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:Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) infection of 3rd trimester pregnant pigs can result in transmission of the virus to the fetus and ultimately death in utero or postnatally. Little is known about the immune response to infection at the maternal-fetal interface and in the fetus itself, or the molecular events behind virus transmission and disease progression in the fetus. To investigate these processes, RNA-sequencing of two tissues, uterine endothelium adjacent to the umbilical attachment site and fetal thymus, was performed 21 days post challenge on four groups of fetuses selected from a large PRRSV challenge experiment of pregnant gilts. RNA-seq experiment compared gene expression between four different groups of fetuses (n=12 per group): control (CON-uninfected fetuses from mock inoculated gilts), UNINF (uninfected fetuses from PRRSV-inoculated gilts), INF (infected fetuses from PRRSV-inoculated gilts), and meconium-stained fetuses (MEC-meconium-stained fetuses from PRRSV-inoculated gilts) and investigated two tissues: uterine endometrium (with adherent placental tissue) at the site of umbilical attachment and fetal thymus (96 samples in total). Three contrasts were performed for the differential expression (edgeR) and network (WGCNA) analyses: UNINF v CON, INF v UNINF, and MEC v INF.
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
