Presence of p25alpha-Domain in Seed Plants (Spermatophyta): Microbial/Animal Contaminations and/or Orthologs

Genome and transcriptome assembly data often contain DNA and RNA contaminations from external organisms, introduced during nucleotide extraction or sequencing. In this study, contamination of seed plant (Spermatophyta) transcriptomes/genomes with p25alpha domain encoding RNA/DNA was systematically investigated. This domain only occurs in organisms possessing a eukaryotic flagellum (cilium), which seed plants usually do not have. Nucleotide sequences available at the National Center for Biotechnology Information website, including transcriptome shotgun assemblies (TSAs), whole-genome shotgun contigs (WGSs), and expressed sequence tags (ESTs), were searched for sequences containing a p25alpha domain in Spermatophyta. Despite the lack of proteins containing the p25alpha domain, such fragments or complete mRNAs in some EST and TSA databases were found. A phylogenetic analysis showed that these were contaminations whose possible sources were microorganisms (flagellated fungi, protists) and arthropods/worms; however, there were cases where it cannot be excluded that the sequences found were genuine hits and not of external origin.