title: Evolutionary analyses of mitochondrial carrier family of dictyostelids.
abstract: The transportation of solutes across the inner membrane of the mitochondria is catalyzed by a nuclear-coded family of transport proteins called mitochondrial carriers (MCs). Sequences from dictyostelid genome projects have facilitated analysis of the evolution of the dictyostelid mitochondrial carrier family (MCF). The average evolutionary distances between various regions in the MCF shows that the transmembrane region (TR) and conical pit region (CPR) are the only two conserved structural regions. A phylogenetic tree built using the concatenated orthologous TR and CPR sequences of 7 MCs showed that dictyostelids are similar to metazoans in this way. A close evolutionary relationship was observed between dictyostelids and metazoans in 4 MCs known to be related to ADP/ATP transport (MAA). This was further evidenced by the fact that dictyostelids have undergone gene expansion similar to that of metazoans during the evolution of MAA. Sequence logo analysis of CPR in MAA showed that dictyostelids have motifs similar to those of Metazoa. Combined with the conserved substrate binding site of 7 MCs in eukaryotes, it is postulated that dictyostelids are closely related to Metazoa with respect to the evolution of MAA.
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Research Center of Edible Fungi; Key Laboratory of Edible Fungi Resources and Utilization (South), Ministry of Agriculture; Institute of Edible Fungi, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai, 201403 People's Republic of China ; Department of Computer Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182 USA.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182 USA.
authors.forename: Qiuming
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Research Center of Edible Fungi; Key Laboratory of Edible Fungi Resources and Utilization (South), Ministry of Agriculture; Institute of Edible Fungi, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai, 201403 People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Tan
keywords: ADP/ATP; Dictyostelids; Metabolic activity; Mitochondrial carriers; Solute transport