Project description:We established simple synthetic microbial communities in a microcosm model system to determine the mechanisms that underlay cross-feeding in microbial methane-consuming communities. Co-occurring strains from Lake Washington sediment were used that are involved in methane consumption, a methanotroph and two non-methanotrophic methylotrophs.
Project description:The increased urban pressures are often associated with specialization of microbial communities. Microbial communities being a critical player in the geochemical processes, makes it important to identify key environmental parameters that influence the community structure and its function.In this proect we study the influence of land use type and environmental parameters on the structure and function of microbial communities. The present study was conducted in an urban catchment, where the metal and pollutants levels are under allowable limits. The overall goal of this study is to understand the role of engineered physicochemical environment on the structure and function of microbial communities in urban storm-water canals.
Project description:The increased urban pressures are often associated with specialization of microbial communities. Microbial communities being a critical player in the geochemical processes, makes it important to identify key environmental parameters that influence the community structure and its function.In this proect we study the influence of land use type and environmental parameters on the structure and function of microbial communities. The present study was conducted in an urban catchment, where the metal and pollutants levels are under allowable limits. The overall goal of this study is to understand the role of engineered physicochemical environment on the structure and function of microbial communities in urban storm-water canals. Microbial community structure was determined using PhyoChio (G3)
Project description:To study the soil mcirobial functional communities and the nutrient cycles couplings changes after exposure to different contaminant
Project description:Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) is a complex multisystem developmental disorder caused by mutations in cohesin subunits and regulators. While the precise molecular mechanisms are not well defined, they point toward a global deregulation of the transcriptional gene expression program. Indeed, cohesin is associated with the boundaries of chromosome domains in addition to enhancers and promoters connecting the 3D genome organization with transcriptional control and gene expression. Here we show that connected gene communities, built with noncoding regulatory elements and genes physically interacting in the 3D chromosomal space, provide a molecular explanation for the pathoetiology of CdLS. Indeed, NIPBL and cohesin are important constituents of connected gene communities, both being centrally positioned at active noncoding regulatory elements. Interestingly, mutations in SMC1A and NIPBL lead to coordinated gene expression changes in connected communities. Our findings suggest a model where CdLS is explained by coordinated modulation of connected gene communities.
Project description:Iron-sulfur minerals such as pyrite are found in many marine benthic habitats. At deep-sea hydrothermal vent sites they occur as massive sulfide chimneys. Hydrothermal chimneys formed by mineral precipitation from reduced vent fluids upon mixing with cold oxygenated sea water. While microorganisms inhabiting actively venting chimneys and utilizing reduced compounds dissolved in the fluids for energy generation are well studied, only little is known about the microorganisms inhabiting inactive sulfide chimneys. We performed a comprehensive meta-proteogenomic analysis combined with radiometric dating to investigate the diversity and function of microbial communities found on inactive sulfide chimneys of different ages from the Manus Basin (SW Pacific). Our study sheds light on potential lifestyles and ecological niches of yet poorly described bacterial clades dominating inactive chimney communities.
Project description:Lake trout are used as bioindicators for toxics exposure in the Great Lakes ecosystem. However, there is no knowledge about lake trout proteome. Here we performed the first lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) liver proteomics and searched the databases against (NCBI and UniProtKB) Salvelinus, Salmonidae, Actinopterygii and the more distant Danio rerio. In the NCBI search, we identified 4371 proteins in 1252 clusters. From these proteins, we found 2175 proteins in Actinopterygii 1253 in Salmonidae, 69 in Salvelinus and 901 in Danio rerio NCBI searches. In the UniProtKB search, we identified 2630 proteins in 1100 clusters. From these proteins, we found 317 in Actinopterygii, 1653 in Salmonidae, 37 in Salvelinus and 666 in Danio rerio UniProtKB searches. A similar outcome was also obtained from a technical replicate experiment. A large number of lake trout liver proteins were not in any Salvelinus databases, suggesting that lake trout liver proteins have homologues to some proteins from the Salmonidae family and Actinopterygii class, as well as to the species Danio rerio, a more highly studied Cypriniformes fish. Therefore, our study not only builds the first comprehensive lake trout protein database, but also establishes protein homology-based evolutionary relationships between the fish within their family and class, as well as distant-related fish (lake trout and zebrafish). In addition, this study opens the possibility of identifying evolutionary relationships (i.e. adaptive mutations) between various groups (i.e. zebrafish, Salmonidae, Salvelinus and lake trout) through evolutionary proteomics
Project description:Deep Lake is a hypersaline system in Antarctica (68°33’36.8S, 78°11’48.7E) that is so saline it remains liquid at –20°C (DeMaere et al 2013). The lake is dominated by haloarchaea, comprising a low-complexity community that differs greatly to warm-hot latitude hypersaline systems, is hierarchical structured, and supports a high level of intergenera gene exchange. Metaproteomics was performed on biomass that was collected in the austral summer of 2008 by sequential size fractionation (20 – 3 µm, 3 – 0.8 µm, 0.8 – 0.1 µm). The data were integrated to obtain a systems level view of the active host-virus interactions occurring in this novel aquatic Antarctic system. DeMaere MZ, Williams TJ, Allen MA, Brown MV, Gibson JA, Rich J, Lauro FM, Dyall-Smith M, Davenport KW, Woyke T, Kyrpides NC, Tringe SG, Cavicchioli R (2013) High level of intergenera gene exchange shapes the evolution of haloarchaea in an isolated Antarctic lake. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110: 16939-16944