scholarly journals Closed-reference metatranscriptomics enables in planta profiling of putative virulence activities in the grapevine trunk-disease complex

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Morales-Cruz ◽  
Gabrielle Allenbeck ◽  
Rosa Figueroa-Balderas ◽  
Vanessa E. Ashworth ◽  
Daniel P. Lawrence ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Transcriptional Profiling ◽  
Underlying Disease ◽  
In Planta ◽  
Dna And Rna ◽  
Trunk Disease ◽  
Specificity And Sensitivity ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Field Samples ◽  
Trunk Diseases

SummaryGrapevines, like other perennial crops, are affected by so-called ‘trunk diseases’, which damage the trunk and other woody tissues. Mature grapevines typically contract more than one trunk disease and often multiple grapevine trunk pathogens (GTPs) are recovered from infected tissues. The co-existence of different GTP species in complex and dynamic microbial communities complicates the study of the molecular mechanisms underlying disease development especially under vineyard conditions. The objective of this study was to develop and optimize a community-level transcriptomics (i.e., metatranscriptomics) approach that can monitor simultaneously the virulence activities of multiple GTPs in planta. The availability of annotated genomes for the most relevant co-infecting GTPs in diseased grapevine wood provided the unprecedented opportunity to generate a multi-species reference for mapping and quantifying DNA and RNA sequencing reads. We first evaluated popular sequence read mappers using permutations of multiple simulated datasets. Alignment parameters of the selected mapper were optimized to increase the specificity and sensitivity for its application to metagenomics and metatranscriptomics analyses. Initial testing on grapevine wood experimentally inoculated with individual GTPs confirmed the validity of the method. Using naturally-infected field samples expressing a variety of trunk disease symptoms, we show that our approach provides quantitative assessments of species composition as well as genome-wide transcriptional profiling of potential virulence factors, namely cell wall degradation, secondary metabolism and nutrient uptake for all co-infecting GTPs.

scholarly journals SUPPRESSOR OF MAX2 1-LIKE 5 promotes secondary phloem formation during radial stem growth

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva-Sophie Wallner ◽  
Virginie Jouannet ◽  
Thomas Greb
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Vascular Tissue ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Transcriptional Profiling ◽  
Tissue Formation ◽  
Secondary Phloem ◽  
Vascular Tissues ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Related Feature ◽  
Constant Growth

ABSTRACTAs a prerequisite for constant growth, plants can produce vascular tissues at different sites in their postembryonic body. In particular, the formation of vascular tissues during longitudinal and radial expansion of growth axes differs fundamentally with respect to its anatomical configuration. This raises the question to which level regulatory mechanisms of vascular tissue formation are shared throughout plant development. Here, we show that, similar as primary phloem formation during longitudinal growth, the cambium-based formation of secondary phloem depends on the function of SMXL genes. Using promoter reporter lines, we observe that SMXL4 and SMXL5 activities are associated with different stages of secondary phloem formation in Arabidopsis stems and the specific loss of SMXL5 function results in the absence of secondary phloem. Interestingly, the additional disruption of SMXL4 activity increases cell proliferation rates in the cambium region without that secondary phloem is formed. Based on genome-wide transcriptional profiling and expression analyses of phloem-related markers we conclude that early steps of phloem formation are impaired in smxl4;smxl5 double mutants and that additional cambium-derived cells fail in establishing any phloem-related feature. Our results show that molecular mechanisms determining primary and secondary phloem share important features but differ slightly with SMXL5 playing a more dominant role in the formation of secondary phloem.

scholarly journals Profiling grapevine trunk pathogens in planta: A case for community-targeted DNA metabarcoding

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Morales-Cruz ◽  
Rosa Figueroa-Balderas ◽  
Jadran F. García ◽  
Eric Tran ◽  
Philippe E. Rolshausen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Ecology ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Universal Primers ◽  
In Planta ◽  
Universal Primer ◽  
Grapevine Trunk Diseases ◽  
Field Samples ◽  
Dna Metabarcoding ◽  
Trunk Diseases ◽  
Mock Communities

