Genomic Analyses of the Microsporidian Nosema ceranae, an Emergent Pathogen of Honey Bees

PLoS Pathogens

Michael Egholm¹  Stephen Hutchison¹  Brian Desany¹  Michael C. Schatz²  Craig Street³  W. Ian Lipkin³  Yan Ping Chen⁴  R. Scott Cornman⁴  Jeffery S. Pettis⁴  Jay D. Evans⁴  Yan Zhao⁵ 

[1] 454 Life Sciences/Roche Applied Sciences, Branford, Connecticut, United States of America;Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America;Center for Infection and Immunity, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America;USDA-ARS Bee Research Lab, Beltsville, Maryland, United States of America;USDA-ARS Molecular Plant Pathology Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland, United States of America

关键词: Sequence motif analysis;    Invertebrate genomics;    Sequence assembly tools;    Honey bees;    Sequence alignment;    Gene prediction;    Mitochondria;    Comparative genomics;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.ppat.1000466

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

Recent steep declines in honey bee health have severely impacted the beekeeping industry, presenting new risks for agricultural commodities that depend on insect pollination. Honey bee declines could reflect increased pressures from parasites and pathogens. The incidence of the microsporidian pathogen Nosema ceranae has increased significantly in the past decade. Here we present a draft assembly (7.86 MB) of the N. ceranae genome derived from pyrosequence data, including initial gene models and genomic comparisons with other members of this highly derived fungal lineage. N. ceranae has a strongly AT-biased genome (74% A+T) and a diversity of repetitive elements, complicating the assembly. Of 2,614 predicted protein-coding sequences, we conservatively estimate that 1,366 have homologs in the microsporidian Encephalitozoon cuniculi, the most closely related published genome sequence. We identify genes conserved among microsporidia that lack clear homology outside this group, which are of special interest as potential virulence factors in this group of obligate parasites. A substantial fraction of the diminutive N. ceranae proteome consists of novel and transposable-element proteins. For a majority of well-supported gene models, a conserved sense-strand motif can be found within 15 bases upstream of the start codon; a previously uncharacterized version of this motif is also present in E. cuniculi. These comparisons provide insight into the architecture, regulation, and evolution of microsporidian genomes, and will drive investigations into honey bee–Nosema interactions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY