Abstract.
Computational analysis of the hypothetical open reading frame MJ0236 from Methanococcus jannaschii reveals its membership to a family of bacterial and eukaryotic proteins, predicted to be the HMP-P kinases involved in thiamin biosyntheis (ThiD). The eukaryotic members of this family contain a C-terminal extension similar to a bacterial transcriptional activator (TenA), thus pointing to a fusion event that took place during cellular evolution. The C-terminal domain is absent from M. jannaschii. The significance of this observation is two-fold: first, this is a case where a fusion protein contains two domains with an unusual phylogenetic distribution, and second, the TenA domain is a rare case of a gene family involved in transcription present both in bacteria and eukaryotes.
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Received: 14 January 1997 / Accepted: 5 June 1997
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Ouzounis, C., Kyrpides, N. ThiD-TenA: A Gene Pair Fusion in Eukaryotes. J Mol Evol 45, 708–711 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00013145
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00013145