Project description:To investigate the cellular basis of parental species bias at birdsong, we performed single nuclei RNA-seq for six zebra finch and owl finch F1 hybrid juvenile birds.
Project description:The availability of viral entry factors is a prerequisite for the cross-species transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Large-scale single-cell screening on animal cells is a powerful tool to reveal the expression patterns of viral entry genes for different hosts. But such exploration for SARS-CoV-2 remained limited. Here, we presented the broadest pan-species single-nucleus RNA sequencing study to date, covering 11 representative species in pets (cat, dog, hamster, lizard), livestock (goat, rabbit), poultry (duck, pigeon) and wildlife (pangolin, tiger, deer), from which we investigated the co-expression of ACE2 and TMPRSS2. Notably, the proportion of SARS-CoV-2 putative target cells in cat was found considerably higher than that of other species investigated in this study, highlighting the necessity to carefully evaluate the role of cats during SARS-CoV-2 circulation. Furthermore, cross-species analysis of comparative lung cell atlas in mammals, reptiles and birds revealed core developmental programs, critical connectomes and conserved regulatory circuits among evolutionarily distant species. Additionally, we developed a user-friendly and freely accessible online platform named PANDORA for researchers to fully exploit the pan-species single cell atlas. Overall, our work provides a compendium of gene expression profiles for non-model animals, which could be employed to identify potential SARS-CoV-2 target cells and narrow down putative zoonotic reservoirs. Alternatively, our resources could also be utilized to illuminate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying animal tissue evolution.
Project description:Background
Specialized metabolism plays a crucial role in plant interactions with biotic and abiotic environments, and its characterization in crops is an essential objective for optimizing ecosystem services in breeding programs. However, our knowledge of specialized metabolism in cultivated Brassica species remains insufficient to fully support these breeding strategies.
Results
In this study, we conducted a detailed exploration of both constitutive and stress-induced specialized metabolites in response to CuCl2 in the leaves and roots of 20 Brassica rapa and B. oleracea accessions using UHPLC-HRMS/MS-based untargeted metabolomics. Our analysis revealed a wide range of species-specific chemical signatures and allowed the putative annotation of nearly 200 compounds belonging to various chemical families, including flavonoids, glucosinolates, phenolamides, indoles, amino acids, oxylipins and coumarins. A detailed interpretation of ion fragmentation patterns uncovered both inter- and intra-specific structural variations within these chemical families, providing deeper insights into the phytochemical diversity of B. rapa and B. oleracea species. This study also enabled the identification of previously unreported compounds in these species, including the carotenoid-derivatives blumenols, flavonols decorated with rhamnoside moieties or pentahexosylated flavonols. Finally, we showed that these resources, combined with the high-quality genetic data available for these accessions, allowed the identification of genetic variants of MAM2 genes possibly involved in the control of 4C or 3C/4C-aliphatic glucosinolate chemotypes among B. oleracea accessions.
Conclusions
This work thus lays the foundation for future studies on functional genomics of specialised metabolism in Brassica species in a chemical ecology perspective, and aiming to harness metabolic diversity in breeding programs.
Project description:To investigate the cellular basis of parental species bias at birdsong, we performed single nuclei RNA-seq for six zebra finch and owl finch F1 hybrid juvenile birds.