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All Outputs (17)

Reconstructing the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes (2024)
Journal Article
Richards, T. A., Eme, L., Archibald, J. M., Leonard, G., Coelho, S. M., de Mendoza, A., Dessimoz, C., Dolezal, P., Fritz-Laylin, L. K., Gabaldón, T., Hampl, V., Kops, G. J., Leger, M. M., Lopez-Garcia, P., McInerney, J. O., Moreira, D., Muñoz-Gómez, S. A., Richter, D. J., Ruiz-Trillo, I., Santoro, A. E., …Wideman, J. G. (2024). Reconstructing the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes. PLoS Biology, 22(11), Article e3002917. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002917

Understanding the origin of eukaryotic cells is one of the most difficult problems in all of biology. A key challenge relevant to the question of eukaryogenesis is reconstructing the gene repertoire of the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA). As d... Read More about Reconstructing the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes.

A conserved trypanosomatid differentiation regulator controls substrate attachment and morphological development in Trypanosoma congolense (2024)
Journal Article
Silvester, E., Szoor, B., Ivens, A., Awuah-Mensah, G., Gadelha, C., Wickstead, B., & Matthews, K. R. (2024). A conserved trypanosomatid differentiation regulator controls substrate attachment and morphological development in Trypanosoma congolense. PLoS Pathogens, 20(2), Article e1011889. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1011889

Trypanosomatid parasites undergo developmental regulation to adapt to the different environments encountered during their life cycle. In Trypanosoma brucei, a genome wide selectional screen previously identified a regulator of the protein family ESAG... Read More about A conserved trypanosomatid differentiation regulator controls substrate attachment and morphological development in Trypanosoma congolense.

Neofunctionalisation of ciliary BBS proteins to nuclear roles is likely a frequent innovation across eukaryotes (2023)
Journal Article
Ewerling, A., Maissl, V., Wickstead, B., & May-Simera, H. L. (2023). Neofunctionalisation of ciliary BBS proteins to nuclear roles is likely a frequent innovation across eukaryotes. iScience, 26(4), 106410. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.106410

The eukaryotic BBSome is a transport complex within cilia and assembled by chaperonin-like BBS proteins. Recent work indicates nuclear functions for BBS proteins in mammals, but it is unclear how common these are in extant proteins or when they evolv... Read More about Neofunctionalisation of ciliary BBS proteins to nuclear roles is likely a frequent innovation across eukaryotes.

A synthetic ancestral kinesin-13 depolymerizes microtubules faster than any natural depolymerizing kinesin (2022)
Journal Article
Belsham, H. R., Alghamdi, H. M., Dave, N., Rathbone, A. J., Wickstead, B., & Friel, C. T. (2022). A synthetic ancestral kinesin-13 depolymerizes microtubules faster than any natural depolymerizing kinesin. Open Biology, 12(8), Article 220133. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsob.220133

The activity of a kinesin is largely determined by the approximately 350 residue motor domain, and this region alone is sufficient to classify a kinesin as a member of a particular family. The kinesin-13 family are a group of microtubule depolymerizi... Read More about A synthetic ancestral kinesin-13 depolymerizes microtubules faster than any natural depolymerizing kinesin.

Divergent metabolism between Trypanosoma congolense and Trypanosoma brucei results in differential sensitivity to metabolic inhibition (2021)
Journal Article
Steketee, P. C., Dickie, E. A., Iremonger, J., Crouch, K., Paxton, E., Jayaraman, S., Alfituri, O. A., Awuah-Mensah, G., Ritchie, R., Schnaufer, A., Rowan, T., de Koning, H. P., Gadelha, C., Wickstead, B., Barrett, M. P., & Morrison, L. J. (2021). Divergent metabolism between Trypanosoma congolense and Trypanosoma brucei results in differential sensitivity to metabolic inhibition. PLoS Pathogens, 17(7), Article e1009734. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1009734

Animal African Trypanosomiasis (AAT) is a debilitating livestock disease prevalent across sub-Saharan Africa, a main cause of which is the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma congolense. In comparison to the well-studied T. brucei, there is a major paucit... Read More about Divergent metabolism between Trypanosoma congolense and Trypanosoma brucei results in differential sensitivity to metabolic inhibition.

