A cnidarian parasite of salmon (Myxozoa: Henneguya) lacks a mitochondrial genome - pnas.org
Significance
Mitochondrial respiration is an ancient characteristic of eukaryotes. However, it was lost independently in multiple eukaryotic lineages as part of adaptations to an anaerobic lifestyle. We show that a similar adaptation occurred in a member of the Myxozoa, a large group of microscopic parasitic animals that are closely related to jellyfish and hydroids. Using deep sequencing approaches supported by microscopic observations, we present evidence that an animal has lost its mitochondrial genome. The myxozoan cells retain structures deemed mitochondrion-related organelles, but have lost genes related to aerobic respiration and mitochondrial genome replication. Our discovery shows that aerobic respiration, one of the most important metabolic pathways, is not ubiquitous among animals.
Abstract
Although aerobic respiration is a hallmark of eukaryotes, a few unicellular lineages, growing in hypoxic environments, have secondarily lost this ability. In the absence of oxygen, the mitochondria of these organisms have lost all or parts of their genomes and evolved into mitochondria-related organelles (MROs). There has been debate regarding the presence of MROs in animals. Using deep sequencing approaches, we discovered that a member of the Cnidaria, the myxozoan Henneguya salminicola, has no mitochondrial genome, and thus has lost the ability to perform aerobic cellular respiration. This indicates that these core eukaryotic features are not ubiquitous among animals. Our analyses suggest that H. salminicola lost not only its mitochondrial genome but also nearly all nuclear genes involved in transcription and replication of the mitochondrial genome. In contrast, we identified many genes that encode proteins involved in other mitochondrial pathways and determined that genes involved in aerobic respiration or mitochondrial DNA replication were either absent or present only as pseudogenes. As a control, we used the same sequencing and annotation methods to show that a closely related myxozoan, Myxobolus squamalis, has a mitochondrial genome. The molecular results are supported by fluorescence micrographs, which show the presence of mitochondrial DNA in M. squamalis, but not in H. salminicola. Our discovery confirms that adaptation to an anaerobic environment is not unique to single-celled eukaryotes, but has also evolved in a multicellular, parasitic animal. Hence, H. salminicola provides an opportunity for understanding the evolutionary transition from an aerobic to an exclusive anaerobic metabolism.
The acquisition of the mitochondrion was a fundamental event in the evolution of eukaryotes, and most extant eukaryotes cannot survive without oxygen. Interestingly, the loss of aerobic respiration has occurred independently in several eukaryotic lineages that adapted to low-oxygen environments and replaced the standard mitochondrial (mt) oxidative phosphorylation pathway with novel anaerobic metabolic mechanisms (Fig. 1) (1, 2). Such anaerobic metabolism occurs within mitochondria-related organelles (MROs), which have often lost their cristae, and include hydrogenosomes and mitosomes (1, 2). There is debate regarding the existence of exclusively anaerobic animals and accompanying MROs (3). Although it was reported that some loriciferans found in anoxic conditions possess hydrogenosomes (4, 5), genomic data are not yet available for these organisms, and alternative explanations have been proposed (3). Here, we show that a myxozoan parasite (Cnidaria) has lost both its mt genome and aerobic metabolic pathways, and has a novel type of anaerobic MRO. Myxozoans are a large group of enigmatic, parasitic, cnidarians with complex life cycles that require two hosts, usually a fish and an annelid (6). They have a substantial negative economic impact on fisheries and aquaculture (7). Myxozoan mitochondria have highly divergent genome structures, with large multipartite circular mt chromosomes and unusually high evolutionary rates (8, 9). To gain further insight into the evolution of the myxozoan mt genome, we studied two closely related freshwater species, Henneguya salminicola and Myxobolus squamalis (SI Appendix, Fig. S1), both of which are parasites of salmonid fish (10⇓–12).

