Project description:Brassica nigra plants, a Brassicaceae close to Arabidopsis thaliana, was used for combined stresses experiments. In this study, we performed a whole-genome microarray analysis on five-week-old plants and compared untreated plants and plants treated different single or dual stresses: the larvae Pieris brassicae, egg extract of Pieris brassicae, the bacterial Xanthomonas campestris pv. raphani, the aphid Brevicoryne brassicae or by combined stresses eggs of P. brassicae / P. brassicae, X. campestris / P. brassicae, B. brassicae / P. brassicae.
Project description:Plants can cope with stress better if they experience a mild form of the stress before the actual \\"real\\" stress event. In Arabidopsis thaliana it is known that plants that harboured eggs of the White cabbage butterfly (Pieris brassicae) before larval feeding can defend better against the herbivore stress. The main aim of the experiment was to compare the priming effect induced by insect egg deposition of Pieris brassicae between vegetative and reproductive (first open flowers) Arabidopsis thaliana plants on the transcriptional level. We used a full factorial setup consisting of a) untreated control plants , b) plants which experienced eggs for 6 days without larval feeding after that period, c) plants which experienced no eggs before larval feeding for 24 hours d) plants which experienced eggs for 6 days and larval herbivory for 24 hours. This setup was conducted with 6 week old vegetative plants and 10 week old reproductive plants were the first flowers were open. For all treatments leaf tissue from the leaves that experienced egg oviposition and/or larval feeding were collected. From reproductive plants flower buds were collected as well.
Project description:To investigate the impact of a plant´s response to abiotic stress on plant defense against subsequent biotic stress, we determined the transcriptional response of Arabidopsis thaliana to low temperature stress (4°C) and subsequent mechanical wounding or larval feeding damage by the herbivores Mamestra brassicae (generalist) and Pieris brassicae (specialist). In total, 21%, 4% and 14% of all genes responsive to M. brassicae, P. brassicae or mechanical wounding were differentially regulated in previously cold-treated compared to untreated plants.
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:Brassica nigra plants, a Brassicaceae close to Arabidopsis thaliana, was used for combined stresses experiments. In this study, we performed a whole-genome microarray analysis on five-week-old plants and compared untreated plants and plants treated with ozone at 70 ppb, larvae of Pieris brassicae or both ozone followed by P. brassicae insect.
Project description:Expression profiling of the affect of eggs of the Pieris brassicae butterfly on Arabidopsis thaliana local leaf vs. the distal leaf using leaf disks the size of the egg batch.
