Carbon metabolism and regulation is poorly understood in mycobacteria, a genus that includes some major pathogenic species like Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae. Here, we report the identification of a glucose kinase from Mycobacterium smegmatis. This enzyme serves in glucose metabolism and global carbon catabolite repression in the related actinomycete Streptomyces coelicolor. The gene, msmeg1356 (glkA), was found by means of in silico screening. It was shown that it occurs in the same genetic context in all so far sequenced mycobacterial species, where it is located in a putative tricistronic operon together with a glycosyl hydrolase and a putative malonyl-CoA transacylase. Heterologous expression of glkA in an Escherichia coli glucose kinase mutant led to the restoration of glucose growth, which provided in vivo evidence for glucose kinase function. GlkA(Msm) was subsequently overproduced in order to study its enzymatic features. We found that it can form a dimer and that it efficiently phosphorylates glucose at the expense of ATP. The affinity constant for glucose was with 9 mM about eight times higher and the velocity was about tenfold slower when compared to the parallel measured glucose kinase of S. coelicolor. Both enzymes showed similar substrate specificity, which consists in an ATP-dependent phosphorylation of glucose and no, or very inefficient, phosphorylation of the glucose analogues 2-deoxyglucose and methyl alpha-glucoside. Hence, our data provide a basis for studying the role of mycobacterial glucose kinase in vivo to unravel possible catalytic and regulatory functions. 相似文献
Paulinella chromatophora is a freshwater filose amoeba with photosynthetic endosymbionts (chromatophores) of cyanobacterial origin that are closely
related to free-living Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus species (PS-clade). Members of the PS-clade of cyanobacteria contain a proteobacterial form 1A RubisCO (ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate
carboxylase/oxygenase) that was acquired by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of a carboxysomal operon. In rDNA-phylogenies,
the Paulinella chromatophore diverged basal to the PS-clade, raising the question whether the HGT occurred before or after the split of
the chromatophore ancestor. 相似文献
Wasps and bees are important components of flower visitor guilds in the Neotropical region. The abundance of social wasps and bees, collected during flower visits, was used to calculate niche breadth and niche overlap indices, in order to characterize the utilization of the floral resources by those insects. Samples were taken monthly, for 13 months (156h), by two collectors which captured the specimens on flowers using entomological nets, while walking along a way in an area of caatinga at Itatim, State of Bahia, Brazil. Wasps and bees heavily visited a few sources of floral resources, but the most visited plants by each group were different, and few plant species were important for both groups, resulting in low niche overlap between bees and wasps. The niche overlap among wasp species was generally higher than among bee species. The general overlap, which takes into consideration all species together was low (< 30%). 相似文献
The species Piper hispidinervum, Piper aduncum, and Piper affinis hispidinervum have essential oils with high levels of safrole, dillapiole, and sarisan, respectively. Safrole is important for pharmaceutical and chemical industries, while dillapiole and sarisan are promising compounds to control insects and fungi. These species are very similar morphologically and their taxonomy is controversial. Divergent hypotheses consider P. aduncum and P. hispidinervum either as a single species or as distinct taxa, while P. affinis hispidinervum is inferred to be a natural hybrid or a chemotype of P. hispidinervum. Delimiting the taxonomic boundaries would be helpful for germplasm conservation and breeding programs. This study aimed to undertake a detailed analysis of P. aduncum, P. hispidinervum, and P. affinis hispidinervum karyotype and rDNA sites. Genomic in situ hybridization (GISH) was used to establish genomic homology among species and to test the natural hybridization hypothesis for origin of P. affinis hispidinervum. Karyotype traits were similar for all three species: 2n = 26 small chromosomes, predominantly metacentric. All three species exhibited CMA+ bands on the secondary constriction of chromosome pair 4. A size-heteromorphic 35S rDNA site was co-localized with the CMA+ band. A 5S rDNA site was located in the proximal region of chromosome pair 7. The patterns of genomic hybridization revealed that the repetitive DNA fraction of the species is highly similar in terms of proportion of genome, sequence type, and distribution. Our findings did not allow us to differentiate the three species and point to the importance of deeper genomic studies to elucidate the taxonomic controversy.
Molecular Biology Reports - Vega Island is located off the eastern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula (Maritime Antarctica), in the Weddell Sea. In this study, we used metabarcoding to investigate... 相似文献
Mycopathologia - Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is a systemic mycosis caused by a group of cryptic species embedded in the Paracoccidioides brasiliensis complex and Paracoccidioides lutzii. Four... 相似文献
Chagas disease, caused by the intracellular protozoan Trypanosoma
cruzi, is a serious health problem in Latin America. During this
parasitic infection, the heart is one of the major organs affected. The pathogenesis
of tissue remodelling, particularly regarding cardiomyocyte behaviour after parasite
infection and the molecular mechanisms that occur immediately following parasite
entry into host cells are not yet completely understood. When cells are infected with
T. cruzi, they develop an inflammatory response, in which
cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) catalyses rate-limiting steps in the arachidonic acid
pathway. However, how the parasite interaction modulates COX-2 activity is poorly
understood. In this study, the H9c2 cell line was used as our model and we
investigated cellular and biochemical aspects during the initial 48 h of parasitic
infection. Oscillatory activity of COX-2 was observed, which correlated with the
control of the pro-inflammatory environment in infected cells. Interestingly,
subcellular trafficking was also verified, correlated with the control of Cox-2 mRNA
or the activated COX-2 protein in cells, which is directly connected with the
assemble of stress granules structures. Our collective findings suggest that in the
very early stage of the T. cruzi-host cell interaction, the parasite
is able to modulate the cellular metabolism in order to survives. 相似文献
Chagas disease, which is caused by the intracellular protozoanTrypanosoma
cruzi, is a serious health problem in Latin America. The heart is one of
the major organs affected by this parasitic infection. The pathogenesis of tissue
remodelling, particularly regarding cardiomyocyte behaviour after parasite infection,
and the molecular mechanisms that occur immediately following parasite entry into
host cells are not yet completely understood. Previous studies have reported that the
establishment of parasitism is connected to the activation of the
phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K), which controls important steps in cellular
metabolism by regulating the production of the second messenger
phosphatidylinositol-3,4,5-trisphosphate. Particularly, the tumour suppressor PTEN is
a negative regulator of PI3K signalling. However, mechanistic details of the
modulatory activity of PTEN on Chagas disease have not been elucidated. To address
this question, H9c2 cells were infected with T. cruzi Berenice 62
strain and the expression of a specific set of microRNAs (miRNAs) were investigated.
Our cellular model demonstrated that miRNA-190b is correlated to the decrease of
cellular viability rates by negatively modulating PTEN protein expression in
T. cruzi-infected cells. 相似文献