ABSTRACTDNA metabarcoding, commonly used in exploratory microbial ecology studies, is a promising method for the simultaneous in planta-detection of multiple pathogens associated with disease complexes, such as the grapevine trunk diseases. Their detection is particularly challenging, due to the presence within an individual wood lesion of multiple co-infecting trunk pathogens and other wood-colonizing fungi, which span a broad range of taxa in the Fungal Kingdom. As such, we designed metabarcoding primers, using as template the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer of grapevine trunk-associated Ascomycete fungi (GTAA) and compared them to two universal primer widely used in microbial ecology. We first performed in silico simulations and then tested the primers by high-throughput amplicon sequencing of (i) multiple combinations of mock communities, (ii) time-course experiments with controlled inoculations, and (iii) diseased field samples from vineyards under natural levels of infection. All analyses showed that GTAA had greater affinity and sensitivity, compared to those of the universal primers. Importantly, with GTAA, profiling of mock communities and comparisons with shotgun-sequencing metagenomics of field samples gave an accurate representation of genera of important trunk pathogens, namely Phaeomoniella, Phaeoacremonium, and Eutypa, the abundances of which were greatly over- or under-estimated with universal primers. Overall, our findings not only demonstrate that DNA metabarcoding gives qualitatively and quantitatively accurate results when applied to grapevine trunk diseases, but also that primer customization and testing are crucial to ensure the validity of DNA metabarcoding results.

Artificial Intelligence for epigenetics: towards personalized medicine

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia De Riso ◽  
Sergio Cocozza
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Personalized Medicine ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Genomic Sequence ◽  
Health Care Interventions ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Omic Data

: Epigenetics is a field of biological sciences focused on the study of reversible, heritable changes in gene function not due to modifications of the genomic sequence. These changes are the result of a complex cross-talk between several molecular mechanisms, that is in turn orchestrated by genetic and environmental factors. The epigenetic profile captures the unique regulatory landscape and the exposure to environmental stimuli of an individual. It thus constitutes a valuable reservoir of information for personalized medicine, which is aimed at customizing health-care interventions based on the unique characteristics of each individual. Nowadays, the complex milieu of epigenomic marks can be studied at the genome-wide level thanks to massive, highthroughput technologies. This new experimental approach is opening up new and interesting knowledge perspectives. However, the analysis of these complex omic data requires to face important analytic issues. Artificial Intelligence, and in particular Machine Learning, are emerging as powerful resources to decipher epigenomic data. In this review, we will first describe the most used ML approaches in epigenomics. We then will recapitulate some of the recent applications of ML to epigenomic analysis. Finally, we will provide some examples of how the ML approach to epigenetic data can be useful for personalized medicine.

scholarly journals Genetic analysis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis identifies contributing pathways and cell types

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. eabd9036
Author(s):  
Sara Saez-Atienzar ◽  
Sara Bandres-Ciga ◽  
Rebekah G. Langston ◽  
Jonggeol J. Kim ◽  
Shing Wan Choi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ◽  
Membrane Trafficking ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Polygenic Risk Score ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Data Driven Approach ◽  
Single Nucleus ◽  
Lateral Sclerosis

Despite the considerable progress in unraveling the genetic causes of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), we do not fully understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the disease. We analyzed genome-wide data involving 78,500 individuals using a polygenic risk score approach to identify the biological pathways and cell types involved in ALS. This data-driven approach identified multiple aspects of the biology underlying the disease that resolved into broader themes, namely, neuron projection morphogenesis, membrane trafficking, and signal transduction mediated by ribonucleotides. We also found that genomic risk in ALS maps consistently to GABAergic interneurons and oligodendrocytes, as confirmed in human single-nucleus RNA-seq data. Using two-sample Mendelian randomization, we nominated six differentially expressed genes (ATG16L2, ACSL5, MAP1LC3A, MAPKAPK3, PLXNB2, and SCFD1) within the significant pathways as relevant to ALS. We conclude that the disparate genetic etiologies of this fatal neurological disease converge on a smaller number of final common pathways and cell types.

scholarly journals Role of Long Non-Coding RNA Polymorphisms in Cancer Chemotherapeutic Response

