Project description:Dinoflagellates possess many physiological processes that appear to be under post-transcriptional control. However, the extent to which their genes are regulated post-transcriptionally remains unresolved. To gain insight into role of de novo transcription in dinoflagellates, we biosynthetically labeled RNA with 4-thiouracil to isolate newly transcribed RNA in Karenia brevis. These isolated fractions were then used for analysis of global de novo transcription by hybridization to a K. brevis microarray. As previous microarray studies indicated that transcripts for pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins rapidly increased in response to nutrient addition, we queried the newly synthesized RNA pools at 1 and 4 h following nitrate addition to N-depleted cultures. Transcriptome-wide there was little evidence of changes in the rate of de novo transcription during the first 4 h, relative to that in N-depleted cells, and no evidence for increased PPR protein transcription. These results lend support to the growing consensus of post-transcriptional control of gene expression in dinoflagellates.
Project description:Dinoflagellates possess many physiological processes that appear to be under post-transcriptional control. However, the extent to which their genes are regulated post-transcriptionally remains unresolved. To gain insight into the role of differential mRNA stability in dinoflagellates, we biosynthetically labeled RNA with 4-thiouracil to isolate newly transcribed and pre-existing RNA pools in Karenia brevis. These isolated fractions were then used for analysis of global mRNA stability by hybridization to a K. brevis microarray. Global K. brevis mRNA half-lives were calculated from the ratio of newly transcribed/pre-existing RNA for 7086 array features using the online software HALO (Half-life Organizer). Overall, mRNA half-lives were substantially longer than reported in other organisms studied at the global level, ranging from 42 minutes to greater than 3 days, with a median of 33 hours. Thirteen percent of messages showed a half-life of 3 days, demonstrating their stability throughtout the course of the cell cycle and divison. Consistent with well-documented trends observed in other organisms, housekeeping processes, including energy metabolism and transport, were significantly enriched in the most highly stable messages. Shorter-lived transcripts included a higher proportion of transcriptional regulation, stress response, and other response/regulatory processes.
Project description:The presence of anti-microbial phenolic compounds, such as the model compound ferulic acid, in biomass hydrolysates poses significant challenges to the widespread use of biomass in conjunction with whole cell biocatalysis or fermentation. Currently, these inhibitory compounds must be removed through additional downstream processing to create feedstock suitable for most industrially important microbial strains. This study explores the high ferulic acid tolerance in Lactobacillus brevis (L. brevis), a lactic acid bacteria often found in fermentation processes, by global transcriptional response analysis. The transcriptional profile of L. brevis under ferulic acid stress reveals that the presence of ferulic acid primarily triggers the expression of membrane proteins to counteract ferulic acid induced changes in membrane fluidity and ion leakage, in the midst of a generalized stress response. Several promising routes for understanding phenolic acid tolerance have been identified based upon these findings. These insights may be used to guide further engineering of model industrial organisms to better tolerate phenolic compounds in processed biomass.
Project description:Dinoflagellates have evolved a nuclear organization unlike that of any other eukaryotic group. Recent studies find a predominance of post-transcriptional control of dinoflagellate gene expression. This study investigated regulation of the environmental stress response in the red tide dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis using an Agilent custom oligonucleotide microarray. K. brevis cultures were exposed to 5°C or 10°C heat shock, or three different sources of oxidative stress: 60 µM H2O2, 10 mM NaNO2, or 12 µM PbCl2 over acute time courses. Ribosomal genes, genes involved in RNA processing, translation, and chaperones were among the classes of genes consistently downregulated across treatments, although within these functional classes the same genes did not always respond to different stressors. Genes involved in the photosystem and mitochondrial and chloroplast ATP generation dominated the down-regulated genes. Heat shock and oxidative stress response genes were not induced under any treatment, even under conditions that resulted in decreased viability. We subsequently identified the presence of a trans-spliced leader sequence on many stress response gene transcripts, which suggests that they may be transcribed constitutively and their expression regulated at the level of translation.