Genomas acessórios da alga Antártica Prasiola Crispa: inferências estruturais e filogenéticas

Abstract

Green algae from Trebouxiophyceae class are among the organisms in the Antarctic continent, where the most reported species is the green macroalga Prasiola crispa (Lightfoot) Kützing. This algae is considered an extremophile organism because develops successfully in the harsh Antarctic habitat, however studies reporting molecular data of this species are still lacking in the literature, which prevents an assessment of their correct taxonomy and phylogenetic position. With the advent of next generation sequencing technologies, it because easier to obtain molecular information as for example from organelle genomes making them a great tool for taxonomic studies because they provide a great number of, phylogenetic data, nucleotides, protein sequences, gene content and architecture information. In this study, we determined the sequence of the chloroplast (cpDNA) and mitochondrial (mtDNA) genome of P. crispa in order to infer the evolutionary relationships of the organisms with other species of green plants, as well as a structural analysis. Plastid and mitochondrial genome was sequenced by Macrogen Service (Illumina Solexa Hi-Seq 2500). The genome assembly, annotation, sequences alignment, phylogeny construction, and structural analyses were performed in silico with specific softwares. Plastid and Mitochondrial genomes have a total length of 196,502 bp and 89,819 bp, respectively. These genomes presented 21 putative photosynthesis related genes and 18 oxidative metabolism related genes, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis based on the cpDNA demonstrated that P. crispa grouped with Trebouxiophyceae algae Prasiolopsis sp. forming the Prasiola clade along with Stichococcus bacilaris. Our results for phylogenetic analysis grounded in mtDNA show that P. crispa groups with other species of Trebouxiphyceaen alga. Synteny analysis of P. crispa cpDNA and mtDNA with evolutionarily related species of green plants shows that these organisms have few syntenic gene blocks. This pioneering work with P. crispa provided the accessories genomes which suppled a range of molecular data that can be employed to taxonomic studies. In addition, the information generated from the sequencing of cpDNA and mtDNA of P. crispa provide a contribution for further studies.