RESEARCH ARTICLE TAC102 Is a Novel Component of the Mitochondrial Genome Segregation Machinery in Trypanosomes Roman Trikin1,2☯, Nicholas Doiron1☯, Anneliese Hoffmann1,2, Beat Haenni3, Martin Jakob1, Achim Schnaufer4, Bernd Schimanski1, Benoît Zuber3, Torsten Ochsenreiter1* 1 Institute of Cell Biology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, 2 Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, 3 Institute of Anatomy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, 4 Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom a11111 ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. *
[email protected] Abstract Trypanosomes show an intriguing organization of their mitochondrial DNA into a catenated OPEN ACCESS network, the kinetoplast DNA (kDNA). While more than 30 proteins involved in kDNA repli- Citation: Trikin R, Doiron N, Hoffmann A, Haenni B, cation have been described, only few components of kDNA segregation machinery are cur- Jakob M, Schnaufer A, et al. (2016) TAC102 Is a rently known. Electron microscopy studies identified a high-order structure, the tripartite Novel Component of the Mitochondrial Genome Segregation Machinery in Trypanosomes. PLoS attachment complex (TAC), linking the basal body of the flagellum via the mitochondrial Pathog 12(5): e1005586. doi:10.1371/journal. membranes to the kDNA. Here we describe TAC102, a novel core component of the TAC, ppat.1005586 which is essential for proper kDNA segregation during cell division. Loss of TAC102 leads Editor: Kent L. Hill, University of California, Los to mitochondrial genome missegregation but has no impact on proper organelle biogenesis Angeles, UNITED STATES and segregation. The protein is present throughout the cell cycle and is assembled into the Received: November 19, 2015 newly developing TAC only after the pro-basal body has matured indicating a hierarchy in de Accepted: March 30, 2016 the assembly process.