Elucidating the evolutionary and structural features of cytochrome P450 genes in Cryptococcus neoformans using in-silico approaches

Abstract

Cytochrome P450 (CYP450) enzymes have been shown to contribute to the fungal exploration of different niches. Elucidation and annotation of the ever-expanding genomic information of CYP450 enzymes is of great importance. A detailed study on the CYP450 genes in Cryptococcus neoformans is not yet available. The present study, employed bioinformatics tools to annotate forty identified CYP genes of C. neoformans var. neoformans JEC21 based on their phylogeny, motif, gene structure, family and clan classification and subcellular localization. It was established during this study that forty CYP450 were phylogenetically grouped into eight clades. A total of five conserved motifs were identified which are valuable as molecular markers for the identification of C. neoformans. The number of introns ranges from two to nine while that of exons ranges from three to ten with only CNJ03430 gene sequence shown to possess an untranslated region. C. neoformans genes were found to belong to only two Cytochrome P450 families and clans (CYP51 and CYP61) that carry out specifically primary metabolism and ergosterol metabolism in the cell. The cytochrome P450 proteins were distributed across the different organelles of the cell, which shows a wide range of involvement of this enzyme class in cellular functions and activities. The dominant subcellular location is the cytoplasm. The findings from this study have provided the requisite insight on the Cytochrome P450 genes in Cryptococcus neoformans which could be harnessed as a basis to genetically manipulate different genes to alter their functions to curb the fatal sickness caused this important pathogen.