Evolution of Linear Mitochondrial Genomes in Medusozoan Cnidarians
Issue Date
2011-11-22Author
Kayal, Ehsan
Bentlage, Bastian
Collins, Allen G.
Kayal, Mohsen
Pirro, Stacy
Lavrov, Dennis V.
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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In nearly all animals, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) consists of a single circular molecule that encodes several subunits of the protein complexes involved in oxidative phosphorylation as well as part of the machinery for their expression. By contrast, mtDNA in species belonging to Medusozoa (one of the two major lineages in the phylum Cnidaria) comprises one to several linear molecules. Many questions remain on the ubiquity of linear mtDNA in medusozoans and the mechanisms responsible for its evolution, replication, and transcription. To address some of these questions, we determined the sequences of nearly complete linear mtDNA from 24 species representing all four medusozoan classes: Cubozoa, Hydrozoa, Scyphozoa, and Staurozoa. All newly determined medusozoan mitochondrial genomes harbor the 17 genes typical for cnidarians and map as linear molecules with a high degree of gene order conservation relative to the anthozoans. In addition, two open reading frames (ORFs), polB and ORF314, are identified in cubozoan, schyphozoan, staurozoan, and trachyline hydrozoan mtDNA. polB belongs to the B-type DNA polymerase gene family, while the product of ORF314 may act as a terminal protein that binds telomeres. We posit that these two ORFs are remnants of a linear plasmid that invaded the mitochondrial genomes of the last common ancestor of Medusozoa and are responsible for its linearity. Hydroidolinan hydrozoans have lost the two ORFs and instead have duplicated cox1 at each end of their mitochondrial chromosome(s). Fragmentation of mtDNA occurred independently in Cubozoa and Hydridae (Hydrozoa, Hydroidolina). Our broad sampling allows us to reconstruct the evolutionary history of linear mtDNA in medusozoans.
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Citation
Kayal, Ehsan, Bastian Bentlage, Allen G Collins, Mohsen Kayal, Stacy Pirro, and Dennis V Lavrov. 2012. “Evolution of Linear Mitochondrial Genomes in Medusozoan Cnidarians.” Genome Biology and Evolution 4 (1): 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evr123
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as: This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.