Genomics of Preaxostyla flagellates

Protists inhabiting oxygen-depleted environments have evolved various adaptation to thrive in their niches, including modified mitochondria to various degrees adapted to anaerobiosis. The most radically altered forms of these organelles (Mitochondria-Related Organelles, MROs) have completely lost their genomes and other defining features of canonical aerobic mitochondria. Anaerobic protists are often found as endobionts (parasites, mutualists, etc.) of larger organisms. The endobiotic lifestyle combined with anaerobiosis poses another source of evolutionary pressure forcing unique adaptations in the endobionts. Here we present new insights into the adaptations of an anaerobic protistan phylum Preaxostyla, especially with regard to the reductive evolution of mitochondria, which, uniquely among all known eukaryotes, led to a complete loss of the organelle in the oxymonad Monocercomonoides exilis. We have obtained M. exilis genomic assembly of good quality and completeness, as well as genomic and transcriptomic data of varying quality and completeness from 9 other Preaxostyla species. Based on extensive, thorough gene searches and functional gene annotation on these datasets, as well as phylogenetic analyses and protein localization experiments, we conclude: 1) M. exilis has completely lost the..