scholarly journals Molecular Characterization of Donacia provosti (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) Larval Transcriptome by De Novo Assembly to Discover Genes Associated with Underwater Environmental Adaptations

Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 281
Author(s):  
Haixia Zhan ◽  
Youssef Dewer ◽  
Cheng Qu ◽  
Shiyong Yang ◽  
Chen Luo ◽  
...  

Donacia provosti (Fairmaire, 1885) is a major pest of aquatic crops. It has been widely distributed in the world causing extensive damage to lotus and rice plants. Changes in gene regulation may play an important role in adaptive evolution, particularly during adaptation to feeding and living habits. However, little is known about the evolution and molecular mechanisms underlying the adaptation of D. provosti to its lifestyle and living habits. To address this question, we generated the first larval transcriptome of D. provosti. A total of 20,692 unigenes were annotated from the seven public databases and around 18,536 protein-coding genes have been predicted from the analysis of D. provosti transcriptome. About 5036 orthologous cutlers were identified among four species and 494 unique clusters were identified from D. provosti larvae including the visual perception. Furthermore, to reveal the molecular difference between D. provosti and the Colorado potato beetle Leptinotarsa decemlineata, a comparison between CDS of the two beetles was conducted and 6627 orthologous gene pairs were identified. Based on the ratio of nonsynonymous and synonymous substitutions, 93 orthologous gene pairs were found evolving under positive selection. Interestingly, our results also show that there are 4 orthologous gene pairs of the 93 gene pairs were associated with the “mTOR signaling pathway”, which are predicted to be involved in the molecular mechanism of D. provosti adaptation to the underwater environment. This study will provide us with an important scientific basis for building effective prevention and control system of the aquatic leaf beetle Donacia provosti.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander J. Hart ◽  
Samuel Ginzburg ◽  
Muyang (Sam) Xu ◽  
Cera R. Fisher ◽  
Nasim Rahmatpour ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTEnTAP (Eukaryotic Non-Model Transcriptome Annotation Pipeline) was designed to improve the accuracy, speed, and flexibility of functional gene annotation for de novo assembled transcriptomes in non-model eukaryotes. This software package addresses the fragmentation and related assembly issues that result in inflated transcript estimates and poor annotation rates, while focusing primarily on protein-coding transcripts. Following filters applied through assessment of true expression and frame selection, open-source tools are leveraged to functionally annotate the translated proteins. Downstream features include fast similarity search across three repositories, protein domain assignment, orthologous gene family assessment, and Gene Ontology term assignment. The final annotation integrates across multiple databases and selects an optimal assignment from a combination of weighted metrics describing similarity search score, taxonomic relationship, and informativeness. Researchers have the option to include additional filters to identify and remove contaminants, identify associated pathways, and prepare the transcripts for enrichment analysis. This fully featured pipeline is easy to install, configure, and runs significantly faster than comparable annotation packages. EnTAP is optimized to generate extensive functional information for the gene space of organisms with limited or poorly characterized genomic resources.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Ali Seyed ◽  
Ibrahim Jantan ◽  
Syed Nasir Abbas Bukhari

The treatment of most cancers is still inadequate, despite tremendous steady progress in drug discovery and effective prevention. Nature is an attractive source of new therapeutics. Several medicinal plants and their biomarkers have been widely used for the treatment of cancer with less known scientific basis of their functioning. Although a wide array of plant derived active metabolites play a role in the prevention and treatment of cancer, more extensive scientific evaluation of their mechanisms is still required. Styryl-lactones are a group of secondary metabolites ubiquitous in the genusGoniothalamusthat have demonstrated to possess antiproliferative activity against cancer cells. A large body of evidence suggests that this activity is associated with the induction of apoptosis in target cells. In an effort to promote further research on the genusGoniothalamus, this review offers a broad analysis of the current knowledge onGoniothalamin(GTN) or 5, 6, dihydro-6-styryl-2-pyronone (C13H12O2), a natural occurring styryl-lactone. Therefore, it includes (i) the source of GTN and other metabolites; (ii) isolation, purification, and (iii) the molecular mechanisms of actions of GTN, especially the anticancer properties, and summarizes the role of GTN which is crucial for drug design, development, and application in future for well-being of humans.


