Project description:This study aims to provide referrable transcriptomic data for the exploration of floral pigment biosynthesis in hyacinth cultivars. This dataset consists of 189 RNA-Seq libraries prepared for seven cultivars at different developmental stages and perianth partitions, generated 1256.8 gigabytes data in total. After removal of adaptor trimming and quality trimming, the qualified sequences were adopted for de novo assembly of mRNA. The gene expressions were quantified as read counts and then normalized into FPKM. This study provides the first profiling on the gene expression of hyacinth, contributing to the new-generation molecular breeding in producing noval hyacinth cultivars.
Project description:Current protection strategies against the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea rely on a combination of conventional fungicides and host genetic resistance. Defence elicitors can stimulate plant defence mechanisms through a phenomenon known as priming. Priming results on a faster and/or stronger expression of resistance upon pathogen attack. This work aims to study priming of a commercial formulation of the elicitor Chitosan. Treatments with Chitosan result in induced resistance in solanaceous and brassicaceous plants. Large-scale transcriptomic analysis in this study revealed that Chitosan primes gene expression at early time-points after infection. Four conditions were analysed using microarrays: (i) water-treated and non-infected plants (Water + Mock); (ii) Chitosan-treated and non-infected plants (Chitosan + Mock); (iii) water-treated and B. cinerea-infected plants (Water + B. cinerea); (iv) Chitosan-treated and B. cinerea-infected plants (Chitosan + B. cinerea). Inoculations were performed four days after treatment with Chitosan, and leaf discs from four independent plants (biological replicates) per treatment were sampled at 6 h, 9 h and 12 h post-inoculation (hpi) with water mock or B. cinerea spores.
Project description:Daphnia magna is a bio-indicator organism accepted by several international water quality regulatory agencies. Current approaches for assessment of water quality rely on acute and chronic toxicity that provide no insight into the cause of toxicity. Recently, molecular approaches, such as genome wide gene expression responses, are enabling an alternative mechanism based approach to toxicity assessment. While these genomic methods are providing important mechanistic insight into toxicity, statistically robust prediction systems that allow the identification of chemical contaminants from the molecular response to exposure are needed. Here we apply advanced machine learning approaches to develop predictive models of contaminant exposure using a D. magna gene expression dataset for 36 chemical exposures. We demonstrate here that we can discriminate between chemicals belonging to different chemical classes including endocrine disruptors, metals and industrial chemicals based on gene expression. We also show that predictive models based on indices of whole pathway transcriptional activity can achieve comparable results while facilitating biological interpretability.
2013-01-17 | GSE43564 | GEO
Project description:The complete chloroplast genome of Asian water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)
Project description:Dracunculus medinensis, also called the Guinea worm, is a nematode that causes dracunculiasis, a debilitating neglected tropical disease in humans. The parasite is currently targeted by the global Guinea Worm Eradication Program (GWEP). Historically, GWEP in endemic countries have focused on interrupting transmission of the disease through intervention such as isolation and management of patients, health education, provision of improved water sources and promotion of filtering drinking water from unimproved water sources to avoid ingestion of the copepod intermediate host (IH) that may contain infectious third-stage larvae, and treatment of water sources to kill copepods. The recent shift of Guinea worm infections in animals - particularly domestic dogs - has introduced an additional challenge to the eradication program, underscoring the urgent need for diagnostics and therapeutics. Understanding the parasite biology and survival strategies in the mammalian host, the copepod IH, and fresh water is pivotal to identifying new control measures. Comparative transcriptomic analysis provides a powerful tool to uncover the molecular mechanisms underlying parasite survival and adaptations. Here, we compared the transcriptome of adult gravid female and first-stage larvae (L1), the stage infective for the copepod IH. Comparative transcriptomic analysis of two adult females and their L1 revealed an upregulation of genes involved in translation, transcription, and DNA repair in L1, likely reflecting adaptations essential for survival in freshwater and subsequent infection of copepods. Additionally, genes involved in cuticle formation were upregulated in adult females highlighting the role of cuticle integrity in retaining millions of L1 until the gravid female worm emerges. We identified highly expressed genes in the adult female that may represent promising candidates for diagnostic markers.This study provides novel insights into the biology of the Guinea worm by examining the transcriptome of L1 and adult female stages. These findings could support the development of novel diagnostics and therapeutics to advance the ongoing eradication effort.
Project description:Amplicon-based fungal metagenomic sequencing for the identification of fungal species in brain tissue from Alzheimer's disease. The study consists in 14 samples, sequenced using Illumina's paired-end technology.
Project description:Rapid phenotypic changes in adaptive traits are crucial for organisms to thrive in changing environments. Alternanthera philoxeroides, originally a terrestrial plant from South America, has become an invasive weed in Asia, capable of colonizing both aquatic and terrestrial habitats. The mechanism by which this invasive habitat is rapidly achieved without genetic variation remains unknown. Here, we demonstrate that miRNA activity in A. philoxeroides plays a significant role in its high invasive capacity. Our results highlight that an intact miRNA pathway is essential for the survival of A.philoxeroides in aquatic habitats. We identified one key miRNA, Aph-miR162, that promotes rapid elongation of stem in aquatic environments. Upon water submergence, the levels of miR162 significantly increased in stems from 3 hours to 24 hours. TRV based VIGS-mediated knockdown of Aph-miR162 significantly disrupted stem elongation in water submergence condition, ultimately resulting in a failure of plants protruding from the water surface. Interestingly, miR162 was not up-regulated in the non-invasive sibling species Alternanthera pungens, which also originates from South America but has retained its original terrestrial habitats in Asia. More importantly, delivering the antisense RNA oligos complementary to Aph-miR162 via the nanoparticle method significantly impaired stem elongation upon water submergence, causing A. philoxeroides to wither after 2-3 weeks. Thus, our findings reveal that the miRNA pathway can drive rapid phenotypic variation, facilitating adaptation to aquatic environments. Importantly, miR162 has the potential as a bio-pesticide for controlling the invasive capacity of A. philoxeroides.