Discovery of archaeal fusexins homologous to eukaryotic HAP2/GCS1 gamete fusion proteins

David Moi, Shunsuke Nishio, Xiaohui Li, Clari Valansi, Mauricio Langleib, Nicolas G. Brukman, Kateryna Flyak, Christophe Dessimoz, Daniele de Sanctis, Kathryn Tunyasuvunakool, John Jumper, Martin Graña (), Héctor Romero (), Pablo S. Aguilar (), Luca Jovine () and Benjamin Podbilewicz ()
Additional contact information
David Moi: Biología Molecular y Neurociencias (IFIBYNE-CONICET)
Shunsuke Nishio: Karolinska Institutet
Xiaohui Li: Technion- Israel Institute of Technology
Clari Valansi: Technion- Israel Institute of Technology
Mauricio Langleib: Universidad de la República
Nicolas G. Brukman: Technion- Israel Institute of Technology
Kateryna Flyak: Technion- Israel Institute of Technology
Christophe Dessimoz: University of Lausanne
Daniele de Sanctis: ESRF—The European Synchrotron
Kathryn Tunyasuvunakool: DeepMind
John Jumper: DeepMind
Martin Graña: Institut Pasteur de Montevideo
Héctor Romero: Universidad de la República
Pablo S. Aguilar: Biología Molecular y Neurociencias (IFIBYNE-CONICET)
Luca Jovine: Karolinska Institutet
Benjamin Podbilewicz: Technion- Israel Institute of Technology

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Abstract Sexual reproduction consists of genome reduction by meiosis and subsequent gamete fusion. The presence of genes homologous to eukaryotic meiotic genes in archaea and bacteria suggests that DNA repair mechanisms evolved towards meiotic recombination. However, fusogenic proteins resembling those found in gamete fusion in eukaryotes have so far not been found in prokaryotes. Here, we identify archaeal proteins that are homologs of fusexins, a superfamily of fusogens that mediate eukaryotic gamete and somatic cell fusion, as well as virus entry. The crystal structure of a trimeric archaeal fusexin (Fusexin1 or Fsx1) reveals an archetypical fusexin architecture with unique features such as a six-helix bundle and an additional globular domain. Ectopically expressed Fusexin1 can fuse mammalian cells, and this process involves the additional globular domain and a conserved fusion loop. Furthermore, archaeal fusexin genes are found within integrated mobile elements, suggesting potential roles in cell-cell fusion and gene exchange in archaea, as well as different scenarios for the evolutionary history of fusexins.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31564-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-31564-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31564-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().