A team of researchers from Macquarie University in Australia have found evidence that some archaea have integrins. In her article published in the journal scientific advancesThe group describes how they used a recently developed technique called metagenome-assembled genomes (MAG) to study the genomes of Archaeal specimens in new ways, and what they learned in the process.
Life on earth is divided into three areas: eukarya, bacteria and archaea. The third domain, archaea, is similar to bacteria – its members are often referred to as archaebacteria. Like bacteria, Archaea are unicellular, but unlike bacteria, they rely on lipids in their cell membranes.
In this new attempt, the researchers examined the means by which bacteria and archaea exchange genes and wondered whether it might be possible that they have integrins – gene acquisition and dissemination systems in bacteria that use gene cassettes to express the proteins involved to pass on. To find out, they turned to MAG – a technique that makes it possible to look for individual genes and gene combining sites, called AttC, which contain this sequence for coding the protein integran integrase (IntI).
With the technique, they found many similarities. From 6,700 scanned genomes, they found 75 matches in nine strains, each occupying an integrin. And they all turned out to have the same structure as the integrins found in bacteria, suggesting the use of cassettes.
The researchers believed this indicated that the archaea they identified should be able to swap genes with bacteria and vice versa as easily as bacteria swap genes with each other. To prove their idea was correct, they synthesized AttC from an Archaea sample and exposed it to an E. coli sample. Tests showed that cassettes were created that allow gene replacement.
Finding integrins in archaea will certainly open new avenues of research. One avenue would be to investigate the possibility that swapping genes from archaea to bacteria helps the latter become resistant to drugs designed to kill them. The researchers also note that it would be helpful if a complete Archaea genome were made available.
More information:
Timothy M. Ghaly et al., Discovery of integrons in Archaea: Platforms for cross-domain gene transfer, scientific advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq6376
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