Characterization of the cold-adapted -alpha-tubulin from the psychrophilic ciliate Euplotes focardii

• Published in: Extremophiles
• Main Authors: PUCCIARELLI, Sandra, MICELI, Cristina
• Other Authors: Pucciarelli, Sandra, Miceli, Cristina
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11581/116426; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-002-0268-5; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00792-002-0268-5

Tubulin dimers of psychrophilic organisms can polymerize into microtubules at temperatures below 4 degrees C, at which non-cold-adapted microtubules disassemble. This capacity requires specificities in the structure and/or in the posttranslational modifications of the tubulin subunits. A contribution to the knowledge of these specificities was provided by the finding that the amino acid sequence of the alpha-tubulin of the Antarctic ciliate Euplotes focardii contains substitutions that, in addition to conferring an increased hydrophobicity to the molecule, modify sites that are involved in alpha-/alpha-tubulin lateral contacts between protofilaments. At the level of the coding sequence, the alpha-tubulin gene of E. focardii revealed an A+T content appreciably higher than in its homologs in ciliates of temperate waters. This was interpreted as an adaptation to favor DNA strand separation in an environment which is energetically adverse.