Conservative and divergent base sequence regions in the maxicircle kinetoplast DNA of several trypanosomatid flagellates.

The structure of kinetoplast maxicircle DNA from trypanosomatids Crithidia oncopelti, C. luciliae, Leptomonas pessoai and Leishmania gymnodactyli was compared by the blot hybridization method. The sizes of these molecules are 24.5, 34, 31 and 38 kilobase pairs (kbp), respectively. Labelled maxicircle fragments from C. oncopelti were used as probes. A general model of the structural organization of maxicircles is proposed according to which this molecule is composed of a 17kbp conservative region and a divergent one occupying the rest of the molecule. The conservative region contains the sequences homologous to those in all trypanosomatids. The sequence of the divergent region exhibits no cross homology detectable by high stringency hybridization. The main size differences between the maxicircle molecules from different trypanosomatid species are explained by the length variability of their divergent regions.