Comparative Phylogenomic Analysis of Cytochrome P450 Monooxygenases From Fusarium Species

Abstract Cytochrome P450s (P450s) are a unique multifamily class of enzymes that possess the capability to exhibit catalytic versatility in several biochemical reactions which entails metabolite biosynthesis, primary and secondary metabolism. Fusarium spp. is an important microorganism with many members known to produce secondary metabolites that cause plant diseases and mycotoxicoses in animals and humans. In this present study, from the initially screened 4,579 proteins, we elucidated the nature of abundance, evolutionary relationships, classification and cellular location of 320 cytochrome P450 from 17 phytopathogenic members of Fusarium species. The total CYPs protein sequences were phylogenetically grouped into seventeen (17) clades. Eighty-six (86) CYPs families and forty-eight (48) clans were identified. Twenty-seven (27) families were each found in only one species. The CYPs were found to be majorly localized in the endoplasmic reticulum. The non-ribosomal peptide synthetase-like (NRPS-like) gene cluster was the predominant secondary metabolic-related gene cluster across all the seventeen selected Fusarium species except in F. cucurbiticola and F. solani, where PolyKetide Synthase (PKS) was the most prevalent. The presence of numerous families and clans as observed in in this study shows the expansions of the CYPs families across Fusarium species, this CYPs family and clan expansion is often associated with the evolvement of several fungal traits that include their pathogenicity adaptation to survive on an extensive range of toxic substrates. Identification of P450 proteins in these pathogenic fungi provides fundamental information for further basic and applied biological research into the physiological and toxigenic roles of P450s in Fusarium species.