Project description:Background: The soil environment is responsible for sustaining most terrestrial plant life on earth, yet we know surprisingly little about the important functions carried out by diverse microbial communities in soil. Soil microbes that inhabit the channels of decaying root systems, the detritusphere, are likely to be essential for plant growth and health, as these channels are the preferred locations of new root growth. Understanding the microbial metagenome of the detritusphere and how it responds to agricultural management such as crop rotations and soil tillage will be vital for improving global food production. Methods: The rhizosphere soils of wheat and chickpea growing under + and - decaying root were collected for metagenomics sequencing. A gene catalogue was established by de novo assembling metagenomic sequencing. Genes abundance was compared between bulk soil and rhizosphere soils under different treatments. Conclusions: The study describes the diversity and functional capacity of a high-quality soil microbial metagenome. The results demonstrate the contribution of the microbiome from decaying root in determining the metagenome of developing root systems, which is fundamental to plant growth, since roots preferentially inhabit previous root channels. Modifications in root microbial function through soil management, can ultimately govern plant health, productivity and food security.
Project description:Recent genetic evidence has revealed microRNA-137 (miR-137) as a risk gene in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and the following cellular studies have demonstrated the importance of miR-137 in regulating neurogenesis. We have generated miR-137 knockout mice which display behaviors that resemble some symptoms of these two diseases. To investigate the underlying molecular mechanism, we performed comprehensive analyses of the entire RNA and protein molecules of the miR-137 mouse brains. The dataset uploaded here is the raw data of the mass spectrometry-based whole proteome analysis of the six miR-137 mouse brains: wild-type, heterozygous (miR-137+/–) and homozygous (miR-137–/–) from two different litters. The tandem mass tag (TMT) methodology was employed in this proteomics analysis for the quantitation. The sample channels are: 128C (miR-137+/+, litter 1), 129N (miR-137+/–, litter 1), 129C (miR-137–/–, litter 1), 130N (miR-137+/+, litter 2), 130C (miR-137+/–, litter 2), and 131N (miR-137–/–, litter 2).
Project description:<p>Microbial life in soil is fueled by dissolved organic matter (DOM) that leaches from the litter layer. It is well known that decomposer communities adapt to the available litter source, but it remains unclear if they functionally compete or synergistically address different litter types. Therefore, we decomposed beech, oak, pine and grass litter from two geologically distinct sites in a lab-scale decomposition experiment. We performed a correlative network analysis on the results of direct infusion HR-MS DOM analysis and cross-validated functional predictions from 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and with DOM and metaproteomic analyses. Here we show that many functions are redundantly distributed within decomposer communities and that their relative expression is rapidly optimized to address litter-specific properties. However, community changes are likely forced by antagonistic mechanisms as we identified several natural antibiotics in DOM. As a consequence, the decomposer community is specializing towards the litter source and the state of decomposition (community divergence) but showing similar litter metabolomes (metabolome convergence). Our multi-omics-based results highlight that DOM not only fuels microbial life, but it additionally holds meta-metabolomic information on the functioning of ecosystems.</p>
Project description:To investigate the effect of solute carrier family 11 member 2 (SLC11A2) knockout on osteoclast differentiation, BMMs were extracted from the femurs of SLC11A2 knockout mice and the same litter of control mice, treated with RANKL, and then rna sequencing was performed.
Project description:The effects of galactic cosmic radiation on reproductive physiology remain largely unknown. We determined the impact of near-continuous low-dose-rate Californium-252 neutron irradiation (1 mGy/day) as a space-relevant analog on litter size and number of resorptions at embryonic day (E) 12.5 (n=19 radiated dams, n=20 controls) and litter size, number of resorptions, fetal growth, and placental signaling and transcriptome (RNA sequencing) at E18.5 (n=21 radiated dams, n=20 controls) in pregnant mice. A significantly increased early resorption rate and decreased placental weight was observed in irradiated mice. There were no statistically significant differences in litter size, fetal weight, length, or malformation rate between the groups. Near-continuous radiation had no significant effects on mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), endoplasmic reticulum stress or inflammatory signaling, rate of double-stranded DNA breaks, and had minimal effects on gene expression in the placenta. These data suggest that near-continuous, low-level galactic cosmic radiation has a limited impact on pregnancy outcomes.
Project description:Whole-genome sequencing is an important way to understand the genetic information, gene function, biological characteristics, and living mechanisms of organisms. There is no difficulty to have mega-level genomes sequenced at present. However, we encountered a hard-to-sequence genome of Pseudomonas aeruginosa phage PaP1. The shotgun sequencing method failed to dissect this genome. After insisting for 10 years and going over 3 generations of sequencing techniques, we successfully dissected the PaP1 genome with 91,715 bp in length. Single-molecule sequencing revealed that this genome contains lots of modified bases, including 51 N6-methyladenines (m6A) and 152 N4-methylcytosines (m4C). At the same time, further investigations revealed a novel immune mechanism of bacteria, by which the host bacteria can recognize and repel the modified bases containing inserts in large scale, and this led to the failure of the shotgun method in PaP1 genome sequencing. Strategy of resolving this problem is use of non-library dependent sequencing techniques or use of the nfi- mutant of E. coli DH5M-NM-1 as the host bacteria to construct the shotgun library. In conclusion, we unlock the mystery of phage PaP1 genome hard to be sequenced, and discover a new mechanism of bacterial immunity in present study. Methylation profiling of Pseudomonas aeruginosa phage PaP1 using kinetic data generated by single-molecule, real-time (SMRT) sequencing on the PacBio RS.
Project description:In our previous sow study, two subpopulations of feed-restricted sows (60% of anticipated feed intake) were identified: ‘Restrict (Risk)’ that mobilized higher levels of body tissue stores (>40MJ ME day-1) compared to ‘Restrict (Non-Risk)’ sows (Patterson et al. Reprod. Fert. Deveopl., 2011, 23, 889-898) and although Risk sows maintain higher litter growth in the weaned litter, this was at the expense of lower embryonic weight in their subsequent litter compared with Non-Risk sows. To understand the underlying molecular mechanisms involved, we investigated the gene expression profiles of embryos from Risk and Non-Risk litters in this experiment.