Project description:Transcriptional differentiation in response to environmental stresses plays critical roles in adaptation. Mangroves are dominant in intertidal zones and form dense forest at the sea-land interface, but little is known about the impact of transcriptional phenotype on their adaptation to the saline environments. To address this issue, we prepared customized chips containing cDNA from the root cDNA library of a mangrove species, Ceriops tagal, and then monitored the time-course transcript profiles in the roots by conducting a series of microarray experiments. Five durations of salt shock with 500 mM NaCl, namely 2, 5, 10, 24 and 192 hours, were included. A total of 88 unigenes that were recognized to be up- or down-regulated by salt shock and both gene categories in relation to stresses-induced responses and transcription factor activity were over-predominant. The stresses-responsive genes were significantly overrepresented, some of which were regulated in differential manners from their homologues genes in Arabidopsis. Specific transcriptional regulations were employed by C. tagal to cope with salt shock, which could benefit the salt-tolerant lifestyle of this mangrove species and possibly contribute to establishment of adaptation to the saline environments.
Project description:Mangrove plants are the demonstrated woody plants in tropical and subtropical coastal area with great ecological and economic importance. However, due to the extreme global climate change and increased human activities, mangroves is suffering a dramatic declining worldwide. Lumnitzera littorea (Jack) Voigt is one of the most endangered mangrove species in China. A comprehensive understanding on its resistance mechanisms to low ambient temperature help us to better conserve and restore L. littorea. In the current study, we performed comparative transcriptome analysis to investigate the genome-wide changes of gene expression profile in L. littorea under chilling stress (8°C day/5°C night) over normal condition (25°C day/23°C night). The low temperature suppressed fatty acid elongation and protein phosphorylation in L. littorea, while induced calcium ion binding process and signaling transduction, suggesting an activation of cold-stress sensing and signaling in L. littorea. Combining our analysis with our previous physiological assays, we showed a substantial photoinhibition occurring in the seedlings of L. littorea with the decrease of ambient temperature, and the synthesis of photosystem II reaction center protein D1 and peroxidase-involved scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS) were enhanced accordingly to combat the adverse impacts. Finally, we highlighted the biological significance of post-transcriptional regulation, including RNA binding and surveillance, in coping with cold stress in L. littorea. Collectively, our findings provide a global view to the resistance mechanisms of chilling stress in L. littorea, and valuable genetic resources to assist the protection and restoration of L. littorea.
Project description:Transcriptional differentiation in response to environmental stresses plays critical roles in adaptation. Mangroves are dominant in intertidal zones and form dense forest at the sea-land interface, but little is known about the impact of transcriptional phenotype on their adaptation to the saline environments. To address this issue, we prepared customized chips containing cDNA from the root cDNA library of a mangrove species, Ceriops tagal, and then monitored the time-course transcript profiles in the roots by conducting a series of microarray experiments. Five durations of salt shock with 500 mM NaCl, namely 2, 5, 10, 24 and 192 hours, were included. A total of 88 unigenes that were recognized to be up- or down-regulated by salt shock and both gene categories in relation to stresses-induced responses and transcription factor activity were over-predominant. The stresses-responsive genes were significantly overrepresented, some of which were regulated in differential manners from their homologues genes in Arabidopsis. Specific transcriptional regulations were employed by C. tagal to cope with salt shock, which could benefit the salt-tolerant lifestyle of this mangrove species and possibly contribute to establishment of adaptation to the saline environments. A reference design was used to analyze gene expression differences. Salt stressed young roots were harvested from seedlings of C. tagal at the ends of each shock duration. Young roots of unshocked seedlings were used as controls and harvested at the same time. Three biological replicates were set up for each treatment and corresponding control, respectively, each containing a pool of total RNA from 4 seedlings. Salt stressed samples were compared with the corresponding controls at each time point by co-hybridizing to the customized cDNA arrays
Project description:The Chinese forest musk deer (FMD; Moschus berezovskii) is an endangered artiodactyl mammal. Musk secreted by the musk gland of male FMD has extremely high economic and medicinal value. At present, little is known about the development of musk glands and the molecular mechanism of musk secretion. In the present research, using snRNA-seq and snATAC-seq association analysis performed on musk glands of forest musk deer, coupled with several bioinformatics analyses, the dynamic transcriptional cell atlas of musk gland development was revealed and the genes and transcription factors affecting musk secretion were determined. Based on uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP) analysis, we identified 12 cell types from musk glands, including two different acinar cells (clusters 0 and 10). In addition, the expression of core target genes and core transcription factors was verified by fluorescence in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. Combined with weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), we obtained a deeper biological understanding of the relationship between core transcription factors, differentially expressed genes and musk secretion related pathways. This study lays a foundation for improving musk yield and meeting market demand. In the meantime, it also contributes to reducing the hunting and poaching of wild forest musk deer, protecting forest musk deer resources and maintaining ecological balance.