GigaScience ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yujing Suo ◽  
Peng Sun ◽  
Huihui Cheng ◽  
Weijuan Han ◽  
Songfeng Diao ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Diospyros oleifera Cheng, of the family Ebenaceae, is an economically important tree. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that D. oleifera is closely related to Diospyros kaki Thunb. and could be used as a model plant for studies of D. kaki. Therefore, development of genomic resources of D. oleifera will facilitate auxiliary assembly of the hexaploid persimmon genome and elucidate the molecular mechanisms of important traits. Findings The D. oleifera genome was assembled with 443.6 Gb of raw reads using the Pacific Bioscience Sequel and Illumina HiSeq X Ten platforms. The final draft genome was ∼812.3 Mb and had a high level of continuity with N50 of 3.36 Mb. Fifteen scaffolds corresponding to the 15 chromosomes were assembled to a final size of 721.5 Mb using 332 scaffolds, accounting for 88.81% of the genome. Repeat sequences accounted for 54.8% of the genome. By de novo sequencing and analysis of homology with other plant species, 30,530 protein-coding genes with an average transcript size of 7,105.40 bp were annotated; of these, 28,580 protein-coding genes (93.61%) had conserved functional motifs or terms. In addition, 171 candidate genes involved in tannin synthesis and deastringency in persimmon were identified; of these chalcone synthase (CHS) genes were expanded in the D. oleifera genome compared with Diospyros lotus, Camellia sinensis, and Vitis vinifera. Moreover, 186 positively selected genes were identified, including chalcone isomerase (CHI) gene, a key enzyme in the flavonoid-anthocyanin pathway. Phylogenetic tree analysis indicated that the split of D. oleifera and D. lotus likely occurred 9.0 million years ago. In addition to the ancient γ event, a second whole-genome duplication event occurred in D. oleifera and D. lotus. Conclusions We generated a high-quality chromosome-level draft genome for D. oleifera, which will facilitate assembly of the hexaploid persimmon genome and further studies of major economic traits in the genus Diospyros.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Vita ◽  
Amedeo Alpi ◽  
Edoardo Bertolini

AbstractThe Italian white truffle (Tuber magnatum Pico) is a gastronomic delicacy that dominates the worldwide truffle market. Despite its importance, the genomic resources currently available for this species are still limited. Here we present the first de novo transcriptome assembly of T. magnatum. Illumina RNA-seq data were assembled using a single-k-mer approach into 22,932 transcripts with N50 of 1,524 bp. Our approach allowed to predict and annotate 12,367 putative protein coding sequences, reunited in 6,723 loci. In addition, we identified 2,581 gene-based SSR markers. This work provides the first publicly available reference transcriptome for genomics and genetic studies providing insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying the biology of this important species.


Author(s):  
Mauro Scaravilli ◽  
Sonja Koivukoski ◽  
Leena Latonen

Androgens are steroid hormones governing the male reproductive development and function. As such, androgens and the key mediator of their effects, androgen receptor (AR), have a leading role in many diseases. Prostate cancer is a major disease where AR and its transcription factor function affect a significant number of patients worldwide. While disease-related AR-driven transcriptional programs are connected to the presence and activity of the receptor itself, also novel modes of transcriptional regulation by androgens are exploited by cancer cells. One of the most intriguing and ingenious mechanisms is to bring previously unconnected genes under the control of AR. Most often this occurs through genetic rearrangements resulting in fusion genes where an androgen-regulated promoter area is combined to a protein-coding area of a previously androgen-unaffected gene. These gene fusions are distinctly frequent in prostate cancer compared to other common solid tumors, a phenomenon still requiring an explanation. Interestingly, also another mode of connecting androgen regulation to a previously unaffected gene product exists via transcriptional read-through mechanisms. Furthermore, androgen regulation of fusion genes and transcripts is not linked to only protein-coding genes. Pseudogenes and non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), including long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) can also be affected by androgens and de novo functions produced. In this review, we discuss the prevalence, molecular mechanisms, and functional evidence for androgen-regulated prostate cancer fusion genes and transcripts. We also discuss the clinical relevance of especially the most common prostate cancer fusion gene TMPRSS2-ERG, as well as present open questions of prostate cancer fusions requiring further investigation.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsin-Yen Larry Wu ◽  
Gaoyuan Song ◽  
Justin W. Walley ◽  
Polly Yingshan Hsu

mRNA translation is a critical step in gene expression, but our understanding of the landscape and control of translation in diverse crops remains lacking. Here, we combined de novo transcriptome assembly and ribosome profiling to study global mRNA translation in tomato roots. Taking advantage of the 3-nucleotide periodicity displayed by translating ribosomes, we identified 354 novel small ORFs (sORFs) translated from previously unannotated transcripts, as well as 1329 upstream ORFs (uORFs) translated within the 5-prime UTRs of annotated protein-coding genes. Proteomic analysis confirmed that some of these novel uORFs and sORFs generate stable proteins in planta. Compared with the annotated ORFs, the uORFs use more flexible Kozak sequences around translation start sites. Interestingly, uORF-containing genes are enriched for protein phosphorylation/dephosphorylation and signaling transduction pathways, suggesting a regulatory role for uORFs in these processes. We also demonstrated that ribosome profiling is useful to facilitate the annotation of translated ORFs and noncanonical translation initiation sites. In addition to defining the translatome, our results revealed the global control of mRNA translation by uORFs and microRNAs in tomato. In summary, our approach provides a high-throughput method to discover unannotated ORFs, elucidates evolutionarily conserved translational features, and identifies new regulatory mechanisms hidden in a crop genome.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruitao Liu ◽  
Yiming Wang ◽  
Peng Li ◽  
Lei Sun ◽  
Jianfu Jiang ◽  
...  

