Project description:The fate of the carbon stocked in permafrost soils following global warming and permafrost thaw is of major concern in view of the potential for increased CH4 and CO2 emissions from these soils. Complex carbon compound degradation and greenhouse gas emissions are due to soil microbial communities, but their composition and functional potential in permafrost soils are largely unknown. Here, a 2 m deep permafrost and its overlying active layer soil were subjected to metagenome sequencing, quantitative PCR, and microarray analyses. The active layer soil and 2 m permafrost soil microbial community structures were very similar, with Actinobacteria being the dominant phylum. The two soils also possessed a highly similar spectrum of functional genes, especially when compared to other already published metagenomes. Key genes related to methane generation, methane oxidation and organic matter degradation were highly diverse for both soils in the metagenomic libraries and some (e.g. pmoA) showed relatively high abundance in qPCR assays. Genes related to nitrogen fixation and ammonia oxidation, which could have important roles following climatic change in these nitrogen-limited environments, showed low diversity but high abundance. The 2 m permafrost soil showed lower abundance and diversity for all the assessed genes and taxa. Experimental biases were also evaluated and showed that the whole community genome amplification technique used caused large representational biases in the metagenomic libraries. This study described for the first time the detailed functional potential of permafrost-affected soils and detected several genes and microorganisms that could have crucial importance following permafrost thaw. A 2m deep permafrost sample and it overlying active layer were sampled and their metagenome analysed. For microarray analyses, 8 other soil samples from the same region were used for comparison purposes.
Project description:Saccharomyces cerevisiae is exposed to freeze-thaw stress in commercial processes including frozen dough baking. The cell viability and fermentation activity after freeze-thaw were dramatically decreased due to freeze-thaw injury. Because freeze-thaw injury involves complex phenomena, the mechanisms of it are not fully understood. We attempted to analyze the mechanisms of freeze-thaw injury by indirect gene expression analysis during post-thaw incubation after freeze-thaw treatment using DNA microarray profiling. The results showed that a high frequency of the genes involved in the homeostasis of metal ions were up-regulated depending on the freezing period. The phenotype of the deletion mutants of the up-regulated genes extracted by indirect gene expression analysis was assessed. The deletion strains of the MAC1 and CTR1 genes involved in copper ion homeostasis exhibited freeze-thaw sensitivity, suggesting that copper ion homeostasis is required for freeze-thaw tolerance. Supplementation with copper ions during post-thaw incubation increased intracellular superoxide dismutase activity. Inverse correlated with intracellular superoxide dismutase activity, intracellular levels of reactive oxygen species were decreased. Moreover, cell viability increased by supplementation with copper ions under specific assessment conditions. This study suggested that insufficiency of copper ion homeostasis may be one of the causes of freeze-thaw injury.
Project description:The fate of the carbon stocked in permafrost soils following global warming and permafrost thaw is of major concern in view of the potential for increased CH4 and CO2 emissions from these soils. Complex carbon compound degradation and greenhouse gas emissions are due to soil microbial communities, but their composition and functional potential in permafrost soils are largely unknown. Here, a 2 m deep permafrost and its overlying active layer soil were subjected to metagenome sequencing, quantitative PCR, and microarray analyses. The active layer soil and 2 m permafrost soil microbial community structures were very similar, with Actinobacteria being the dominant phylum. The two soils also possessed a highly similar spectrum of functional genes, especially when compared to other already published metagenomes. Key genes related to methane generation, methane oxidation and organic matter degradation were highly diverse for both soils in the metagenomic libraries and some (e.g. pmoA) showed relatively high abundance in qPCR assays. Genes related to nitrogen fixation and ammonia oxidation, which could have important roles following climatic change in these nitrogen-limited environments, showed low diversity but high abundance. The 2 m permafrost soil showed lower abundance and diversity for all the assessed genes and taxa. Experimental biases were also evaluated and showed that the whole community genome amplification technique used caused large representational biases in the metagenomic libraries. This study described for the first time the detailed functional potential of permafrost-affected soils and detected several genes and microorganisms that could have crucial importance following permafrost thaw.
