Project description:Candida glabrata is a human-associated opportunistic fungal pathogen. It shares its niche with Lactobacillus spp. in the gastrointestinal and vaginal tract. In fact, Lactobacillus species are thought to competitively prevent Candida overgrowth. We investigated the molecular aspects of this antifungal effect by analyzing the interaction of C. glabrata strains with Limosilactobacillus fermentum. From a collection of clinical C. glabrata isolates, we identified strains with different sensitivities to L. fermentum in coculture. We analyzed the variation of their expression pattern to isolate the specific response to L. fermentum. C. glabrata-L. fermentum coculture induced genes associated with ergosterol biosynthesis, weak acid stress, and drug/chemical stress. L. fermentum coculture depleted C. glabrata ergosterol. The reduction of ergosterol was dependent on the Lactobacillus species, even in coculture with different Candida species. We found a similar ergosterol-depleting effect with other lactobacillus strains (Lactobacillus crispatus and Lactobacillus rhamosus) on Candida albicans, Candida tropicalis, and Candida krusei. The addition of ergosterol improved C. glabrata growth in the coculture. Blocking ergosterol synthesis with fluconazole increased the susceptibility against L. fermentum, which was again mitigated by the addition of ergosterol. In accordance, a C. glabrata Derg11 mutant, defective in ergosterol biosynthesis, was highly sensitive to L. fermentum. In conclusion, our analysis indicates an unexpected direct function of ergosterol for C. glabrata proliferation in coculture with L. fermentum.
Project description:The Oxford Nanopore technology has a great potential for the analysis of genome methylation, including full-genome methylome profiling. However, there are certain issues while identifying methylation motif sequences caused by low sensitivity of the currently available motif enrichment algorithms. Here, we present Snapper, a new highly-sensitive approach to extract methylation motif sequences based on a greedy motif selection algorithm. Snapper has shown higher enrichment sensitivity compared with the MEME tool coupled with Tombo or Nanodisco instruments, which was demonstrated on H. pylori strain J99 studied earlier using the PacBio technology. In addition, we used Snapper to characterize the total methylome of a new H.pylori strain A45. The analysis revealed the presence of at least 4 methylation sites that have not been described for H. pylori earlier. We experimentally confirmed a new CCAG-specific methyltransferase and indirectly inferred a new CCAAK-specific methyltransferase.
Project description:S. meliloti strains with a bi- and monopartite genome configuration were constructed by consecutive Cre/lox-mediated site-specific fusions of the secondary replicons. Beside the correct genomic arrangements, these strains and precursors were tested for variations in the nucleotide sequence. Futher, a marker fequency analysis was performed to test if replication is initiated at all origins and to determine the replication termination regions of the triple replicon fusion molecule. To gain the sequence data for these analyses, respective strains were applied to whole genome sequencing using an Illumina MiSeq-System and Oxford Nanopore (MinION) sequencing technology.
Project description:Transposon insertion site sequencing (TIS) is a powerful method for associating genotype to phenotype. However, all TIS methods described to date use short nucleotide sequence reads which cannot uniquely determine the locations of transposon insertions within repeating genomic sequences where the repeat units are longer than the sequence read length. To overcome this limitation, we have developed a TIS method using Oxford Nanopore sequencing technology that generates and uses long nucleotide sequence reads; we have called this method LoRTIS (Long Read Transposon Insertion-site Sequencing). This experiment data contains sequence files generated using Nanopore and Illumina platforms. Biotin1308.fastq.gz and Biotin2508.fastq.gz are fastq files generated from nanopore technology. Rep1-Tn.fastq.gz and Rep1-Tn.fastq.gz are fastq files generated using Illumina platform. In this study, we have compared the efficiency of two methods in identification of transposon insertion sites.