Erschienen:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016
Erschienen in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Sprache:
Englisch
DOI:
10.1073/pnas.1610379113
ISSN:
0027-8424;
1091-6490
Entstehung:
Anmerkungen:
Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Significance</jats:title>
<jats:p>
Many living organisms use terpenes for ecological interactions. Terpenes are biosynthesized by terpene synthases (TPSs), but classic
<jats:italic>TPS</jats:italic>
genes are known to exist only in plants and fungi among the eukaryotes. In this study,
<jats:italic>TPS</jats:italic>
genes were identified in six species of amoebae with five of them being multicellular social amoebae. Amoebal TPSs showed closer relatedness to fungal TPSs than bacterial TPSs. In the social amoeba
<jats:italic>Dictyostelium discoideum</jats:italic>
, all nine
<jats:italic>TPS</jats:italic>
genes encoded active enzymes and most of their terpene products were released as volatiles in a development-specific manner. This study highlights a wider distribution of
<jats:italic>TPS</jats:italic>
genes in eukaryotes than previously thought and opens a door to studying the function and evolution of
<jats:italic>TPS</jats:italic>
genes and their products.
</jats:p>