Eukaryote phylogenetic relationships inferred from a supermatrix of 9490 amino acid positions for 78 species. Bayesian majority-rule consensus tree reconstructed using the CAT + Γ model from two independent Markov-chain Monte Carlo chains. Branches with low node support (posterior probabilities PP < 0.7) were collapsed. Most nodes were highly supported (PP > 0.98), and PP are only indicated for nodes with PP < 0.98. The eukaryote classification is based on Adl et al. (47). Species known to have lost their mt genome are indicated in bold with an asterisk. Myxozoan species form a well-supported group (PP = 1.0) and our reconstructions agree with previous studies (14), which show monophyly of the fresh-water/oligochaete host lineage (10).
Results
We assembled transcriptomes and genomes from both species using identical protocols and computational pipelines. Our phylogenetic analyses based on 78 nuclear ribosomal protein-encoding genes from taxa representative of eukaryotic diversity confirmed that the organisms we sequenced are closely related myxozoans, and not contaminants (Fig. 1 and SI Appendix, Fig. S2). The genome assembly statistics revealed that H. salminicola has a more complete assembly with higher coverage and more predicted protein sequences than M. squamalis (Table 1 and SI Appendix, Figs. S3 and S4). Targeted searches in the genomes identified 75/78 nuclear ribosomal protein genes, which suggested that the completeness is >90% for both species. However, estimates of genome completeness using the Core Eukaryotic Genes Mapping Approach (CEGMA) (13) recovered only 53.6% of core eukaryotic genes for H. salminicola and 37.5% for M. squamalis. We hypothesize that the fast evolutionary rates of myxozoans (14) reduced our ability to detect many common eukaryotic genes, a challenge also known with other fast-evolving eukaryotic lineages (15). This view is supported by calculations using only the most conserved CEGMA genes, which have higher recovery in both H. salminicola and M. squamalis (76.9% and 56.9%, respectively).
Assembly statistics, presence of mt genome, and number of nuclear-encoded mt genes identified for myxozoan genomes (gen.) and transcriptomes (trans.)
Assembly of the mt genomes revealed striking differences between the two parasites. For M. squamalis, we successfully recovered a circular mt genome composed of a single chromosome, which phylogenetic analyses confirmed was myxozoan (SI Appendix, Supplementary Results and Figs. S5 and S6). Similar to other myxozoans (8), the M. squamalis mt genome lacked tRNAs, and has a fast evolutionary rate (SI Appendix, Supplementary Results and Figs. S5 and S6). In stark contrast, we could not identify any mt sequence among the contigs of H. salminicola, despite the higher quality of that assembly compared with that of M. squamalis. To identify whether DNA was present in the myxozoan mitochondria, we stained living multicellular developing stages of M. squamalis and H. salminicola with DAPI (Fig. 2). Cells of M. squamalis showed the characteristic eukaryotic staining of both nuclei and mitochondria (as much smaller blue dots; Fig. 2A), whereas H. salminicola showed only nuclear staining (Fig. 2B). The microscopy results, together with the lack of mt contigs in the genome and transcriptome assemblies, supported our central hypothesis that this animal has lost its mt genome. Electron microscopy images, however, showed mt-like double membrane organelles with cristae in H. salminicola (Fig. 2C and SI Appendix, Fig. S7) and M. squamalis (SI Appendix, Fig. S8). Accordingly, genes involved in cristae organization were also detected in the genome of both species, in particular DNAJC11 and MTX1, which have been linked to the presence of cristae (16, 17) (Dataset S1). Together, these results confirm that an MRO without an mt genome, but with cristae, is present in this species.

Microscopic evidence for the absence of mitochondria in H. salminicola. (A and B) DAPI staining of normal 7-cell presporogonic developmental stages of two myxozoan parasites of salmonid fish. (A) M. squamalis, showing large nuclei with many smaller mitochondrial nucleosomes (arrowed). (B) H. salminicola, showing large nuclei but surprisingly no mitochondrial nucleosomes. (C) TEM image of H. salminicola mitochondrion-related organelle with few cristae. Uncropped images are available in the Figshare repository.
