Fundamental studies on "mitochondrial glycolytic pathway" in cercozoan organisims

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26840124
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Biodiversity/Systematics
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: Nakayama Takuro 筑波大学, 計算科学研究センター, 研究員 (70583508)
• Research Collaborator: YABUKI Akinori 海洋研究開発機構, 海洋生物多様性研究分野, 研究員 ; SHIRATORI Takashi 筑波大学, 生命環境科学研究科, 研究員
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: ミトコンドリア型解糖系 / 原生生物 / 解糖系

Outline of Final Research Achievements

It has been widely accepted that the glycolysis occurs only in the cytosol. In contrast to this view, eukaryotic species in Cercozoa and Stramenopila have been proposed to possess unique glycolytic pathway reside in mitochondria. To gain better understanding about the mitochondrial glycolytic pathway in cercozoans, glycolytic genes in representative species from major cercozoan subgroups were exhaustively searched. A combination of homology searches and phylogenetic analyses showed that glycolytic pathway expected to reside in mitochondria are limited to only a part of the diversity of Cercozoa. The result suggests that the mitochondrial glycolytic pathway is not an ancestral feature of the whole cercozoans but introduced into the lineage after the diversification. In the course of the project, an antibody for a mitochondrial glycolytic enzyme of an cercozoan species has been successfully produced and is expected to be useful to confirm the subcellular localization of the protein.

Free Research Field

進化細胞生物学