gene conversion; Leishmania donovanispecies complex; whole-genome sequencing; concerted evolution

TheLeishmania donovanispecies complex consists of allL. donovaniandL. infantumstrains mainly responsible for visceral leishmaniasis (VL). It was suggested that genome rearrangements inLeishmaniaspp. occur very often, thus enabling parasites to adapt to the different environmental conditions. Some of these rearrangements may be directly linked to the virulence or explain the reduced efficacy of antimonial drugs in some isolates. In the current study, we focused on a large-scale analysis of putative gene conversion events using publicly available datasets. Previous population study ofL. donovanisuggested that population variability ofL. donovaniis relatively low, however the authors used masking procedures and strict read selection criteria. We decided to re-analyze DNA-seq data without masking sequences, because we were interested in the most dynamic fraction of the genome. The majority of samples have an excess of putative gene conversion/recombination events in the noncoding regions, however we found an overall excess of putative intrachromosomal gene conversion/recombination in the protein coding genes, compared to putative interchromosomal gene conversion/recombination events.