a nitrile hydratase in the eukaryote monosiga brevicollis真核生物的腈水合酶monosiga brevicollis.pdfVIP

A Nitrile Hydratase in the Eukaryote Monosiga brevicollis Konrad U. Foerstner, Tobias Doerks, Jean Muller, Jeroen Raes, Peer Bork* European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany Abstract Bacterial nitrile hydratase (NHases) are important industrial catalysts and waste water remediation tools. In a global computational screening of conventional and metagenomic sequence data for NHases, we detected the two usually separated NHase subunits fused in one protein of the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis, a recently sequenced unicellular model organism from the closest sister group of Metazoa. This is the first time that an NHase is found in eukaryotes and the first time it is observed as a fusion protein. The presence of an intron, subunit fusion and expressed sequence tags covering parts of the gene exclude contamination and suggest a functional gene. Phylogenetic analyses and genomic context imply a probable ancient horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from proteobacteria. The newly discovered NHase might open biotechnological routes due to its unconventional structure, its new type of host and its apparent integration into eukaryotic protein networks. Citation: Foerstner KU, Doerks T, Muller J, Raes J, Bork P (2008) A Nitrile Hydratase in the Eukaryote Monosiga brevicollis. PLoS ONE 3(12): e3976. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0003976 Editor: Sridhar Hannenhalli, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, United States of America Received September 9, 2008; Accepted November 18, 2008; Published December 19, 2008 Copyright: 2008 Foerstner et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any med