Entamoeba Histolytica - Genome

Genome

The genome data of E. histolytica have been reassembled and reannotated, incorporating significant structural and functional modifications to existing gene models. The 20 million basepair genome assembly contains 8,160 predicted genes; known and novel transposable elements have been mapped and characterized, functional assignments have been revised and updated, and additional information has been incorporated, including metabolic pathways, Gene Ontology assignments, curation of transporters, and generation of gene families. The major group of transposable elements in E. histlytica are non-LTR retrotransposons. These have been divided in three families called EhLINEs and EhSINEs (EhLINE1,2,3 and EhSINE1,2,3). EhLINE1 encode an endonuclease (EN) protein (in addition to Reverse Transcriptase and nucleotide-binding ORF1), which have similarity with bacterial Restriction Endonuclease. This similarity with bacterial protein indicates that Transposable Elements have been acquired from prokaryotes by horizontal gene transfer in this protozoan parasite.