Grape white rot caused by Coniella diplodiella (Speg.) affects the production and quality of grapevine in China and other grapevine-growing countries. Despite the importance of C. diplodiella as a serious disease-causing agent in grape, the genome information and molecular mechanisms underlying its pathogenicity are poorly understood. To bridge this gap, 40.93 Mbp of C. diplodiella strain WR01 was de novo assembled. A total of 9,403 putative protein-coding genes were predicted. Among these, 608 and 248 genes are potentially secreted proteins and candidate effector proteins (CEPs), respectively. Additionally, the transcriptome of C. diplodiella was analyzed after feeding with crude grapevine leaf homogenates, which reveals the transcriptional expression of 9,115 genes. Gene ontology enrichment analysis indicated that the highly enriched genes are related with carbohydrate metabolism and secondary metabolite synthesis. Forty-three putative effectors were cloned from C. diplodiella, and applied for further functional analysis. Among them, one protein exhibited strong effect in the suppression of BCL2-associated X (BAX)-induced hypersensitive response after transiently expressed in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. This work facilitates valuable genetic basis for understanding the molecular mechanism underlying C. diplodiella-grapevine interaction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 941
Author(s):  
Maciej Florczyk ◽  
Paweł Brzuzan ◽  
Maciej Woźny

Microcystin-LR (MC-LR) is a potent hepatotoxin for which a substantial gap in knowledge persists regarding the underlying molecular mechanisms of liver toxicity and injury. Although long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been extensively studied in model organisms, our knowledge concerning the role of lncRNAs in liver injury is limited. Given that lncRNAs show low levels of sequence conservation, their role becomes even more unclear in non-model organisms without an annotated genome, like whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus). The objective of this study was to discover and profile aberrantly expressed polyadenylated lncRNAs that are involved in MC-LR-induced liver injury in whitefish. Using RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) data, we de novo assembled a high-quality whitefish liver transcriptome. This enabled us to find 94 differentially expressed (DE) putative evolutionary conserved lncRNAs, such as MALAT1, HOTTIP, HOTAIR or HULC, and 4429 DE putative novel whitefish lncRNAs, which differed from annotated protein-coding transcripts (PCTs) in terms of minimum free energy, guanine-cytosine (GC) base-pair content and length. Additionally, we identified DE non-coding transcripts that might be 3′ autonomous untranslated regions (3′UTRs) of mRNAs. We found both evolutionary conserved lncRNAs as well as novel whitefish lncRNAs that could serve as biomarkers of liver injury.


BMC Genomics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Shi ◽  
Zhizhi Wang ◽  
Xiqian Ye ◽  
Hongqing Xie ◽  
Fei Li ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Parasitic insects are well-known biological control agents for arthropod pests worldwide. They are capable of regulating their host’s physiology, development and behaviour. However, many of the molecular mechanisms involved in host-parasitoid interaction remain unknown. Results We sequenced the genomes of two parasitic wasps (Cotesia vestalis, and Diadromus collaris) that parasitize the diamondback moth Plutella xylostella using Illumina and Pacbio sequencing platforms. Genome assembly using SOAPdenovo produced a 178 Mb draft genome for C. vestalis and a 399 Mb draft genome for D. collaris. A total set that contained 11,278 and 15,328 protein-coding genes for C. vestalis and D. collaris, respectively, were predicted using evidence (homology-based and transcriptome-based) and de novo prediction methodology. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the braconid C. vestalis and the ichneumonid D. collaris diverged approximately 124 million years ago. These two wasps exhibit gene gains and losses that in some cases reflect their shared life history as parasitic wasps and in other cases are unique to particular species. Gene families with functions in development, nutrient acquisition from hosts, and metabolism have expanded in each wasp species, while genes required for biosynthesis of some amino acids and steroids have been lost, since these nutrients can be directly obtained from the host. Both wasp species encode a relative higher number of neprilysins (NEPs) thus far reported in arthropod genomes while several genes encoding immune-related proteins and detoxification enzymes were lost in both wasp genomes. Conclusions We present the annotated genome sequence of two parasitic wasps C. vestalis and D. collaris, which parasitize a common host, the diamondback moth, P. xylostella. These data will provide a fundamental source for studying the mechanism of host control and will be used in parasitoid comparative genomics to study the origin and diversification of the parasitic lifestyle.


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