A potentially exhaustive screening strategy reveals two novel divergent myosins in Dictyostelium

In recent years, the myosin superfamily has kept expanding at an explosive rate, but the understanding of their complex functions has been lagging. Therefore, Dictyostelium discoideum, a genetically and biochemically tractable eukaryotic amoeba, appears as a powerful model organism to investigate the involvement of the actomyosin cytoskeleton in a variety of cellular tasks. Because of the relatively high degree of functional redundancy, such studies would be greatly facilitated by the prior knowledge of the whole myosin repertoire in this organism. Here, we present a strategy based on PCR amplification using degenerate primers and followed by negative hybridization screening which led to the potentially exhaustive identification of members of the myosin family in D. discoideum. Two novel myosins were identified and their genetic loci mapped by hybridization to an ordered YAC library. Preliminary inspection of myoK and myoM sequences revealed that, despite carrying most of the hallmarks of myosin motors, both molecules harbor features surprisingly divergent from most known myosins.