Project description:We conducted field surveys to detect the population density of the most important invasive weed species and their associated virus vectoring aphids in crops grown under high input (HIF) vs low-input (LIF) field conditions, with and without fertilizers and pesticides. The most frequent invasive weed species were Stenactis annua, Erigeron canadensis and Solidago canadensis. These species were hosts predominantly for the aphids Brachycaudus helichrysi and Aulacorthum solani in both management systems. The 13% higher coverage of S. annua under LIF conditions resulted in a 30% higher B. helichrysi abundance and ~85% higher A. solani abundance compared with HIF conditions. To reveal virus infection in crop plants and invasive weeds high-throughput sequencing of small RNAs were carried out. Bioinformatics analysis of the results detected the presence of 16 important plant viruses, but not resulting strikingly different pattern under LIF and HIF. This could suggest that invasive weeds serves as a virus reservoir both under low and high input management systems. The lake of any management increases virus vector aphids abundances, their presence has a great impact on the viromes of the crops.
Project description:Winter season with reduced day length (photoperiod); led to the growth cessation, dormancy induction and cold acclimation in woody perennial plants. To develop an understanding of the photoperiod signal transduction in Vitis riparia; shoot tip transcriptome profiling was performed under differential photoperiod treatments (long (LD, 15h) and short day (SD, 13h)) for 7 or 21 days after shoots reached 10 nodes (LD7, SD7, LD21 or SD21).
Project description:Winter survival and maintenance strategy is crucial in temperate woody plants. Here, we demonstrate novel aspects of the transcriptional regulations adopted by perennial tree species in winter/dormancy, employing a biochemical and whole transcriptome analysis. As expected, genes related to cold hardiness and defense are over-represented. Interestingly, carbohydrate biosynthesis and transport-related genes were very actively expressed in winter/dormancy. Further biochemical analyses verified the dormancy/winter transcription phenotype. Furthermore, dormancy/winter preferential expression of genes involved in the cell wall biosynthesis/modification, circadian rhythm, the indirect transcriptional regulation (RNA metabolism), and chromatin modification/remodeling were identified. Taken together, regulation of gene expression in the winter survival and maintenance may include not only controlled by promoter binding transcription factors but may also be regulated at the post-transcriptional and chromatin levels.
Project description:A possible approach for gel-based proteomic studies in recalcitrant woody plants, using phenol as the most suitable protein extraction method when working with tissues with high interfering compounds
Project description:Floral nectar plays important roles in the interaction between animal-pollinated plants and pollinators. Growing empirical evidence shows that most of the proteins secreted in nectar (nectarins) are enzymes that can tailor nectar chemistry for their animal mutualists or reduce the growth of microorganisms in nectar. However, to date, the function of many nectarins remains unknown, and very few plant species have had their nectar proteome thoroughly investigated. Mucuna sempervirens (Fabaceae) is a perennial woody vine native to China. Nectarins from this species were separated using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, and analyzed using mass spectrometry. A L-gulonolactone oxidase like protein (MsGulLO) was detected. MsGulLO has high similarity to L-gulonolactone oxidase 5 (AtGulLO5) in Arabidopsis thaliana, which was suggested to be involved in the pathway of ascorbate biosynthesis; however both MsGulLO and AtGulLO5 are divergent from animal L-gulonolactone oxidases. MsGulLO is suggested to function in hydrogen peroxide generation in nectar but not in plant ascorbate biosynthesis.
Project description:Winter survival and maintenance strategy is crucial in temperate woody plants. Here, we demonstrate novel aspects of the transcriptional regulations adopted by perennial tree species in winter/dormancy, employing a biochemical and whole transcriptome analysis. As expected, genes related to cold hardiness and defense are over-represented. Interestingly, carbohydrate biosynthesis and transport-related genes were very actively expressed in winter/dormancy. Further biochemical analyses verified the dormancy/winter transcription phenotype. Furthermore, dormancy/winter preferential expression of genes involved in the cell wall biosynthesis/modification, circadian rhythm, the indirect transcriptional regulation (RNA metabolism), and chromatin modification/remodeling were identified. Taken together, regulation of gene expression in the winter survival and maintenance may include not only controlled by promoter binding transcription factors but may also be regulated at the post-transcriptional and chromatin levels. In the first step towards the understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying the winter survival and maintenance of perennial trees, we examined the characteristics of transcription phenotype of the dormancy/winter stem compared to the active growth/summer stem by using a whole transcriptome analysis (GeneChip Poplar Genome Array; Affymetrix). Poplar Genome Array has a total of 61,251 probe sets, representing 57,423 poplar gene models, and allows us to interrogate a total of 41,558 unique gene models because of the probe set redundancy. Slight redundancy of the probe sets within a single chip gave us a unique opportunity to have internal comparisons of the particular genes. Very high reproducibility (R2 > 0.97) between the replicated samples was found. Further confirmation of the GeneChip data was made by semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis using several genes showing the summer or winter biased expression. Based on these results, further analysis of winter stem transcriptome against summer stem was performed.
Project description:To uncover the involvement of miRNAs and siRNAs in somatic embryogenesis of the perennial woody crop citrus, we carried out high-throughput (Illumina) sequencing (HTS) of sRNAs and RNA degradome tags in non-embryogenic and embryogenic tissue of Valencia sweet orange. A total of 191 stem-loop structures were identified, emanating 50 known and 45 novel miRNAs, 130 miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) derived small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and 94 other siRNAs. Combining with the result of degradome sequencing, a total of 235 phased siRNAs (phasiRNAs), and 195 cleaved target genes were identified for miRNAs/siRNAs.