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 513
Author(s):  
Zheng Zhang ◽  
Meng Gu ◽  
Zhongze Gu ◽  
Yan-Ru Lou
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Neurological Diseases ◽  
Cellular Processes ◽  
Dna And Rna ◽  
Chemotherapeutic Response ◽  
Non Coding Rna ◽  
Response To Chemotherapy ◽  
Personalized Oncology ◽  
Long Non Coding Rna

Genetic polymorphisms are defined as the presence of two or more different alleles in the same locus, with a frequency higher than 1% in the population. Since the discovery of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), which refer to a non-coding RNA with a length of more than 200 nucleotides, their biological roles have been increasingly revealed in recent years. They regulate many cellular processes, from pluripotency to cancer. Interestingly, abnormal expression or dysfunction of lncRNAs is closely related to the occurrence of human diseases, including cancer and degenerative neurological diseases. Particularly, their polymorphisms have been found to be associated with altered drug response and/or drug toxicity in cancer treatment. However, molecular mechanisms are not yet fully elucidated, which are expected to be discovered by detailed studies of RNA–protein, RNA–DNA, and RNA–lipid interactions. In conclusion, lncRNAs polymorphisms may become biomarkers for predicting the response to chemotherapy in cancer patients. Here we review and discuss how gene polymorphisms of lncRNAs affect cancer chemotherapeutic response. This knowledge may pave the way to personalized oncology treatments.

scholarly journals Genomic Analyses of Globodera pallida, A Quarantine Agricultural Pathogen in Idaho

Pathogens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 363
Author(s):  
Sulochana K. Wasala ◽  
Dana K. Howe ◽  
Louise-Marie Dandurand ◽  
Inga A. Zasada ◽  
Dee R. Denver
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Potato Production ◽  
Globodera Pallida ◽  
Fixation Index ◽  
Parasitic Nematodes ◽  
Nucleotide Polymorphisms ◽  
Single Nucleotide ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Field Samples ◽  
Multiple Introduction

Globodera pallida is among the most significant plant-parasitic nematodes worldwide, causing major damage to potato production. Since it was discovered in Idaho in 2006, eradication efforts have aimed to contain and eradicate G. pallida through phytosanitary action and soil fumigation. In this study, we investigated genome-wide patterns of G. pallida genetic variation across Idaho fields to evaluate whether the infestation resulted from a single or multiple introduction(s) and to investigate potential evolutionary responses since the time of infestation. A total of 53 G. pallida samples (~1,042,000 individuals) were collected and analyzed, representing five different fields in Idaho, a greenhouse population, and a field in Scotland that was used for external comparison. According to genome-wide allele frequency and fixation index (Fst) analyses, most of the genetic variation was shared among the G. pallida populations in Idaho fields pre-fumigation, indicating that the infestation likely resulted from a single introduction. Temporal patterns of genome-wide polymorphisms involving (1) pre-fumigation field samples collected in 2007 and 2014 and (2) pre- and post-fumigation samples revealed nucleotide variants (SNPs, single-nucleotide polymorphisms) with significantly differentiated allele frequencies indicating genetic differentiation. This study provides insights into the genetic origins and adaptive potential of G. pallida invading new environments.

scholarly journals Genome-Wide Mapping of Histone H3 Lysine 4 Trimethylation (H3K4me3) and Its Involvement in Fatty Acid Biosynthesis in Sunflower Developing Seeds

Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 706
Author(s):  
Antonio J. Moreno-Pérez ◽  
Raquel Martins-Noguerol ◽  
Cristina DeAndrés-Gil ◽  
Mónica Venegas-Calerón ◽  
Rosario Sánchez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fatty Acid ◽  
Chromatin Remodeling ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Acid Metabolism ◽  
Fatty Acid Biosynthesis ◽  
Acid Synthesis ◽  
Sunflower Seeds ◽  
Acid Biosynthesis ◽  
Functional Regions ◽  
Genome Wide

Histone modifications are of paramount importance during plant development. Investigating chromatin remodeling in developing oilseeds sheds light on the molecular mechanisms controlling fatty acid metabolism and facilitates the identification of new functional regions in oil crop genomes. The present study characterizes the epigenetic modifications H3K4me3 in relationship with the expression of fatty acid-related genes and transcription factors in developing sunflower seeds. Two master transcriptional regulators identified in this analysis, VIV1 (homologous to Arabidopsis ABI3) and FUS3, cooperate in the regulation of WRINKLED 1, a transcriptional factor regulating glycolysis, and fatty acid synthesis in developing oilseeds.

