Research
Paralogous guanine deaminases acquired from bacteria by horizontal gene transfer promote purine homeostasis in Caenorhabditis elegans
PLOS ·
The Brief
- Disruptions in purine metabolism contribute to human diseases, including the rare genetic disorder Lesch-Nyhan syndrome.
- The study reports paralogous guanine deaminases in Caenorhabditis elegans that were acquired from bacteria by horizontal gene transfer.
- The paper, published in PLOS Genetics, reports that these genes promote purine homeostasis in the worm.
Why it matters
It shows that genes acquired from bacteria can contribute to core purine metabolism in an animal, which may inform how purine homeostasis is studied in model organisms.
Who’s affected
- geneticists and metabolism researchers
- researchers using C. elegans as a model organism
- #purine metabolism
- #horizontal gene transfer
- #caenorhabditis elegans
- #guanine deaminase
- #genetics
by Sushila Bhattacharya, Lisa Fischer, Evrim Fer, Jennifer Snoozy, Grace N. Hagedorn, Marco Herde, Betül Kaçar, Claus-Peter Witte, Kurt Warnhoff Disruptions in purine metabolism contribute to a range of human diseases, from rare genetic disorders such as Lesch-Nyhan syndrome and…