Skip to main content
PMC home page
The EMBO Journal logoLink to The EMBO Journal
. 1988 Apr;7(4):1121–1127. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1988.tb02921.x

The genomic organization and transcription of the ubiquitin genes of Trypanosoma cruzi.

J Swindle 1, J Ajioka 1, H Eisen 1, B Sanwal 1, C Jacquemot 1, Z Browder 1, G Buck 1
PMCID: PMC454446  PMID: 2841110

Abstract

We describe here the organization of the ubiquitin genes of the parasitic protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. T. cruzi contains greater than 100 ubiquitin coding sequences all of which are clustered into a 27 kb segment of the genome. Two types of ubiquitin coding sequences were found. There are five fusion genes (FUS1-5) consisting of a ubiquitin coding sequence fused to a basic non-ubiquitin sequence. The T. cruzi ubiquitin fusion protein is 84% homologous to the product of the UBI gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The non-ubiquitin domains of the two proteins are 67% homologous. There are five polyubiquitin coding genes (PUB) each consisting of varying lengths of polyubiquitin coding sequence and terminating with a single copy of the larger fusion gene. Transcription of the ubiquitin genes results in the generation of six major poly(A)+ mRNAs. The pattern of transcription accurately reflects the genomic organization, in that the transcripts consist of either a single copy of the ubiquitin fusion coding sequence or varying lengths of polyubiquitin (up to 52 copies of the ubiquitin coding unit) each ending with a single copy of the ubiquitin fusion sequence. Finally, there are heat shock elements 5' to the PUB genes and transcription patterns are altered under conditions of stress.

