Structures of Native Doublet Microtubules from Trichomonas vaginalis Reveal Parasite-Specific Proteins
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Abstract
Doublet microtubules (DMTs) are flagellar components required for the protist Trichomonas vaginalis ( Tv ) to swim through the human genitourinary tract to cause trichomoniasis, the most common non-viral sexually transmitted disease. Lack of structures of Tv ’s DMT ( Tv -DMT) has prevented structure-guided drug design to manage Tv infection. Here, we determine the 16 nm, 32 nm, 48 nm and 96 nm-repeat structures of native Tv- DMT at resolution ranging from 3.4 to 4.4 Å by cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM) and built an atomic model for the entire Tv -DMT. These structures show that Tv -DMT is composed of 30 different proteins, including the α- and β-tubulin, 19 microtubule inner proteins (MIPs) and 9 microtubule outer proteins. While the A-tubule of Tv -DMT is simplistic compared to DMTs of other organisms, the B-tubule of Tv -DMT features parasite-specific proteins, such as Tv FAP40 and Tv FAP35. Notably, Tv FAP40 and Tv FAP35 form filaments near the inner and outer junctions, respectively, and interface with stabilizing MIPs. This atomic model of the Tv- DMT highlights diversity of eukaryotic motility machineries and provides a structural framework to inform rational design of therapeutics against trichomoniasis.
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Cites
Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold
Jumper, J., Evans, R., Pritzel, A., Green, T., Figurnov, M., Ronneberger, O., Tunyasuvunakool, K., Bates, R., Žídek, A., Potapenko, A., et al. (2021) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2 · Cited by 43,764 · see citing works
Fast and accurate protein structure search with Foldseek
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Inner lumen proteins stabilize doublet microtubules in cilia and flagella
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- Authors
- Stevens, A., Kashyap, S., Crofut, E. H., Wang, S. E., Muratore, K. A., Johnson, P. J., & Zhou, Z. H.
- Affiliations
- California NanoSystems Institute (US)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Corresponding author
- Johnson, Patricia J.
- Zhou, Z. Hong
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-04-29
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3996-3996
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC12041511
- OpenAlex
- W4409947646
- Cited by
- 4
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1
- FWCI
- 1.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | National Institutes of Health (1S10RR23057, 1S10OD018111)
- National Science Foundation (DBI-1338135, DMR-1548924)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cell Biology › Microtubule and mitosis dynamics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Structural Biology › Advanced Electron Microscopy Techniques and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Enzyme Structure and Function
- Keywords
- Trichomonas vaginalis, doublet microtubules, flagella, trichomoniasis, microtubule inner proteins, tubulin, atomic models, structure-based drug design
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