scholarly journals Genome-wide association study suggests that variation at the RCOR1 locus is associated with tinnitus in UK Biobank

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena R. R. Wells ◽  
Fatin N. Zainul Abidin ◽  
Maxim B. Freidin ◽  
Frances M. K. Williams ◽  
Sally J. Dawson
Keyword(s):  
Association Study ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Genome Wide Association Study ◽  
Genome Wide Association ◽  
Uk Biobank ◽  
Significance Threshold ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Final Sample ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
Repressor Complex

AbstractTinnitus is a prevalent condition in which perception of sound occurs without an external stimulus. It is often associated with pre-existing hearing loss or noise-induced damage to the auditory system. In some individuals it occurs frequently or even continuously and leads to considerable distress and difficulty sleeping. There is little knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involved in tinnitus which has hindered the development of treatments. Evidence suggests that tinnitus has a heritable component although previous genetic studies have not established specific risk factors. From a total of 172,608 UK Biobank participants who answered questions on tinnitus we performed a case–control genome-wide association study for self-reported tinnitus. Final sample size used in association analysis was N = 91,424. Three variants in close proximity to the RCOR1 gene reached genome wide significance: rs4906228 (p = 1.7E−08), rs4900545 (p = 1.8E−08) and 14:103042287_CT_C (p = 3.50E−08). RCOR1 encodes REST Corepressor 1, a component of a co-repressor complex involved in repressing neuronal gene expression in non-neuronal cells. Eleven other independent genetic loci reached a suggestive significance threshold of p < 1E−06.

scholarly journals Developmental cannabidiol exposure increases anxiety and modifies genome-wide brain DNA methylation in adult female mice

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole M. Wanner ◽  
Mathia Colwell ◽  
Chelsea Drown ◽  
Christopher Faulk
Keyword(s):  
Dna Methylation ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Coat Color ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Functional Enrichment ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Nulliparous Female ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Background Use of cannabidiol (CBD), the primary non-psychoactive compound found in cannabis, has recently risen dramatically, while relatively little is known about the underlying molecular mechanisms of its effects. Previous work indicates that direct CBD exposure strongly impacts the brain, with anxiolytic, antidepressant, antipsychotic, and other effects being observed in animal and human studies. The epigenome, particularly DNA methylation, is responsive to environmental input and can direct persistent patterns of gene regulation impacting phenotype. Epigenetic perturbation is particularly impactful during embryogenesis, when exogenous exposures can disrupt critical resetting of epigenetic marks and impart phenotypic effects lasting into adulthood. The impact of prenatal CBD exposure has not been evaluated; however, studies using the psychomimetic cannabinoid Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) have identified detrimental effects on psychological outcomes in developmentally exposed adult offspring. We hypothesized that developmental CBD exposure would have similar negative effects on behavior mediated in part by the epigenome. Nulliparous female wild-type Agouti viable yellow (Avy) mice were exposed to 20 mg/kg CBD or vehicle daily from two weeks prior to mating through gestation and lactation. Coat color shifts, a readout of DNA methylation at the Agouti locus in this strain, were measured in F1 Avy/a offspring. Young adult F1 a/a offspring were then subjected to tests of working spatial memory and anxiety/compulsive behavior. Reduced-representation bisulfite sequencing was performed on both F0 and F1 cerebral cortex and F1 hippocampus to identify genome-wide changes in DNA methylation for direct and developmental exposure, respectively. Results F1 offspring exposed to CBD during development exhibited increased anxiety and improved memory behavior in a sex-specific manner. Further, while no significant coat color shift was observed in Avy/a offspring, thousands of differentially methylated loci (DMLs) were identified in both brain regions with functional enrichment for neurogenesis, substance use phenotypes, and other psychologically relevant terms. Conclusions These findings demonstrate for the first time that despite positive effects of direct exposure, developmental CBD is associated with mixed behavioral outcomes and perturbation of the brain epigenome.

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