In animals, most of the mt proteome is encoded in the nucleus. Accordingly, we identified 51 and 57 genes involved in key mt metabolic pathways (e.g., amino acid, carbohydrate, or nucleotide metabolism) in H. salminicola and M. squamalis, respectively (Fig. 3, Table 1, and Dataset S2). This suggests that the MROs of H. salminicola still perform diverse metabolic functions, similar to the mitochondria of M. squamalis. In contrast, almost all nuclear-encoded proteins involved in mt genome replication and translation were absent from the H. salminicola genome. Using a database of 118 such nuclear-encoded genes in Drosophila, we identified 41 to 58 homologous mt genes in M. squamalis and among published myxozoan data (14, 18), but only six of these genes in H. salminicola (Table 1 and Dataset S3). In addition, we calculated that H. salminicola does not have a faster evolutionary rate than other myxozoans, which might otherwise have precluded gene discovery (Fig. 1 and SI Appendix, Fig. S2).

Comparison between the pathways present in (A) a typical aerobic mitochondrion and (B) the H. salminicola MRO. (C) Mitochondrial/MRO pathways present in selected species (see refs. 1 and 2). The presence and absence of organellar genomes are indicated. ACS, acetyl-CoA synthetase; acetate AOX, alternative oxidase; ASCT, acetate succinyl-CoA transferase; DNA pol, mtDNA polymerase; RNA pol, mtDNA-dependent RNA polymerase; CI-CV, respiratory complexes I-V; C, cytochrome c; PDH, pyruvate dehydrogenase; PFL, pyruvate formate lyase; PFO, pyruvate ferredoxin oxidoreductase; PNO, pyruvate NADPH oxidoreductase; SCS, succinyl-CoA synthetase; TCA cycle, tricarboxylic acid cycle; UQ, ubiquinone; e−, electrons; H+, protons; ψ indicates the presence of a pseudogene in the nuclear genome.
Interestingly, in H. salminicola, we found that the mt DNA polymerase subunit gamma-1 (19) gene is a pseudogene, as it contains three point mutations that create premature stop codons (SI Appendix, Fig. S9). Furthermore, this gene is not expressed in H. salminicola, and was absent from the H. salminicola transcriptome assembly, whereas we identified homologous contigs in all other myxozoan transcriptomes (Dataset S3). The presence of a pseudogene copy of this polymerase has several implications. First, it supports our central conclusion that H. salminicola has lost its mtDNA, as it has no mtDNA replication machinery. Second, it shows that the absence of protein homologs in this species is the result of pseudogenization, and not an assembly artifact.
The loss of the mt genome should impact aerobic respiration, since animal mt genomes code for essential proteins of the electron-transport chain (20). To verify whether the loss of the mt genome meant loss of aerobic respiration in H. salminicola, we searched for homologs of known Drosophila nuclear genes that typically encode ∼100 proteins from the mt electron-transport chain complexes (Fig. 3 and SI Appendix, Supplementary Methods). Our searches of all myxozoan genomes available revealed that nuclear genes for only seven of these mt proteins remain in H. salminicola, whereas 18 to 25 are present in other myxozoans (Fig. 3, Table 1, and Dataset S2). Specifically, all complex I, III, and IV genes that we identified in other myxozoans are absent in H. salminicola (Fig. 3B, Dataset S2, and SI Appendix, Supplementary Results and Fig. S10) or present as pseudogenes (SI Appendix, Fig. S9). Since complex IV interacts with O2 molecules, we conclude that H. salminicola might not be capable of standard cellular aerobic respiration. In concurrence with the absence of the complexes that pump protons into the mitochondrial intermembrane space (i.e., complexes I, III, and IV), most genes that encode the Fo subunit of the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase complex (i.e., the proton channel of complex V) are also missing in H. salminicola (Dataset S4), while being present in Myxobolus (Dataset S4). This suggests that a proton gradient is absent across the inner organelle membrane in H. salminicola. In contrast, for complex II, which is part of the Krebs cycle, and for the F1 subunit of the ATP synthase, H. salminicola encodes a similar number of protein coding genes as other myxozoans (Dataset S4).
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