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Proteins of the FGR1 oncogene partner (or FOP) family are found at microtubule organizing centres (MTOCs) including, in flagellate eukaryotes, the centriole or flagellar basal body from which the axoneme extends. We report conservation of FOP family proteins, Tb FOPL and Tb OFD1, in the evolutionarily divergent sleeping sickness parasite Trypanosoma brucei , showing (in contrast with mammalian cells, where FOP is essential for flagellum assembly) depletion of a trypanosome FOP homologue, Tb FOPL, affects neither axoneme nor flagellum elongation. Instead, Tb FOPL depletion causes catastrophic failure in assembly of a lineage-specific, extra-axonemal structure, the paraflagellar rod (PFR). That depletion of centriolar Tb FOPL causes failure in PFR assembly is surprising because PFR nucleation commences approximately 2 µm distal from the basal body. When over-expressed with a C-terminal myc-epitope, Tb FOPL was also observed at mitotic spindle poles. Little is known about bi-polar spindle assembly during closed trypanosome mitosis, but indication of a possible additional MTOC function for Tb FOPL parallels MTOC localization of FOP-like protein TONNEAU1 in acentriolar plants. More generally, our functional analysis of Tb FOPL emphasizes significant differences in evolutionary cell biology trajectories of FOP-family proteins. We discuss how at the molecular level FOP homologues may contribute to flagellum assembly and function in diverse flagellates.

A centriolar FGR1 oncogene partner-like protein required for paraflagellar rod assembly, but not axoneme assembly in African trypanosomes