Project description:Deadwood plays a crucial role in forest ecosystems, but we have limited information about the specific fungal taxa and extracellular lignocellulolytic enzymes that are actively involved in the decomposition process in situ. To investigate this, we studied the fungal metaproteome of twelve deadwood tree species in a replicated, eight-year experiment. Key fungi observed included genera of white-rot fungi (Basidiomycota, e.g. Armillaria, Hypholoma, Mycena, Ischnoderma, Resinicium), brown-rot fungi (Basidiomycota, e.g. Fomitopsis, Antrodia), diverse Ascomycota including xylariacous soft-rot fungi (e.g. Xylaria, Annulohypoxylon, Nemania) and various wood-associated endophytes and saprotrophs (Ascocoryne, Trichoderma, Talaromyces). These fungi used a whole range of extracellular lignocellulolytic enzymes, such as peroxidases, peroxide-producing enzymes, laccases, cellulases, glucosidases, hemicellulases (xylanases) and lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs). Both the fungi and enzymes were tree-specific, with specialists and generalists being distinguished by network analysis. The extracellular enzymatic system was highly redundant, with many enzyme classes of different origins present simultaneously in all decaying logs. Strong correlations were found between peroxide-producing enzymes (oxidases) and peroxidases as well as LPMOs, and between ligninolytic, cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic enzymes. The overall protein abundance of lignocellulolytic enzymes was reduced by up to -30% in gymnosperm logs compared to angiosperm logs, and gymnosperms lacked ascomycetous enzymes, which may have contributed to the lower decomposition of gymnosperm wood. In summary, we have obtained a comprehensive and detailed insight into the enzymatic machinery of wood-inhabiting fungi in several temperate forest tree species, which can help to improve our understanding of the complex ecological processes in forest ecosystems.
Project description:To identify key genes in the regulation of salt tolerance in the mangrove plant Bruguiera gymnorhiza, the transcriptome profiling under salt stress was carried out. Main roots and lateral roots were collected from the mangrove plants at 0, 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 h, 3 6 and 12 days after NaCl-treatment. Keywords: time course, stress response, root type comparison
Project description:A Random Forest model is developed to incorporate tumor mutation data within the context of the biological process known as leukocyte proliferation regulation. This model aims to predict a patient's response to anti-PD1 treatment.
The authors conducted experiments using four different types of classifiers: Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, Feed Forward Neural Network, and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network. Among these classifiers, the Random Forest algorithm yielded the best predictive performance when modeling gene mutation data associated with the 'leukocyte proliferation regulation' biological process. Hence, this curated version of the model focuses on the Random Forest model trained specifically on the 'Leukocyte Proliferation Regulation' process.
In this model, a value of '0' is assigned to NonResponders, while a value of '1' is assigned to Responders. Please note that to obtain predictions, users should provide mutation data containing only the genes corresponding to the 'GO_REGULATION_OF_LEUKOCYTE_PROLIFERATION' process keyword, as specified in the 'GO_test_genes_dict_intersection' dictionary.
Project description:It has long been recognized that species occupy a specific ecological niche within their ecosystem. The ecological niche is defined as the number of conditions and resources that limit species distribution. Within their ecological niche, species do not exist in a single physiological state but in a number of states we call the Natural Operating Range. In this paper we link ecological niche theory to physiological ecology by measuring gene expression levels of collembolans exposed to various natural conditions. The soil-dwelling collembolan Folsomia candida was exposed to 26 natural soils with different soil characteristics (soil type, land use, practice, etc). The animals were exposed for two days and gene expression levels were measured. The main factor found to regulate gene expression was the soil type (sand or clay), in which 18.5% of the measured genes were differentially expressed. Gene Ontology analysis showed animals exposed to sandy soils experience general stress, affecting cell homeostasis and replication. Multivariate analysis linking soil chemical data to gene expression data revealed that soil fertility influences gene expression. Land-use and practice had less influence on gene expression; only forest soils showed a different expression pattern. A variation in gene expression variation analysis showed overall low variance in gene expression. The large difference in response to soil type was caused by the soil physicochemical properties where F. candida experiences clay soils and sandy soils as very different from each other. This collembolan prefers fertile soils with high organic matter content, as soil fertility was found to correlate with gene expression and animals exposed to sandy soils (which, in general, have lower organic matter content) experience more general stress. Finally, we conclude that there is no such thing as a fixed physiological state for animals in their ecological niche and the boundary between the ecological niche and a stressed state depends on the genes/pathways investigated.