title: In silico sequence analysis reveals new characteristics of fungal NADPH oxidase genes.
abstract: NADPH oxidases (Noxes), transmembrane proteins found in most eukaryotic species, generate reactive oxygen species and are thereby involved in essential biological processes. However, the fact that genes encoding ferric reductases and ferric-chelate reductases share high sequence similarities and domains with Nox genes represents a challenge for bioinformatic approaches used to identify Nox-encoding genes. Further, most studies on fungal Nox genes have focused mainly on functionality, rather than sequence properties, and consequently clear differentiation among the various Nox isoforms has not been achieved. We conducted an extensive sequence analysis to identify putative Nox genes among 34 eukaryotes, including 28 fungal genomes and one Oomycota genome. Analyses were performed with respect to phylogeny, transmembrane helices, di-histidine distance and glycosylation. Our analyses indicate that the sequence properties of fungal Nox genes are different from those of human and plant Nox genes, thus providing novel insight that will enable more accurate identification and characterization of fungal Nox genes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Détry
authors.affiliation: Fungal Bioinformatics Laboratory, Center for Fungal Pathogenesis, and Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-921, Korea.
authors.forename: Jaeyoung
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Hsiao-Che
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Kuo
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Fred O
authors.initials: FO
authors.lastname: Asiegbu
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland. ; Fungal Bioinformatics Laboratory, Center for Fungal Pathogenesis, and Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-921, Korea. ; Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland. ; Center for Fungal Genetic Resources, Plant Genomics and Breeding Institute, and Research Institute for Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-921, Korea.
authors.forename: Yong-Hwan
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Lee
keywords: Fungal genome; NADPH oxidase; Nox; Phylogenetics; ROS