Full text

PDF
1124

Images in this article

1124Image
on p.1124
1125Image
on p.1125
1125Image
on p.1125

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Berg J. M. Potential metal-binding domains in nucleic acid binding proteins. Science. 1986 Apr 25;232(4749):485–487. doi: 10.1126/science.2421409. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bond U., Schlesinger M. J. Ubiquitin is a heat shock protein in chicken embryo fibroblasts. Mol Cell Biol. 1985 May;5(5):949–956. doi: 10.1128/mcb.5.5.949. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Campbell D. A., Thornton D. A., Boothroyd J. C. Apparent discontinuous transcription of Trypanosoma brucei variant surface antigen genes. 1984 Sep 27-Oct 3Nature. 311(5984):350–355. doi: 10.1038/311350a0. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Castro C., Craig S. P., Castañeda M. Genome organization and ploidy number in Trypanosoma cruzi. Mol Biochem Parasitol. 1981 Dec 31;4(5-6):273–282. doi: 10.1016/0166-6851(81)90060-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Ciechanover A., Finley D., Varshavsky A. Ubiquitin dependence of selective protein degradation demonstrated in the mammalian cell cycle mutant ts85. Cell. 1984 May;37(1):57–66. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(84)90300-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. De Lange T., Michels P. A., Veerman H. J., Cornelissen A. W., Borst P. Many trypanosome messenger RNAs share a common 5' terminal sequence. Nucleic Acids Res. 1984 May 11;12(9):3777–3790. doi: 10.1093/nar/12.9.3777. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Dworkin-Rastl E., Shrutkowski A., Dworkin M. B. Multiple ubiquitin mRNAs during Xenopus laevis development contain tandem repeats of the 76 amino acid coding sequence. Cell. 1984 Dec;39(2 Pt 1):321–325. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(84)90010-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Finley D., Ozkaynak E., Varshavsky A. The yeast polyubiquitin gene is essential for resistance to high temperatures, starvation, and other stresses. Cell. 1987 Mar 27;48(6):1035–1046. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(87)90711-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Fried V. A., Smith H. T., Hildebrandt E., Weiner K. Ubiquitin has intrinsic proteolytic activity: implications for cellular regulation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1987 Jun;84(11):3685–3689. doi: 10.1073/pnas.84.11.3685. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Frischauf A. M., Lehrach H., Poustka A., Murray N. Lambda replacement vectors carrying polylinker sequences. J Mol Biol. 1983 Nov 15;170(4):827–842. doi: 10.1016/s0022-2836(83)80190-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Gausing K., Barkardottir R. Structure and expression of ubiquitin genes in higher plants. Eur J Biochem. 1986 Jul 1;158(1):57–62. doi: 10.1111/j.1432-1033.1986.tb09720.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Glass D. J., Polvere R. I., Van der Ploeg L. H. Conserved sequences and transcription of the hsp70 gene family in Trypanosoma brucei. Mol Cell Biol. 1986 Dec;6(12):4657–4666. doi: 10.1128/mcb.6.12.4657. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Harrison S. C. Gene regulation. Fingers and DNA half-turns. Nature. 1986 Aug 14;322(6080):597–598. doi: 10.1038/322597a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Hershko A., Ciechanover A., Heller H., Haas A. L., Rose I. A. Proposed role of ATP in protein breakdown: conjugation of protein with multiple chains of the polypeptide of ATP-dependent proteolysis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1980 Apr;77(4):1783–1786. doi: 10.1073/pnas.77.4.1783. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Hershko A., Leshinsky E., Ganoth D., Heller H. ATP-dependent degradation of ubiquitin-protein conjugates. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1984 Mar;81(6):1619–1623. doi: 10.1073/pnas.81.6.1619. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Lund P. K., Moats-Staats B. M., Simmons J. G., Hoyt E., D'Ercole A. J., Martin F., Van Wyk J. J. Nucleotide sequence analysis of a cDNA encoding human ubiquitin reveals that ubiquitin is synthesized as a precursor. J Biol Chem. 1985 Jun 25;260(12):7609–7613. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Melton D. A., Krieg P. A., Rebagliati M. R., Maniatis T., Zinn K., Green M. R. Efficient in vitro synthesis of biologically active RNA and RNA hybridization probes from plasmids containing a bacteriophage SP6 promoter. Nucleic Acids Res. 1984 Sep 25;12(18):7035–7056. doi: 10.1093/nar/12.18.7035. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Miller J., McLachlan A. D., Klug A. Repetitive zinc-binding domains in the protein transcription factor IIIA from Xenopus oocytes. EMBO J. 1985 Jun;4(6):1609–1614. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1985.tb03825.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Ozkaynak E., Finley D., Solomon M. J., Varshavsky A. The yeast ubiquitin genes: a family of natural gene fusions. EMBO J. 1987 May;6(5):1429–1439. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1987.tb02384.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Ozkaynak E., Finley D., Varshavsky A. The yeast ubiquitin gene: head-to-tail repeats encoding a polyubiquitin precursor protein. Nature. 1984 Dec 13;312(5995):663–666. doi: 10.1038/312663a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Parsons M., Nelson R. G., Watkins K. P., Agabian N. Trypanosome mRNAs share a common 5' spliced leader sequence. Cell. 1984 Aug;38(1):309–316. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(84)90552-X. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Sanger F., Nicklen S., Coulson A. R. DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1977 Dec;74(12):5463–5467. doi: 10.1073/pnas.74.12.5463. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Siegelman M., Bond M. W., Gallatin W. M., St John T., Smith H. T., Fried V. A., Weissman I. L. Cell surface molecule associated with lymphocyte homing is a ubiquitinated branched-chain glycoprotein. Science. 1986 Feb 21;231(4740):823–829. doi: 10.1126/science.3003913. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Topol J., Ruden D. M., Parker C. S. Sequences required for in vitro transcriptional activation of a Drosophila hsp 70 gene. Cell. 1985 Sep;42(2):527–537. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(85)90110-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Vieira J., Messing J. The pUC plasmids, an M13mp7-derived system for insertion mutagenesis and sequencing with synthetic universal primers. Gene. 1982 Oct;19(3):259–268. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(82)90015-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. Walder J. A., Eder P. S., Engman D. M., Brentano S. T., Walder R. Y., Knutzon D. S., Dorfman D. M., Donelson J. E. The 35-nucleotide spliced leader sequence is common to all trypanosome messenger RNA's. Science. 1986 Aug 1;233(4763):569–571. doi: 10.1126/science.3523758. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Wiborg O., Pedersen M. S., Wind A., Berglund L. E., Marcker K. A., Vuust J. The human ubiquitin multigene family: some genes contain multiple directly repeated ubiquitin coding sequences. EMBO J. 1985 Mar;4(3):755–759. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1985.tb03693.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from The EMBO Journal are provided here courtesy of Nature Publishing Group

RESOURCES