Identification of TbPBN1 in Trypanosoma brucei reveals a conserved heterodimeric architecture for glycosylphosphatidylinositol‐mannosyltransferase‐I

Abstract

Glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored proteins are ubiquitous in eukaryotes, from budding yeast and humans to the early diverging protist Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of African sleeping sickness (Kinoshita, 2020;Orlean & Menon, 2007). The GPI anchor, comprising the conserved core structure ethanolamine-PO 4 -( 6phospholipid, is synthesized in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) by the sequential addition of components to phosphatidylinositol (PI)

The Leishmania donovani Ortholog of the Glycosylphosphatidylinositol Anchor Biosynthesis Cofactor PBN1 Is Essential for Host Infection

“…Using functional complementation to restore GPI-MT I activity, we confirmed the role of LdPBN1 by coexpression of both human PIG-X and PIG-M in LdBPK_061160-deficient parasites, and we were also able to identify, through sequence similarity, the PBN1 gene in T. cruzi and, by orthology, the same gene across all trypanosomatid species. This was recently confirmed by another group, who reported the identification and characterization of Tb PBN1 while revisions were being made to our manuscript ( 41 ). Remarkably, the sequence identity between L. donovani and T. cruzi PBN1 is just 35%, raising the question of what the minimal PBN1 sequence requirements are for stabilizing the GPI14 protein and complementing GPI-MT I function.…”

Culex quinquefasciatus Resistant to the Binary Toxin from Lysinibacillus sphaericus Displays a Consistent Downregulation of Pantetheinase Transcripts

“…As for the discrepancy in size observed for the recombinant Cx. quinquefasciatus pantetheinase, it could be attributed, for instance, to folding properties or to anomalous SDS-PAGE migration due to interactions with detergents [59][60][61].…”