Project description:Background: Wood-decay basidiomycetes are effective for the degradation of highly lignified and recalcitrant substrates. Brown-rot strain produces carbohydrate-active enzymes involved in the degradation of lignocellulosic materials, along with a non-enzymatic mechanism, via Fenton reaction. Differences in the lignocellulose metabolism occurring even among closely related brown-rots are not completely understood, bringing attention to a multi-omics study of brown-rot L. sulphureus. Results: To evidence the oxidative-hydrolytic mechanism, the Laetiporus sulphureus ATCC 52600 genome was sequenced and the response to lignocellulosic substrates was analyzed by transcriptomics and proteomics. The transcriptomic profile in response to a short cultivation period on in natura sugarcane bagasse revealed 128 out of 12,802 upregulated transcripts. The high upregulated transcripts included a set of redox enzymes along with hemicellulases. The exoproteome in response to extended-time cultivation with Avicel, and steam-exploded sugarcane bagasse, sugarcane straw, and Eucalyptus grandis revealed 121 proteins. Contrasting to the mainly oxidative profile observed in the transcriptome, the secretomes showed a diverse hydrolytic repertoire including constitutive cellulases and hemicellulases, in addition to 19 proteins upregulated relative to glucose. The secretome produced on sugarcane bagasse was evaluated in the saccharification of pretreated sugarcane straw by supplementing a commercial cocktail. Additionally, growth analysis revealed that L. sulphureus ATCC 52600 has higher efficiency to assimilate glucose than other mono and disaccharides. Conclusion: This study shows the singularity of L. sulphureus ATCC 52600 relative to other Polyporales brown-rots, regarding the presence of cellobiohydrolase and peroxidase class II. The multi-omic analysis reinforces the oxidative-hydrolytic metabolism involved in lignocellulose deconstruction, providing insights into the overall mechanisms as well as specific proteins of each step.
Project description:Background The generalist dipteran pupal parasitoid Nasonia vitripennis injects 79 venom peptides into the host before egg laying. This venom induces several important changes in the host, including developmental arrest, immunosuppression, and alterations to normal metabolism. It is hoped that diverse and potent bioactivities of N. vitripennis venom provide an opportunity for the design of novel acting drugs. However, currently very little is known about the individual functions of N. vitripennis venom peptides and less than half can be bioinformatically annotated. The paucity of annotation information complicates the design of studies that seek to better understand the potential mechanisms underlying the envenomation response. Although the RNA interference system of N. vitripennis provides an opportunity to functionally characterise venom encoding genes, with 79 candidates this represents a daunting task. For this reason we were interested in determining the expression levels of venom encoding genes in the venom gland, such that this information could be used to rank candidate venoms. To do this we carried out deep sequencing of the transcriptome of the venom gland and neighbouring ovary tissue and used RNA-seq to measure expression from the 79 venom encoding genes. The generation of a specific venom gland transcriptome dataset also provides further opportunities to investigate novel features of this highly specialised organ. Results High throughput sequencing and RNA-seq revealed that the highest expressed venom encoding gene in the venom gland was a serine protease called Nasvi2EG007167, which has previously been implicated in the apoptotic activity of N. vitripennis venom. As expected the RNA-seq confirmed that the N. vitripennis venom encoding genes are almost exclusively expressed in the venom gland relative to the neighbouring ovary tissue. Novel peptides appear to perform key roles in N. vitripennis venom function as only four of the highest 15 expressed venom encoding genes are bioinformatically annotationed. The high throughput sequencing data also provided evidence for the existence of an additional 471 novel genes in the Nasonia genome that are expressed in the venom gland and ovary. Finally, metagenomic analysis of venom gland transcripts identified viral transcripts that may play an important part in the N. vitripennis venom function. Conclusions The expression level information provided here for the 79 venom encoding genes provides an unbiased dataset that can be used by the N. vitripennis community to identify high value candidates for further functional characterisation. These candidates represent bioactive peptides that have value in drug development pipelines.