Trypanosome KKIP1 Dynamically Links the Inner Kinetochore to a Kinetoplastid Outer Kinetochore Complex (2021)
Journal Article
Brusini, L., D’Archivio, S., McDonald, J., & Wickstead, B. (2021). Trypanosome KKIP1 Dynamically Links the Inner Kinetochore to a Kinetoplastid Outer Kinetochore Complex. Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, 11, Article 641174. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2021.641174

Kinetochores perform an essential role in eukaryotes, coupling chromosomes to the mitotic spindle. In model organisms they are composed of a centromere-proximal inner kinetochore and an outer kinetochore network that binds to microtubules. In spite o... Read More about Trypanosome KKIP1 Dynamically Links the Inner Kinetochore to a Kinetoplastid Outer Kinetochore Complex.

TbSAP is a novel chromatin protein repressing metacyclic variant surface glycoprotein expression sites in bloodstream form Trypanosoma brucei (2021)
Journal Article
Davies, C., Ooi, C. P., Sioutas, G., Hall, B. S., Sidhu, H., Butter, F., Alsford, S., Wickstead, B., & Rudenko, G. (2021). TbSAP is a novel chromatin protein repressing metacyclic variant surface glycoprotein expression sites in bloodstream form Trypanosoma brucei. Nucleic Acids Research, 49(6), 3242-3262. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkab109

The African trypanosome Trypanosoma brucei is a unicellular eukaryote, which relies on a protective variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) coat for survival in the mammalian host. A single trypanosome has >2000 VSG genes and pseudogenes of which only one... Read More about TbSAP is a novel chromatin protein repressing metacyclic variant surface glycoprotein expression sites in bloodstream form Trypanosoma brucei.

Reliable, scalable functional genetics in bloodstream-form Trypanosoma congolense in vitro and in vivo (2021)
Journal Article
Awuah-Mensah, G., McDonald, J., Steketee, P. C., Autheman, D., Whipple, S., D'Archivio, S., Brandt, C., Clare, S., Harcourt, K., Wright, G. J., Morrison, L. J., Gadelha, C., & Wickstead, B. (2021). Reliable, scalable functional genetics in bloodstream-form Trypanosoma congolense in vitro and in vivo. PLoS Pathogens, 17(1), Article e1009224. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1009224

Copyright: © 2021 Awuah-Mensah et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author a... Read More about Reliable, scalable functional genetics in bloodstream-form Trypanosoma congolense in vitro and in vivo.

Trypanosome outer kinetochore proteins suggest conservation of chromosome segregation machinery across eukaryotes (2016)
Journal Article
D’Archivio, S., & Wickstead, B. (2017). Trypanosome outer kinetochore proteins suggest conservation of chromosome segregation machinery across eukaryotes. Journal of Cell Biology, 216(2), 379-391. https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201608043

Kinetochores are multiprotein complexes that couple eukaryotic chromosomes to the mitotic spindle to ensure proper segregation. The model for kinetochore assembly is conserved between humans and yeast, and homologues of several components are widely... Read More about Trypanosome outer kinetochore proteins suggest conservation of chromosome segregation machinery across eukaryotes.

The family-specific α4-helix of the kinesin-13, MCAK, is critical to microtubule end recognition (2016)
Journal Article
Patel, J. T., Belsham, H. R., Rathbone, A. J., Wickstead, B., Gell, C., & Friel, C. T. (2016). The family-specific α4-helix of the kinesin-13, MCAK, is critical to microtubule end recognition. Open Biology, 6(10), Article 160223. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsob.160223

Kinesins that influence the dynamics of microtubule growth and shrinkage require the ability to distinguish between the microtubule end and the microtubule lattice. The microtubule depolymerizing kinesin MCAK has been shown to specifically recognize... Read More about The family-specific α4-helix of the kinesin-13, MCAK, is critical to microtubule end recognition.

Plasmodium P-type cyclin CYC3 modulates endomitotic growth during oocyst development in mosquitoes (2015)
Journal Article
Roques, M., Wall, R. J., Douglass, A. P., Ramaprasad, A., Ferguson, D. J. P., Kaindama, M. L., Brusini, L., Joshi, N., Rchiad, Z., Brady, D., Guttery, D. S., Wheatley, S. P., Yamano, H., Holder, A. A., Pain, A., Wickstead, B., & Tewari, R. (2015). Plasmodium P-type cyclin CYC3 modulates endomitotic growth during oocyst development in mosquitoes. PLoS Pathogens, 11(11), Article e1005273. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005273

Cell-cycle progression and cell division in eukaryotes are governed in part by the cyclin family and their regulation of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs). Cyclins are very well characterised in model systems such as yeast and human cells, but surprisi... Read More about Plasmodium P-type cyclin CYC3 modulates endomitotic growth during oocyst development in mosquitoes.

