Structure of the mature kinetoplastids mitoribosome and insights into its large subunit biogenesis
Heddy Soufari, Florent Waltz, Camila Parrot, Stéphanie Durrieu-Gaillard, Anthony Bochler, Lauriane Kühn, Marie Sissler, Yaser Hashem
Abstract
Significance Kinetoplastids is a group of flagellated unicellular eukaryotic parasites including human pathogens, such as Trypanosoma cruzi and Leishmania spp., etiologic agents of Chagas disease and leishmaniasis. They are potentially lethal, affecting more than 20 million people worldwide. Therapeutic strategies are extremely limited and highly toxic. The finding of new molecular targets represents one venue for the development of new therapeutic strategies. In this work, we present the structure of the full mitoribosomes from two kinetoplastids, Leishmania tarentolae and T. cruzi , thus far uncharacterized. We also reveal the structure of an large subunit assembly intermediate harboring 16 different factors. In addition to defining a subset of novel kinetoplastid-specific factors, our results shed light on the mitochondrial ribosomal RNA maturation process.