ArticlePloS one2014
Transcriptomic analysis reveals evidence for a cryptic plastid in the colpodellid Voromonas pontica, a close relative of chromerids and apicomplexan parasites.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Succession of micro-food webs and their role in lignocellulose degradation during pepper stalk composting.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- p25alpha Domain-Containing Proteins of Apicomplexans and Related Taxa.Microorganisms · 2023Review
- There Is Treasure Everywhere: Reductive Plastid Evolution in Apicomplexa in Light of Their Close Relatives.Biomolecules · 2019Review
- Article
- Evolution of heterotrophy in chrysophytes as reflected by comparative transcriptomics.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2018Article
- Reductive evolution of chloroplasts in non-photosynthetic plants, algae and protists.Current genetics · 2018Review
- Kingdom Chromista and its eight phyla: a new synthesis emphasising periplastid protein targeting, cytoskeletal and periplastid evolution, and ancient divergences.Protoplasma · 2018Article
- Extensive gain and loss of photosystem I subunits in chromerid algae, photosynthetic relatives of apicomplexans.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Wider than Thought Phylogenetic Occurrence of Apicortin, A Characteristic Protein of Apicomplexan Parasites.Journal of molecular evolution · 2016Article
- Factors mediating plastid dependency and the origins of parasitism in apicomplexans and their close relatives.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2015Article
- A complex distribution of elongation family GTPases EF1A and EFL in basal alveolate lineages.Genome biology and evolution · 2014Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Colpodellids are free-living, predatory flagellates, but their close relationship to photosynthetic chromerids and plastid-bearing apicomplexan parasites suggests they were ancestrally photosynthetic. Colpodellids may therefore retain a cryptic plastid, or they may have lost their plastids entirely, like the apicomplexan Cryptosporidium. To find out, we generated transcriptomic data from Voromonas pontica ATCC 50640 and searched for homologs of genes encoding proteins known to function in the apicoplast, the non-photosynthetic plastid of apicomplexans. We found candidate genes from multiple plastid-associated pathways including iron-sulfur cluster assembly, isoprenoid biosynthesis, and tetrapyrrole biosynthesis, along with a plastid-type phosphate transporter gene. Four of these sequences include the 5' end of the coding region and are predicted to encode a signal peptide and a transit peptide-like region. This is highly suggestive of targeting to a cryptic plastid. We also performed a taxon-rich phylogenetic analysis of small subunit ribosomal RNA sequences from colpodellids and their relatives, which suggests that photosynthesis was lost more than once in colpodellids, and independently in V. pontica and apicomplexans. Colpodellids therefore represent a valuable source of comparative data for understanding the process of plastid reduction in humanity's most deadly parasite.
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