Project description:Human utilization of the mulberry-silkworm interaction started at least 5,000 years ago and greatly influenced world history through the Silk Road. Complementing the silkworm genome sequence, here we describe the genome of a mulberry species (Morus notabilis C. K. Schneider). In the 330 Mb genome assembly of M. notabilis, we identified 128 Mb of repetitive sequences and 29,338 genes, 60.8% of which were supported by transcriptome sequencing. Mulberry gene sequences appear to evolve ~3 times faster than other Rosales, perhaps facilitating its spread to Europe, Africa, and America. It is among few eudicots but several Rosales not preserving genome duplications in more than 100 million years – however neopolyploid series in mulberry and several others suggest that new duplications may confer benefits. Strikingly, five predicted mulberry miRNAs were found in the hemolymph and silkglands of silkworm, suggesting profound molecular level interactions that promise to expand knowledge of plant-herbivore relationship which constitute key elements of most terrestrial habitats. In addition, we investigated the characters of hemolymph small RNA. small mRNA profiles of silkworm hemolymph in the fifth instar day-5 silkworm were generated by deep sequencing, in twice, using Illumina Hiseq 2000.
Project description:Human utilization of the mulberry-silkworm interaction started at least 5,000 years ago and greatly influenced world history through the Silk Road. Complementing the silkworm genome sequence, here we describe the genome of a mulberry species (Morus notabilis C. K. Schneider). In the 330 Mb genome assembly of M. notabilis, we identified 128 Mb of repetitive sequences and 29,338 genes, 60.8% of which were supported by transcriptome sequencing. Mulberry gene sequences appear to evolve ~3 times faster than other Rosales, perhaps facilitating its spread to Europe, Africa, and America. It is among few eudicots but several Rosales not preserving genome duplications in more than 100 million years – however neopolyploid series in mulberry and several others suggest that new duplications may confer benefits. Strikingly, five predicted mulberry miRNAs were found in the hemolymph and silkglands of silkworm, suggesting profound molecular level interactions that promise to expand knowledge of plant-herbivore relationship which constitute key elements of most terrestrial habitats. In addition, we investigated the characters of hemolymph small RNA.
Project description:Autotetraploid carries several phenotypic changes with larger leaves and fruit compared to diploid. To analysis of phenotypic changes in mulberry autotetraploids on the transcriptome, we performed RNA-Seq analyses on mulberry leaf samples of diploid and autotetraploids using Illumina HiSEq 2000.
Project description:To investigate effects of intake of mulberry leaf extracts on hypercholesterolemia, we performed gene expression profiling on rat liver by microarray analysis. Microarray analysis revealed that mulberry leaf extracts up-regulated the gene expression involved in suppression of cholesterol synthesis and stimulation of innate-adaptive Immunity. Mice were fed a high-cholesterol diet without/with orally administration of mulberry leaf extracts for 4 weeks. Livers were taken for RNA extraction and hybridization on Agilent microarrays.
Project description:Background. Silkworm pupae (SWP) is the main by-product of the sericulture industry with an interesting nutritional profile, especially in terms of proteins. In consideration of its possible use as a food or food ingredient in Western countries, a comparative proteomic experiment has been performed to investigate the differences of the protein profile of male and female SWP reared on mulberry leaves or on an artificial diet. Methods. The nutritional profile of lyophilized SWP in terms of dry matter and ash was evaluated according to the AOAC procedures, the total nitrogen content was determined by a nitrogen analyzer and the SWP gross energy value was measured using an adiabatic calorimetric bomb. The comparative proteomic analysis was performed on male and female SWP reared on mulberry leaves or on the artificial diet. Proteins were separated by Bidimensional Electrophoresis (2DE) and, after a multivariate statistical analysis, the differentially expressed proteins were identified by LC-MS/MS. Results. The comparative proteomic approach highlighted 47 SWP proteins differentially expressed comparing diet and gender. PCA analysis showed that 7 proteins were more effective in discriminating the sex and 5 were more effective in discriminating the diet type. In spite of the above mentioned differences in the SWP protein profile, no strong alteration of the pupa physiological traits have been demonstrated, suggesting a general SWP flexibility to adapt to a well-balanced artificial diet. Differences in lipid transport and metabolism were found among the experimental groups, that might have a relevant effect on the timing, on hormone secretion and, in turn, on insect voltinism. This aspect may also affect silk production, as univoltine strains are the most productive. Although this is a preliminary study, the proteomic data may offer a contribution in understanding also the influence of gender and farming strategy on the allergen profile of B. mori, when used as food or as a food ingredient. Since female silkworm pupae reared on mulberry leaves seemed to contain lower levels of known allergens than those reared in the other experimental conditions, we speculated that these findings may help when farming B. mori for food production purposes. However, these results need to be supported by further characterization of the allergenic potential of B. mori.
Project description:Bacterial wilt, caused by the soil-borne bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum, is a lethal disease of mulberry, but the molecular mechanisms of the host resistance responses to R. solanacearum remain unclear. In order to better understand molecular resistance mechanisms to R. solanacearum in mulberry, we set out to define the changes in gene expression of resistance and susceptible mulberry cultivars after inoculation with R. solanacearum. Susceptible cultivar YSD10, resistance cultivar KQ10 and YS283 were inoculation with R. solanacearum, mulberry root samples were collected at 1 dpi and non-treated control in all cultivars. Then we performed RNA-Seq analyses on all mulberry root samples using Illumina HiSeq 2000.
Project description:Mulberry (Morus atropurpurea) is an important economic woody tree with rapid growth rate and large biomass, which had great potential for heavy metals remediation. To further understand the mechanisms involved in cadmium accumulation and detoxification in mulberry, we carried out a transcriptomic study to get insights into the molecular mechanisms of the mulberry response to cadmium stress using RNA-seq analysis with BGISEQ-500.
Project description:Ciboria carunculoides is a major fungal pathogen that infect of mulberry fruit causing popcorn disease leading extensive damage and productivity loss. In spite of such a major impact, mulberry fruit response to C. carunculoides infection is yet to be witnessed. We carried out a transcriptomic study to get insights into the molecular mechanisms and dynamics of the mulberry fruit response to the C. carunculoides infection using RNA-seq analysis with Illumina HiSeq 2000.