Nephromyces transcriptome Sequencing. Nephromyces Transcriptome

Apicomplexa is a quintessentially parasitic lineage, whose members broadly infect animals. One exception to this may be Nephromyces an apicomplexan genus which has been described as having a mutualistic relationship to its host. Here we describe transcriptome data from Nephromyces and it’s parasitic sister taxon, Cardiosporidium, revealing an ancestral purine degradation pathway thought to have been lost early in Apicomplexa evolution. The predicted localization of many of the purine degradation enzymes to peroxisomes, and the identification of a full set of peroxisome proteins, indicates that loss of both features in other apicomplexans occurred multiple times. The degradation of purines is thought to play a key role in the unusual relationship between Nephromyces and its host. Transcriptome data suggests a functional pathway for the utilization of uric acid as a primary nitrogen source for this unusual apicomplexan.