H. Field et Mc. Field, TANDEM DUPLICATION OF RAB GENES FOLLOWED BY SEQUENCE DIVERGENCE AND ACQUISITION OF DISTINCT FUNCTIONS IN TRYPANOSOMA-BRUCEI, The Journal of biological chemistry, 272(16), 1997, pp. 10498-10505
The Ras superfamily of small G proteins governs unidirectional cellula
r processes by virtue of GTP hydrolysis and concomitant conformational
changes, which are in turn regulated by a number of accessory factors
, Members of the Rab subfamily are important for correct targeting and
fusion of intra-organellar vesicles loaded with trafficking proteins
and lipids, During evolution from a prototype gene, novel functions ma
y be acquired by duplicated daughter genes; for Rab proteins, this can
be tested by location, which is specifically related to the function
of each Rab, We have found an example of two rab genes in Trypanosoma
brucei (trab genes) that clearly arose by tandem duplication, being hi
ghly related to each other and remaining juxtaposed in the genome, who
se products have dramatically different subcellular locations, indicat
ive of discrete functions. These two trab genes, isolated on a single
genomic clone, are separated by a short intervening sequence and are i
n a head-to-tail orientation, The nucleotide sequences of the open rea
ding frames and intervening sequence were determined and show that the
genes are paralogues, probably arising from an ancient tandem duplica
tion, Both genes are most homologous to ypt1 and sec4 in the Saccharom
yces cerevisiae genome, while phylogenetic reconstruction indicates th
at although they have clearly diverged, the proteins are more closely
related to each other than to other Rab protein sequences available in
the data base, Immunofluorescence microscopy, using antibodies raised
against the recombinant Trab proteins, clearly demonstrates that the
native Trab proteins have completely distinct subcellular locations in
the trypanosome, Trab1p is present in a widespread reticular location
similar to BiP, suggesting an endoplasmic reticulum location, while T
rab7p is observed in a discrete structure adjacent to the kinetoplast,
Most interestingly, the Trab7p-positive compartment also appears to d
ivide at the same time, or just prior to, the kinetoplast, i.e. early
in mitosis, suggestive of association with structures in the flagellar
pocket region, An estimate of the divergence time indicates that the
trab1/trab7 duplication occurred similar to 100 million years ago, and
therefore, the persistence of this pair suggests an essential role in
the survival of T. brucei.