Identification of the ISWI chromatin remodeling complex of the early branching Eukaryote Trypanosoma brucei (2015)
Journal Article
Stanne, T., Shankar Narayanan, M., Ridewood, S., Ling, A., Witmer, K., Kushwaha, M., Wiesler, S., Wickstead, B., Wood, J., & Rudenko, G. (2015). Identification of the ISWI chromatin remodeling complex of the early branching Eukaryote Trypanosoma brucei. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 290, https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M115.679019

ISWI chromatin remodelers are highly conserved in eukaryotes and are important for the assembly and spacing of nucleosomes, thereby controlling transcription initiation and elongation. ISWI is typically associated with different subunits, forming sp... Read More about Identification of the ISWI chromatin remodeling complex of the early branching Eukaryote Trypanosoma brucei.

Architecture of a host–parasite interface: complex targeting mechanisms revealed through proteomics (2015)
Journal Article
Gadelha, C., Zhang, W., Chamberlain, J. W., Chait, B. T., Wickstead, B., & Field, M. C. (2015). Architecture of a host–parasite interface: complex targeting mechanisms revealed through proteomics. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, 14(7), https://doi.org/10.1074/mcp.M114.047647

Surface membrane organization and composition is key to cellular function, and membrane proteins serve many essential roles in endocytosis, secretion, and cell recognition. The surface of parasitic organisms, however, is a double-edged sword; this is... Read More about Architecture of a host–parasite interface: complex targeting mechanisms revealed through proteomics.

Genome-wide Functional Analysis of Plasmodium Protein Phosphatases Reveals Key Regulators of Parasite Development and Differentiation (2014)
Journal Article
Guttery, D. S., TEWARI, R., Poulin, B., Ramaprasad, A., Wall, R. J., Ferguson, D. J., Brady, D., Patzewitz, E.-M., Whipple, S., Straschil, U., Wright, M. H., Mohamed, A. M., Radhakrishnan, A., Arold, S. T., Tate, E. W., Holder, A. A., Wickstead, B., & Pain, A. (2014). Genome-wide Functional Analysis of Plasmodium Protein Phosphatases Reveals Key Regulators of Parasite Development and Differentiation. Cell Host and Microbe, 16(1), 128-140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2014.05.020

Reversible protein phosphorylation regulated by kinases and phosphatases controls many cellular processes. Although essential functions for the malaria parasite kinome have been reported, the roles of most protein phosphatases (PPs) during Plasmodium... Read More about Genome-wide Functional Analysis of Plasmodium Protein Phosphatases Reveals Key Regulators of Parasite Development and Differentiation.

A SAS-6-like protein suggests that the Toxoplasma conoid complex evolved from flagellar components (2013)
Journal Article
de Leon, J. C., Scheumann, N., Beatty, W., Beck, J. R., Tran, J. Q., Yau, C., Bradley, P. J., Gull, K., Wickstead, B., & Morrissette, N. S. (2013). A SAS-6-like protein suggests that the Toxoplasma conoid complex evolved from flagellar components. Eukaryotic Cell, 12(7), https://doi.org/10.1128/EC.00096-13

SAS-6 is required for centriole biogenesis in diverse eukaryotes. Here, we describe a novel family of SAS-6-like (SAS6L) proteins that share an N-terminal domain with SAS-6 but lack coiled-coil tails. SAS6L proteins are found in a subset of eukaryote... Read More about A SAS-6-like protein suggests that the Toxoplasma conoid complex evolved from flagellar components.

A unique protein phosphatase with kelch-like domains (PPKL) in plasmodium modulates ookinete differentiation, motility and invasion (2012)
Journal Article
Guttery, D. S., Poulin, B., Ferguson, D. J. P., Szöőr, B., Wickstead, B., Carroll, P. L., Ramakrishnan, C., Brady, D., Patzewitz, E.-M., Straschil, U., Solyakov, L., Green, J. L., Sinden, R. E., Tobin, A. B., Holder, A. A., & Tewari, R. (2012). A unique protein phosphatase with kelch-like domains (PPKL) in plasmodium modulates ookinete differentiation, motility and invasion. PLoS Pathogens, 8(9), Article e1002948. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1002948

Protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation (catalysed by kinases and phosphatases, respectively) are post-translational modifications that play key roles in many eukaryotic signalling pathways, and are often deregulated in a number of pathological... Read More about A unique protein phosphatase with kelch-like domains (PPKL) in plasmodium modulates ookinete differentiation, motility and invasion.