Project description:Seeds of the desert shrub, jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis) are an abundant, renewable source of liquid wax-esters, which are valued additives in cosmetic products and industrial lubricants. Jojoba is relegated to its own taxonomic family, and there is little genetic information available to elucidate its phylogeny. Here we report the high-quality, 887 Mb, genome of jojoba assembled into 26 chromosomes with 23,490 protein-coding genes. The jojoba genome has only the whole-genome triplication (γ) shared among eudicots, and no recent duplications. These genomic resources coupled with extensive transcriptome, proteome and lipidome data helped to define heterogeneous pathways and machinery for lipid synthesis and storage, provided missing evolutionary history information for this taxonomically-segregated dioecious plant species, and will support efforts to improve the agronomic properties of jojoba
Project description:Although the majority of previous work on campylobacteriosis has centered on the species Campylobacter jejuni, Campylobacter coli, the sister group to C. jejuni, is also a significant problem, but remains a much less studied organism. The purpose of this study was to develop and apply an expanded 16 locus MLST genotyping scheme to a large collection of C. coli isolates sampled from a wide range of host species, and to complete microarray comparative genomic hybridizations for these same strains, in order to: (1) determine whether host specific clones, genotypes, or clonal complexes are evident and (2) evaluate whether there are particular genes comprising the dispensable portion of the C. coli genome that are more commonly associated with certain host species. Genotyping and ClonalFrame analyses of the expanded MLST data suggest that (1) host preferred groups have tended to evolve in the diversification of C. coli, (2) this has happened repeatedly, at different times, throughout the evolutionary history of the species, and (3) recombination has played varying roles in the diversification of the different groups. Concomitant with the information on evolutionary history derived from the MLST data, the microarray data suggests that a combination of common ancestry in some cases and lateral gene transfer in others are behind a tendency for sets of genes to be common to isolates derived from particular hosts. Keywords: comparative genomic hybridization
Project description:Genotyping studies suggest that there is genetic variability among P. gingivalis strains, however the extent of variability remains unclear, and the regions of variability have only partially been identified. We previously used heteroduplex analysis of the ribosomal operon intergenic spacer region (ISR) to type P. gingivalis strains in several diverse populations, identifying 6 predominant heteroduplex types and many minor ones. In addition we used ISR sequence analysis to determine the relatedness of P. gingivalis strains to one another, and demonstrated a link between ISR sequence phylogeny and the disease-associated phenotype of P. gingivalis strains. The availability of whole genome microarrays based on the genomic sequence of strain W83 has allowed a more comprehensive analysis of P. gingivalis strain variability, using the entire genome. The objectives of this study were to define the phylogeny of P. gingivalis strains using the entire genome, to compare the phylogeny based on genome content to the phylogeny based on a single locus (ISR), and to identify genes that are associated with the strongly disease-associated strain W83 that could be important for virulence. Keywords: Comparative genomic hybridization
Project description:New genes are those that originated relatively recently and are only present in a subset of species in a phylogeny. Evidence from humans and other species has demonstrated that, despite their young age, new genes can exhibit novel functions that are essential for the survival of an organism. One potential mechanism by which new genes gain essential functions is through the acquisition of many new interactions with pre-existing genes. This hypothesis is consistent with well-established observations that genes with many interaction partners are more likely to have essential functions. However, the accumulation of gene-gene interactions is, on average, a slow evolutionary process. This raises the question of how, in a short evolutionary time, new genes can acquire multiple novel interactions and how this might lead to their essential roles in the survival of an organism. In this study, we characterized the evolutionary history and function of a young duplicated gene that quickly became essential for the survival of Drosophila melanogaster. This young gene (CG7804) duplicated from another essential gene (TBPH) through retrotransposition less than four million years ago (Zhang et al. 2010), and is present in few Drosophila species. We found that unlike its evolutionarily conserved, broadly expressed parental gene, CG7804 has evolved rapidly under positive selection since its birth. Despite its young age, functional analyses show that CG7804 is essential for the survival of D. melanogaster. In particular, its expression is essential at different tissues from its parental gene. RNA-seq and ChIP-seq analysis suggests that CG7804 acquired essential function to survival through gaining new DNA binding targets that influence the expression of a suite of genes with other essential function and large number of protein-protein interaction. Our study is an important step towards deciphering the evolutionary trajectory by which duplicated genes functionally diverge from the parental gene and become essential.