Assessing nucleic acid binding activity of four dinoflagellate cold shock domain proteins from Symbiodinium kawagutii and Lingulodinium polyedra

BMC Molecular and Cell Biology

article

Zaheri, Bahareh¹  Morse, David¹ 

[1] Institut de Recherche en Biologie Végétale, Département de Sciences Biologiques, Université de Montréal

关键词: Transcription factors;    Cold shock domain proteins;    Dinoflagellates;    RNA binding domain;    DNA binding domain;    Transcription;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12860-021-00368-4

学科分类：内科医学

来源: Colegio Oficial de Psicologos

【 摘 要 】

Dinoflagellates have a generally large number of genes but only a small percentage of these are annotated as transcription factors. Cold shock domain (CSD) containing proteins (CSPs) account for roughly 60% of these. CSDs are not prevalent in other eukaryotic lineages, perhaps suggesting a lineage-specific expansion of this type of transcription factors in dinoflagellates, but there is little experimental data to support a role for dinoflagellate CSPs as transcription factors. Here we evaluate the hypothesis that dinoflagellate CSPs can act as transcription factors by binding double-stranded DNA in a sequence dependent manner. We find that both electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) competition experiments and selection and amplification binding (SAAB) assays indicate binding is not sequence specific for four different CSPs from two dinoflagellate species. Competition experiments indicate all four CSPs bind to RNA better than double-stranded DNA. Dinoflagellate CSPs do not share the nucleic acid binding properties expected for them to function as bone fide transcription factors. We conclude the transcription factor complement of dinoflagellates is even smaller than previously thought suggesting that dinoflagellates have a reduced dependance on transcriptional control compared to other eukaryotes.

【 授权许可】

CC BY|CC0