Project description:Ulcerative colitis is a chronic inflammatory disorder for which a definitive cure is still missing. This is characterized by an overwhelming inflammatory milieu in the colonic tract where a composite set of immune and non-immune cells orchestrate its pathogenesis. Over the last years, a growing body of evidence has been pinpointing gut virome dysbiosis as underlying its progression. Nonetheless, its role during the early phases of chronic inflammation is far from being fully defined. Here we show the gut virome-associated Hepatitis B virus protein X, most likely acquired after an event of zoonotic spillover, to be associated with the early stages of ulcerative colitis and to induce colonic inflammation in mice. It acts as a transcriptional regulator in epithelial cells, provoking barrier leakage and altering mucosal immunity at the level of both innate and adaptive immunity. This study paves the way to the comprehension of the aetiopathogenesis of intestinal inflammation and encourages further investigations of the virome as a trigger also in other scenarios. Moreover, it provides a brand-new standpoint that looks at the virome as a target for tailored treatments, blocking the early phases of chronic inflammation and possibly leading to better disease management.
Project description:Water-deficit and heat stress negatively impact crop production. Mechanisms underlying the response of durum wheat to such stresses are not well understood. With the new durum wheat genome assembly, we conducted the first multi-omics analysis with next-generation sequencing, providing a comprehensive description of the durum wheat small RNAome (sRNAome), mRNA transcriptome, and degradome. Single and combined water-deficit and heat stress were applied to stress-tolerant and -sensitive Australian genotypes to study their response at multiple time-points during reproduction. Analysis of 120 sRNA libraries identified 523 microRNAs (miRNAs), of which 55 were novel. Differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) were identified that had significantly altered expression subject to stress type, genotype, and time-point. Transcriptome sequencing identified 49,436 genes, with differentially expressed genes (DEGs) linked to processes associated with hormone homeostasis, photosynthesis, and signaling. With the first durum wheat degradome report, over 100,000 transcript target sites were characterized, and new miRNA-mRNA regulatory pairs were discovered. Integrated omics analysis identified key miRNA-mRNA modules (particularly, novel pairs of miRNAs and transcription factors) with antagonistic regulatory patterns subject to different stresses. GO (Gene Ontology) and KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) enrichment analysis revealed significant roles in plant growth and stress adaptation. Our research provides novel and fundamental knowledge, at the whole-genome level, for transcriptional and post-transcriptional stress regulation in durum wheat.
Project description:During a proof-of-concept study, virome of millet, grown as weed was determined by small RNA HTS. As a result, from the pools of 20 randomly collected millet samples collected at two locations, we identified the presence of three viruses, two of them first time in Hungary. Based on our results we could only suspect that these viruses: wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV), barley stripe mosaic virus (BYSMV) and barley virus G (BVG) could have been overwintered in millet or other monocotyledonous weeds growing at these fields. As a follow-up research, in the summer of 2021, we collected symptomatic leaves of several monocotyledonous plants at the same fields. This time the sampling was done in July. From the samples, small RNA HTS was carried out.