Cross-genome comparisons of newly identified domains in Mycoplasma gallisepticum and domain architectures with other mycoplasma species

Abstract

Accurate functional annotation of protein sequences is hampered by important factors such as the failure of sequence search methods to identify relationships and the inherent diversity in function of proteins related at low sequence similarities. Earlier, we had employed intermediate sequence search approach to establish new domain relationships in the unassigned regions of gene products at the whole genome level by taking Mycoplasma gallisepticum as a specific example and established new domain relationships. In this paper, we report a detailed comparison of the conservation status of the domain and domain architectures of the gene products that bear our newly predicted domains amongst 14 other Mycoplasma genomes and reported the probable implications for the organisms. Some of the domain associations, observed in Mycoplasma that afflict humans and other non-human primates, are involved in regulation of solute transport and DNA binding suggesting specific modes of host-pathogen interactions.