Nicholson, D orcid.org/0000-0001-5404-8251, Salamina, M, Panek, J et al. (5 more authors) (2022) Adaptation to genome decay in the structure of the smallest eukaryotic ribosome. Nature Communications, 13 (1). 591. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
The evolution of microbial parasites involves the counterplay between natural selection forcing parasites to improve and genetic drifts forcing parasites to lose genes and accumulate deleterious mutations. Here, to understand how this counterplay occurs at the scale of individual macromolecules, we describe cryo-EM structure of ribosomes from Encephalitozoon cuniculi, a eukaryote with one of the smallest genomes in nature. The extreme rRNA reduction in E. cuniculi ribosomes is accompanied with unparalleled structural changes, such as the evolution of previously unknown molten rRNA linkers and bulgeless rRNA. Furthermore, E. cuniculi ribosomes withstand the loss of rRNA and protein segments by evolving an ability to use small molecules as structural mimics of degenerated rRNA and protein segments. Overall, we show that the molecular structures long viewed as reduced, degenerated, and suffering from debilitating mutations possess an array of compensatory mechanisms that allow them to remain active despite the extreme molecular reduction.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Molecular and Cellular Biology (Leeds) > Cryo EM, Image Processing (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 14 Feb 2022 07:41 |
Last Modified: | 04 Mar 2022 15:11 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-022-28281-0 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:183461 |