Project description:Saccharomyces cerevisiae is exposed to freeze-thaw stress in commercial processes including frozen dough baking. The cell viability and fermentation activity after freeze-thaw were dramatically decreased due to freeze-thaw injury. Because freeze-thaw injury involves complex phenomena, the mechanisms of it are not fully understood. We attempted to analyze the mechanisms of freeze-thaw injury by indirect gene expression analysis during post-thaw incubation after freeze-thaw treatment using DNA microarray profiling. The results showed that a high frequency of the genes involved in the homeostasis of metal ions were up-regulated depending on the freezing period. The phenotype of the deletion mutants of the up-regulated genes extracted by indirect gene expression analysis was assessed. The deletion strains of the MAC1 and CTR1 genes involved in copper ion homeostasis exhibited freeze-thaw sensitivity, suggesting that copper ion homeostasis is required for freeze-thaw tolerance. Supplementation with copper ions during post-thaw incubation increased intracellular superoxide dismutase activity. Inverse correlated with intracellular superoxide dismutase activity, intracellular levels of reactive oxygen species were decreased. Moreover, cell viability increased by supplementation with copper ions under specific assessment conditions. This study suggested that insufficiency of copper ion homeostasis may be one of the causes of freeze-thaw injury. Total RNA was extracted from the stress-treated yeast cells by using a hot phenol method. Poly(A)+ RNA was enriched from total RNA by using an Oligotex dT30 (Super) mRNA purification kit (Takara Bio, Ohtsu, Japan). cDNA synthesis, cRNA synthesis, and labeling were performed according to the Affymetrix user’s manual (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, USA). Biotinyated cRNA was fragmented and then used as a probe.Affimetrix Yeast Genome 2.0 arrays (Affymetrix) were used as DNA microarrays. All experiments were done in triplicate independently.
Project description:An European eel-specific microarray platform was developed to identify genes involved in response to pollutants. A comparative analysis of gene expression was conducted between European eel Anguilla anguilla individuals from lowly-polluted Wijmeers pond at Uitbergen (Belgium), highly-polluted Hazewinkel pond at Willebroek (Belgium), extremely-polluted Dessel-Schotel canal at the locations of Schotel (Belgium) and low polluted Bolsena lake (Italy) environments.
Project description:In frozen dough baking technology, baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae encounter freeze-thaw injury. After thawing, dramatically decrease in cell viability and fermentation activity is caused by freeze-thaw injury. The freezing period is critical factor in freeze-thaw injury, thus we focused and investigated time-dependent gene expression profiles in recovery process from freeze injury. First, changes in gene expression profiles in S. cerevisiae in recovery process from freeze-thaw injury were analyzed using a DNA microarray. The results showed the genes which were involved in homeostasis of metal ions were time-dependent up-regulated 2-fold or more in a series. Then we examined whether these genes were related to tolerance in freeze-thaw injury by using deletion strain. The results showed that deletion of MAC1, CTR1, and PCA1 genes which involved in copper ion transport exhibited freeze-thaw sensitivity in compared with wild type. These genes are involved in copper ion uptake to a cell under a copper deficiency condition or in copper ion homeostasis, suggesting that it may be related between freeze-thaw injury and copper ion transport. To determine the effect of supplementation of copper ion on cells after freeze-thaw treatment, cell viability, intracellular superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and intracellular levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) were examined by various copper ion condition medium. The results showed that intracellular SOD activity was increased and intracellular levels of ROS were decreased by supplementation of copper ion, but there was no significant difference in cell viability. These results of the present study may suggest that copper ion concentration in yeast cell after freeze-thaw treatment is important to recovery from freeze-thaw injury due to redox control of intracellular levels of ROS, but copper ion did not directly affect cell viability.