Project description:MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles by regulating the expression of target genes in plant and animal. However, little known about mechanism of fungal miRNA-like RNAs (milRNAs) regulating target gene restricts their functional exploration. In this study, multiple omics were used to identify the milRNAs and their target genes in a phytopathogenic fungus Valsa mali. Many candidate pathogenic factors were found to be regulated by milRNA-directed cleavage way. Absence or downregulated expression of Vm-milRNAs promote expression of candidate pathogenic factors during V. mali infection. Vm-milR16 is a significantly downregulated milRNA during V. mali infection, resulting in significantly upregulated expression of three target genes: VmSNF1, VmDODA, and VmHy1. Overexpression of Vm-milR16 significantly reduces the pathogenicity of V. mali. And all the three target genes of Vm-milR16 are required for the full pathogenicity of V. mali. Further analysis revealed that VmSNF1 regulates the pathogenicity by affecting the expression of pectinase genes during V. mali infection. And all the three target genes are essential for oxidative stress response during V. mali-host interaction. Vm-milRNAs may help V. mali to intelligently use limited resources and adaptively regulate pathogenicity by enhancing expression of pathogenic factors and fitness during infection.
2019-05-10 | GSE130968 | GEO
Project description:Agrilus mali gut microbial community diversity
Project description:Gut microbiome research is rapidly moving towards the functional characterization of the microbiota by means of shotgun meta-omics. Here, we selected a cohort of healthy subjects from an indigenous and monitored Sardinian population to analyze their gut microbiota using both shotgun metagenomics and shotgun metaproteomics. We found a considerable divergence between genetic potential and functional activity of the human healthy gut microbiota, in spite of a quite comparable taxonomic structure revealed by the two approaches. Investigation of inter-individual variability of taxonomic features revealed Bacteroides and Akkermansia as remarkably conserved and variable in abundance within the population, respectively. Firmicutes-driven butyrogenesis (mainly due to Faecalibacterium spp.) was shown to be the functional activity with the higher expression rate and the lower inter-individual variability in the study cohort, highlighting the key importance of the biosynthesis of this microbial by-product for the gut homeostasis. The taxon-specific contribution to functional activities and metabolic tasks was also examined, giving insights into the peculiar role of several gut microbiota members in carbohydrate metabolism (including polysaccharide degradation, glycan transport, glycolysis and short-chain fatty acid production). In conclusion, our results provide useful indications regarding the main functions actively exerted by the gut microbiota members of a healthy human cohort, and support metaproteomics as a valuable approach to investigate the functional role of the gut microbiota in health and disease.
Project description:In order to explore the role of LaeA in secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters’ regulation, toxin production, and virulence of Valsa mali, TMT-based proteomic analysis of wildtype, LaeA deletion mutant and overexpression mutant were performed. Totally, 4,299 proteins (FDR < 0.01) were identified by searching against the Valsa mali protein sequence database.