Project description:Miscanthus, a rhizomatous perennial plant, has great potential for bioenergy production for its high biomass and stress tolerance. We report a chromosome-scale assembly of Miscanthus lutarioriparius genome by combining Oxford Nanopore sequencing and Hi-C technologies. The 2.07-Gb assembly covers 96.64% of the genome, with contig N50 of 1.71 Mb. The centromere and telomere sequences are assembled for all 19 chromosomes and chromosome 10, respectively. Allotetraploid origin of the M. lutarioriparius is confirmed using centromeric satellite repeats. The tetraploid genome structure and several chromosomal rearrangements relative to sorghum are clearly demonstrated. Tandem duplicate genes of M. lutarioriparius are functional enriched not only in terms related to stress response, but cell wall biosynthesis. Gene families related to disease resistance, cell wall biosynthesis and metal ion transport are greatly expanded and evolved. The expansion of these families may be an important genomic basis for the enhancement of remarkable traits of M. lutarioriparius.
Project description:Comparative transcriptional profiling of N. crassa grown on five major crop straws of China (barley, corn, rice, soybean and wheat straws) revealed a highly overlapping group of 430 genes, the Biomass commonly Induced Core Set (BICS). A large proportion of induced carbohydrate-active-enzyme (CAZy) genes (82 out of 113) were also conserved across the five plant straws. Excluding 178 genes within the BICS that were also up-regulated under no-carbon conditions, the remaining 252 genes were defined as the Biomass Regulon (BR). Interestingly, 88 genes were only induced by plant biomass and not by three individual polysaccharides (Avicel, xylan, and pectin); these were denoted as the Biomass Unique Set (BUS). Deletion of one BUS gene, the transcriptional regulator rca-1, significantly improved lignocellulase production using plant biomass as the sole carbon source, possibly functioning via de-repression of the regulator clr-2. Thus, this result suggests that rca-1 is a potential engineering target for biorefineries, especially for plant biomass direct microbial conversion processes. Conidia of Neurospora crass wild type were inoculated at 10^6 conidia/mL into 100 mL 1×Vogel’s salts with 2% (w/w) ground crop straws, barley straw, corn straw, rice straw, soybean straw and wheat straw respectively for 30 h or 2% sucrose for 16 h. Then, mycelia were harvested through filtration and immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen.Total RNA from frozen sample was isolated with TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen) and further treated with DNase I (RNeasy Mini Kit, QIAGEN). The qualified RNA was prepared with standard protocol from Shenzhen BGI (China) and sequenced on the Illumina HiSeqTM 2000 platform.
Project description:Comparative transcriptional profiling of N. crassa grown on five major crop straws of China (barley, corn, rice, soybean and wheat straws) revealed a highly overlapping group of 430 genes, the Biomass commonly Induced Core Set (BICS). A large proportion of induced carbohydrate-active-enzyme (CAZy) genes (82 out of 113) were also conserved across the five plant straws. Excluding 178 genes within the BICS that were also up-regulated under no-carbon conditions, the remaining 252 genes were defined as the Biomass Regulon (BR). Interestingly, 88 genes were only induced by plant biomass and not by three individual polysaccharides (Avicel, xylan, and pectin); these were denoted as the Biomass Unique Set (BUS). Deletion of one BUS gene, the transcriptional regulator rca-1, significantly improved lignocellulase production using plant biomass as the sole carbon source, possibly functioning via de-repression of the regulator clr-2. Thus, this result suggests that rca-1 is a potential engineering target for biorefineries, especially for plant biomass direct microbial conversion processes.