Computational Identification Raises a Riddle for Distribution of Putative NACHT NTPases in the Genome of Early Green Plants

PLoS One. 2016 Mar 1;11(3):e0150634. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150634. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

NACHT NTPases and AP-ATPases belongs to STAND (signal transduction ATPases with numerous domain) P-loop NTPase class, which are known to be involved in defense signaling pathways and apoptosis regulation. The AP-ATPases (also known as NB-ARC) and NACHT NTPases are widely spread throughout all kingdoms of life except in plants, where only AP-ATPases have been extensively studied in the scenario of plant defense response against pathogen invasion and in hypersensitive response (HR). In the present study, we have employed a genome-wide survey (using stringent computational analysis) of 67 diverse organisms viz., archaebacteria, cyanobacteria, fungi, animalia and plantae to revisit the evolutionary history of these two STAND P-loop NTPases. This analysis divulged the presence of NACHT NTPases in the early green plants (green algae and the lycophyte) which had not been previously reported. These NACHT NTPases were known to be involved in diverse functional activities such as transcription regulation in addition to the defense signaling cascades depending on the domain association. In Chalmydomonas reinhardtii, a green algae, WD40 repeats found to be at the carboxyl-terminus of NACHT NTPases suggest probable role in apoptosis regulation. Moreover, the genome of Selaginella moellendorffii, an extant lycophyte, intriguingly shows the considerable number of both AP-ATPases and NACHT NTPases in contrast to a large repertoire of AP-ATPases in plants and emerge as an important node in the evolutionary tree of life. The large complement of AP-ATPases overtakes the function of NACHT NTPases and plausible reason behind the absence of the later in the plant lineages. The presence of NACHT NTPases in the early green plants and phyletic patterns results from this study raises a quandary for the distribution of this STAND P-loop NTPase with the apparent horizontal gene transfer from cyanobacteria.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Conserved Sequence / genetics
  • Evolution, Molecular
  • Genome, Plant / genetics*
  • Neuronal Apoptosis-Inhibitory Protein / genetics*
  • Nucleoside-Triphosphatase / genetics*
  • Phylogeny
  • Plants / genetics
  • Sequence Alignment

Substances

  • Neuronal Apoptosis-Inhibitory Protein
  • Nucleoside-Triphosphatase

Grants and funding

This work was financially supported by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, India in the form of CSIR network project "Computational Systems and Network Biology". Authors are thankful to Department of Biotechnology, Government of India for infrastructural support in the form of Bioinformatics Infrastructure Facility (BIF). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.