What is it about?
Plasmalogens are important membrane lipids in animals. Our study reveals that key genes for their biosynthesis in eukaryotes from protists to human were acquired through horizontal gene transfer from myxobacteria to an early eukaryotic ancestor.
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Why is it important?
Plasmalogens are abundant membrane lipids in animals important in human health, but their evolutionary origin remained a puzzle because of their patchy distribution across eukaryotes. Our study, based on phylogenomic analysis with supportive experimental validation, implicates horizontal gene transfer from myxobacteria to an early eukaryotic ancestor in the origin and evolution of the aerobic plasmalogen biosynthesis pathway in eukaryotes from protists to humans.
Perspectives
Our basic curiosity-driven research on how a non-pathogenic soil bacterium called Myxococcus xanthus responds to light helped identify a long-sought enzyme required to make a special class of lipids abundant and important in human biology and health. Besides opening a crucial door to understand the enigmatic roles of these lipids in human health and disease, the finding that, despite the enormous evolutionary distance, the same protein exists in humans and a bacterium was remarkable. Now our collaborative effort with experts in evolutionary biology is shedding light on how we might have acquired the ability to make these lipids.
Montserrat Elías-Arnanz
Universidad de Murcia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Origin of eukaryotic plasmalogen biosynthesis by horizontal gene transfer from myxobacteria, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 2026, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2529738123.
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