Project description:Background: The soil environment is responsible for sustaining most terrestrial plant life on earth, yet we know surprisingly little about the important functions carried out by diverse microbial communities in soil. Soil microbes that inhabit the channels of decaying root systems, the detritusphere, are likely to be essential for plant growth and health, as these channels are the preferred locations of new root growth. Understanding the microbial metagenome of the detritusphere and how it responds to agricultural management such as crop rotations and soil tillage will be vital for improving global food production. Methods: The rhizosphere soils of wheat and chickpea growing under + and - decaying root were collected for metagenomics sequencing. A gene catalogue was established by de novo assembling metagenomic sequencing. Genes abundance was compared between bulk soil and rhizosphere soils under different treatments. Conclusions: The study describes the diversity and functional capacity of a high-quality soil microbial metagenome. The results demonstrate the contribution of the microbiome from decaying root in determining the metagenome of developing root systems, which is fundamental to plant growth, since roots preferentially inhabit previous root channels. Modifications in root microbial function through soil management, can ultimately govern plant health, productivity and food security.
Project description:Genome wide high resolution assay of copy number in a series of frozen, microdissected head and neck cancers originating from the oral cavity. The objective was to characterize areas of amplification and deletion in head and neck cancers arising from the oral cavity subsite.
Project description:DNA, RNA and protein were extracted from the culture and subjected to massive parallel sequencing and nano-LC-MS-MS respectively Combination of these methods enabled the reconstruction of the complete genome sequence of M oxyfera from the metagenome and identification of the functionally relevant enzymes and genes
Project description:Oral cavity Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OCSCC) is a common form of head and neck cancer through the developed and developing world. However, the etiology of OCSCC is still unclear. To explore whether smoking, HPV and/or other underlying genetic and transcriptomic changes could be responsible for the oncogenesis events for OCSCC. A prospective observational study of fresh tissue biopsy from 45 participants with OCSCC collected from Brisbane Head and Neck Clinics between 2013 to 2015. Exploration of the genetic and transcriptomic landscape was performed using RNA sequencing and whole exome sequencing. Identification of HPV was to be performed using DNA PCR genotyping and RNA sequencing. Patient medical records were retrieved and the patient demographics were used to correlate with genomic and transcriptomics analyses, including the location of the tumor within the oral cavity, smoking and alcohol histories.
Project description:Sequencing the metatranscriptome can provide information about the response of organisms to varying environmental conditions. We present a methodology for obtaining random whole-community mRNA from a complex microbial assemblage using Pyrosequencing. The metatranscriptome had, with minimum contamination by ribosomal RNA, significant coverage of abundant transcripts, and included significantly more potentially novel proteins than in the metagenome. Keywords: metatranscriptome, mesocosm, ocean acidification
Project description:In mouse peritoneal and other serous cavities, the transcription factor Gata6 drives the identity of the major cavity resident population of macrophages, with a smaller subset of cavity-resident macrophages dependent on the transcription factor Irf4. Here we showed that GATA6+ macrophages in the human peritoneum were rare, regardless of age. Instead, more human peritoneal macrophages aligned with mouse CD206+ LYVE1+ cavity macrophages that represent a differentiation stage just preceding expression of Gata6. Low abundance of CD206+ macrophages was retained in C57BL/6J mice fed a high-fat diet or in wild-captured mice, suggesting that differences between serous cavity-resident macrophages in humans and mice were not environmental. Irf4-dependent mouse serous cavity macrophages aligned closely with human CD1c+CD14+CD64+ peritoneal cells that, in turn, resembled human peritoneal CD1c+CD14-CD64- cDC2. Thus, major populations of serous cavity-resident mononuclear phagocytes in humans and mice shared common features but the proportions of different macrophage differentiation stages greatly differ between the two species and DC2-like cells were especially prominent in humans.