Project description:Sepioloidea lineolata, the striped pyjama squid (family Sepiadariidae), is a small species of benthic squid distributed along the Southern Indo-Pacific coast of Australia. All sepiadariid squids are known to secrete large volumes of viscous slime when stressed. The proteome of S. lineolata slime was analysed by combining high resolution mass spectrometry data with an S. lineolata transcriptome assembled from five tissues including slime. The composition of S. lineolata slime was also compared to that of the closely related S. austrinum (southern bottletail squid). Of the 550 protein groups identified in S. lineolata slime, 321 had orthologs in S. austrinum, and the abundance of these (iBAQ) was highly correlated between species. Both slimes were dominated by a small number of highly abundant proteins and several of these were short secreted proteins that had no homologues outside the class Cephalopoda. The extent of N-glycosylation in the slime of S. lineolata was also studied via glycan cleavage with PNGase-F. Four proteins had strong evidence of N-glycosylated, with treatment with PNGase-F showing a slight increase in peptide identification rates.
Project description:Sepioloidea lineolata, the striped pyjama squid (family Sepidariidae), is a small species of benthic squid distributed along the Southern Indo-Pacfic coast of Australia. All Sepiadariid squids are known to secrete large volumes of viscous slime when stressed. The proteome of the slime, dorsal and ventral mantle muscle, the dorsal and ventral mantle epithelium and ventral mantle glands was analysed by combining label-free quantitative analysis using high resolution mass spectrometry data with an S. lineolata transcriptome assembled from give tissues including slime. A total of 28 highly positively differentially expressed proteins were identified within the slime and were predominately comprised of a host of enzymes including peptidases and protease inhibitors. Seven of these proteins contained predicted signal peptides, indicating classical secretion, with four proteins having no identifiable domains or similarity to any known proteins.
Project description:Stomach-less fishes comprise a diverse phylogenetic group within the teleosts indicating that the organ has been lost several times during evolution. In the present project we have combined Illumina short read platform with the PacBio long read platform to sequence the ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta) genome and its intestinal transcriptome. The genome was applied to investigate the elimination and conservation of genes related to stomach function and appetite regulation in wrasse in relation to the loss of stomach in this species. We have sequenced the transcriptome of four intestinal segments from six ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta) for the purpose of identifying possible functional organization along the wrasse intestine. The transcriptomic reads were mapped against the newly assembled genome. The analysis revealed a transcriptional gradient showing genes involved in nutrient digestion and uptake being highly expressed in the anterior intestine and declining towards the end of the intestine. The last segment, hind-gut, had the most distinct expression between the four segments with increased expression of genes coding for proteins involved in lysosomal activity, antigen presenting and vitamin b12 uptake. Overall, our results suggests that the wrasse entire digestive system is comparable to the small intestine of mammals with regards to gene expression missing both a stomach and colon. Gene expression related to colon in humans such as MS4A12 were found in the last segment. The genome analysis also confirmed the lack of genes coding for gastric proteins such as gastric lipase, pepsin, gastrin and ghrelin. Although ghrelin is not only related to stomach, ghrelin was missing in all stomach-less fish species with the exception of cyprinid. Ghrelin is currently the only known orexigenic hormone.
Project description:The genetic structure of the indigenous hunter-gatherer peoples of Southern Africa, the oldest known lineage of modern man, holds an important key to understanding humanity's early history. Previously sequenced human genomes have been limited to recently diverged populations. Here we present the first complete genome sequences of an indigenous hunter-gatherer from the Kalahari Desert and of a Bantu from Southern Africa, as well as protein-coding regions from an additional three hunter-gatherers from disparate regions of the Kalahari. We characterize the extent of whole-genome and exome diversity among the five men, reporting 1.3 million novel DNA differences genome-wide, and 13,146 novel amino-acid variants. These data allow genetic relationships among Southern African foragers and neighboring agriculturalists to be traced more accurately than was previously possible. Adding the described variants to current databases will facilitate inclusion of Southern Africans in medical research efforts.