Evidence for lateral gene transfer (LGT) in the evolution of eubacteria-derived small GTPases in plant organelles

I. Nengah Suwastika, Masatsugu Denawa, Saki Yomogihara, Chak Han Im, Woo Young Bang, Ryosuke L. Ohniwa, Jeong Dong Bahk, Kunio Takeyasu, Takashi Shiina

The genomes of free-living bacteria frequently exchange genes via lateral gene transfer (LGT), which has played a major role in bacterial evolution. LGT also played a significant role in the acquisition of genes from non-cyanobacterial bacteria to the lineage of "primary" algae and land plants. Small GTPases are widely distributed among prokaryotes and eukaryotes. In this study, we inferred the evolutionary history of organelle-targeted small GTPases in plants. Arabidopsis thaliana contains at least one ortholog in seven subfamilies of OBG-HflX-like and TrmE-Era-EngA-YihA-Septin-like GTPase superfamilies (together referred to as Era-like GTPases). Subcellular localization analysis of all Era-like GTPases in Arabidopsis revealed that all 30 eubacteria-related GTPases are localized to chloroplasts and/or mitochondria, whereas archaea-related DRG and NOG1 are localized to the cytoplasm and nucleus, respectively, suggesting that chloroplast- and mitochondrion-localized GTPases are derived from the ancestral cyanobacterium and α-proteobacterium, respectively, through endosymbiotic gene transfer (EGT). However, phylogenetic analyses revealed that plant organelle GTPase evolution is rather complex. Among the eubacterium-related GTPases, only four localized to chloroplasts (including one dual targeting GTPase) and two localized to mitochondria were derived from cyanobacteria and α-proteobacteria, respectively. Three other chloroplast-targeted GTPases were related to α-proteobacterial proteins, rather than to cyanobacterial GTPases. Furthermore, we found that four other GTPases showed neither cyanobacterial nor α-proteobacterial affiliation. Instead, these GTPases were closely related to clades from other eubacteria, such as Bacteroides (Era1, EngB-1, and EngB-2) and green non-sulfur bacteria (HflX). This study thus provides novel evidence that LGT significantly contributed to the evolution of organelle-targeted Era-like GTPases in plants.