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Phylogenetic Diversity of Lhr Proteins and Biochemical Activities of the Thermococcales aLhr2 DNA/RNA Helicase

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Submitted:

17 March 2021

Posted:

18 March 2021

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Abstract
Helicases are proteins that use the energy of ATP to unwind nucleic acids and to remodel protein-nucleic acid complexes. They are involved in almost every aspect of the DNA and RNA metabolisms and participate in numerous repair mechanisms that maintain cellular integrity. Helicases are classified into 6 superfamilies (SF1-6). The archaeal Lhr-type proteins are SF2 helicases that are mostly uncharacterized. They have been proposed to be a DNA helicase that acts in DNA recombination and repair processes in Sulfolobales and Methanothermobacter. In parallel, a protein annotated as an Lhr2 protein was also found in the network of proteins involved in RNA metabolism in Thermococcales. To this respect, we performed in-depth phylogenomic analyses to report the classification and taxonomic distribution of Lhr-type proteins in Archaea, and to better understand their relationship with bacterial Lhr. Furthermore, with the goal of envisioning the role(s) of aLhr2 in archaeal cells, we deciphered the enzymatic activities of aLhr2 from Thermococcus barophilus (Tbar). We showed that Tbar-aLhr2 is a DNA/RNA helicase acting on DNA:RNA and RNA:RNA duplexes and proposed that aLhr2 helicases are involved in processes dependent of DNA and RNA transactions.
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Subject: Biology and Life Sciences  -   Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
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