RT Journal
A1 Peyret, Pierre
A1 Katinka, Michael D.
A1 Duprat, Simone
A1 Duffieux, Francis
A1 Barbe, Valérie
A1 Barbazanges, Martin
A1 Weissenbach, Jean
A1 Saurin, William
A1 Vivarès, Christian P.
T1 Sequence and Analysis of Chromosome I of the Amitochondriate Intracellular Parasite Encephalitozoon cuniculi (Microspora)
JF Genome Research 
JO Genome Research 
YR 2001 
FD February 01 
VO 11 
IS 2 
SP 198 
OP 207 
DO 10.1101/gr.164301 
UL http://genome.cshlp.org/content/11/2/198.abstract 
AB A DNA sequencing program was applied to the small (<3 Mb) genome of the microsporidian Encephalitozoon cuniculi, an amitochondriate eukaryotic parasite of mammals, and the sequence of the smallest chromosome was determined. The ∼224-kb E. cuniculichromosome I exhibits a dyad symmetry characterized by two identical 37-kb subtelomeric regions which are divergently oriented and extend just downstream of the inverted copies of an 8-kb duplicated cluster of six genes. Each subtelomeric region comprises a single 16S–23S rDNA transcription unit, flanked by various tandemly repeated sequences, and ends with ∼1 kb of heterogeneous telomeric repeats. The central (or core) region of the chromosome harbors a highly compact arrangement of 132 potential protein-coding genes plus two tRNA genes (one gene per 1.14 kb). Most genes occur as single copies with no identified introns. Of these putative genes, only 53 could be assigned to known functions. A number of genes from the transcription and translation machineries as well as from other cellular processes display characteristic eukaryotic signatures or are clearly eukaryote-specific.[The sequence data described in this paper have been submitted to the EMBL data library under accession no. AL 391737.]