cell division in most bacteria and many archaea. Among prokaryotes, bona fide tubulins have been identified only in bacteria of the genus Prosthecobacter. These bacterial tubulin genes appear to have been horizontally transferred from eukaryotes. Here we describe tubulins encoded in the genomes of thaumarchaeota of the genus Nitrosoarchaeum that we denote artubulins Phylogenetic analysis results are compatible with the origin of eukaryotic tubulins from artubulins. These findings expand the emerging picture of the origin of key components of eukaryotic functional systems from ancestral forms that are scattered among the extant archaea.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA.
authors.forename: Natalya
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yutin
authors.forename: Eugene V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Koonin
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001105:Archaea / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D019843:Archaeal Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D001419:Bacteria / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D005057:Eukaryotic Cells / Q000737:chemistry; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020745:Genome, Archaeal; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014404:Tubulin / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D019843:Archaeal Proteins; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins; C071525:FtsZ protein, Bacteria; D014404:Tubulin