Preparation and Analysis of an Expressed Sequence Tag Library from the Toxic Dinoflagellate <Emphasis Type="Italic">Alexandrium catenella</Emphasis>

Dinoflagellates of the genus Alexandrium are photosynthetic microalgae that have an extreme importance due to the impact of some toxic species on shellfish aquaculture industry. Alexandrium catenella is the species responsible for the production of paralytic shellfish poisoning in Chile and other geographical areas. We have constructed a cDNA library from midexponential cells of A. catenella grown in culture free of associated bacteria and sequenced 10,850 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) that were assembled into 1,021 contigs and 5,475 singletons for a total of 6,496 unigenes. Approximately 41.6% of the unigenes showed similarity to genes with predicted function. A significant number of unigenes showed similarity with genes from other dinoflagellates, plants, and other protists. Among the identified genes, the most expressed correspond to those coding for proteins of luminescence, carbohydrate metabolism, and photosynthesis. The sequences of 9,847 ESTs have been deposited in Gene Bank (accession numbers EX 454357–464203).     

Comparative analysis of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from Triticum monococcum shoot apical meristem at vegetative and reproductive stages

Triticum monococcum has recently drawn the attention of biologists to discover and utilize novel genes and alleles. To explore the molecular features of the genetic network governing floral transition in shoot apical meristem (SAM) of spring growth habit T. monococcum, two expressed sequence tag (EST) libraries containing 3,031 ESTs from vegetative SAM (VS) and 2,647 ESTs from early reproductive SAM (RS) were analyzed. Assembly of ESTs resulted in 2,303 unigenes for VS library (368 contigs and 1,935 singletons) and 1,890 unigenes (337 contigs and 1,553 singletons) for RS library. The 67.05 % of VS unigenes and 66.30 % of RS unigenes showed significant similarity with genes of known, putative and or unknown function, whereas the remaining 32.95 % of the VS unigenes and 33.7 % of RS unigenes displayed no significant match with the public protein database. The 1,064 and 866 unigenes of VS and RS libraries were assigned to functional categories using Pageman ontology tool. Further analysis revealed that the switch from VS to RS caused significant changes in the abundance of unigenes assigned to some functional categories. A total of 37 genes were identified which were significantly differentially expressed between vegetative and reproductive stages of T. monococcum SAM. Investigation of the differentially expressed genes revealed the importance of the genes involved in energy metabolism, ubiquitin/26S proteasome system, polyamines biosynthesis and signaling of reactive oxygen species in SAM differentiation towards floral transition in T. monococcum.     

石斛小菇促进天麻种子萌发的转录组研究

天麻Gastrodia elata种子细小而无胚乳,自然条件下需要石斛小菇Mycena dendrobii等真菌共生来完成种子萌发和生长。为了探讨天麻种子接菌萌发过程中的基因表达变化,本研究利用高通量RNA测序技术,对共生真菌石斛小菇、天麻成熟种子以及接菌萌发后的天麻原球茎进行比较分析,共获得42 263条注释unigenes,并筛选到5 409条差异表达基因。GO分析表明,差异表达基因主要参与代谢、离子结合等生物学通路中。KEGG功能富集分析结果表明,差异基因参与了植物激素信号传导、碳代谢、苯丙素生物合成、淀粉与蔗糖代谢以及氨基酸生物合成中。真菌和植物细胞壁多糖经降解产生的寡糖激发子,可以诱导宿主产生多种防御反应,参与到宿主与真菌互作中。在共生萌发过程中,真菌细胞壁降解相关基因的表达显著提高,如几丁质酶和β-1,3-葡聚糖酶基因表达甚至上调了20倍之多。此外,植物细胞壁木聚糖酶和果胶酶基因表达显著升高。这类基因表达可释放寡糖激发子,在天麻种子对石斛小菇的防御过程中起到重要的作用。本文全面分析天麻种子接菌萌发前后基因表达变化,为进一步研究天麻重要功能基因的功能鉴定提供基础。     

Development of ChillPeach genomic tools and identification of cold-responsive genes in peach fruit

The ChillPeach database was developed to facilitate identification of genes controlling chilling injury (CI), a global-scale post-harvest physiological disorder in peach. It contained 7,862 high-quality ESTs (comprising 4,468 unigenes) obtained from mesocarp tissues of two full-sib progeny contrasting for CI, about 48 and 13% of which are unique to Prunus and Arabidopsis, respectively. All ESTs are in the Gateway vector to facilitate functional assessment of the genes. The data set contained several putative SNPs and 184 unigenes with high quality SSRs, of which 42% were novel to Prunus. Microarray slides containing 4,261 ChillPeach unigenes were printed and used in a pilot experiment to identify differentially expressed genes in cold-treated compared to control mesocarp tissues, and in vegetative compared to mesocarp tissues. Quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) confirmed microarray results for all 13 genes tested. The microarray and qRT-PCR analyses indicated that ChillPeach is rich in putative fruit-specific and novel cold-induced genes. A website ( http://bioinfo.ibmcp.upv.es/genomics/ChillPeachDB ) was created holding detailed information on the ChillPeach database.     

小麦隐匿柄锈菌与小麦互作不同阶段的基因差异表达分析

[目的]小麦叶锈病是影响小麦生产主要病害之一,其病原菌新小种的出现和劣势小种上升为优势小种导致抗病品种的抗病性不断被克服.小麦隐匿柄锈菌与小麦互作不同阶段差异表达谱分析对于揭示该病菌致病的分子机制,进而有效防控小麦叶锈病具有重要意义.[方法]利用转录组分析小麦隐匿柄锈菌致病生理小种与感叶锈病小麦品种MuTcLr19亲和...     

Analysis of expressed sequence tags from the wood-decaying fungus Fomitopsis palustris and identification of potential genes involved in the decay process

Fomitopsis palustris, a brown-rot basidiomycete, causes the most destructive type of decay in wooden structures. In spite of its great economic importance, very little information is available at the molecular level regarding its complex decay process. To address this, we generated over 3,000 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from a cDNA library constructed from F. palustris. Clustering of 3,095 high-quality ESTs resulted in a set of 1,403 putative unigenes comprising 485 contigs and 918 singlets. Homology searches based on BlastX analysis revealed that 78% of the F. palustris unigenes had a significant match to proteins deposited in the nonredundant databases. A subset of F. palustris unigenes showed similarity to the carbohydrateactive enzymes (CAZymes), including a range of glycosyl hydrolase (GH) family proteins. Some of these CAZymeencoded genes were previously undescribed for F. palustris but predicted to have potential roles in biodegradation of wood. Among them, we identified and characterized a gene (FpCel45A) encoding the GH family 45 endoglucanase. Moreover, we also provided functional classification of 473 (34%) of F. palustris unigenes using the Gene Ontology hierarchy. The annotated EST data sets and related analysis may be useful in providing an initial insight into the genetic background of F. palustris.