Comparative Genome Analysis of Scutellaria baicalensis and Scutellaria barbata Reveals the Evolution of Active Flavonoid Biosynthesis

Scutellaria baicalensis (S. baicalensis) and Scutellaria barbata (S. barbata) are common medicinal plants of the Lamiaceae family. Both produce specific flavonoid compounds, including baicalein, scutellarein, norwogonin, and wogonin, as well as their glycosides, which exhibit antioxidant and antitumor activities. Here, we report chromosome-level genome assemblies of S. baicalensis and S. barbata with quantitative chromosomal variation (2n = 18 and 2n = 26, respectively). The divergence of S. baicalensis and S. barbata occurred far earlier than previously reported, and a whole-genome duplication (WGD) event was identified. The insertion of long terminal repeat elements after speciation might be responsible for the observed chromosomal expansion and rearrangement. Comparative genome analysis of the congeneric species revealed the species-specific evolution of chrysin and apigenin biosynthetic genes, such as the S. baicalensis-specific tandem duplication of genes encoding phenylalanine ammonia lyase and chalcone synthase, and the S. barbata-specific duplication of genes encoding 4-CoA ligase. In addition, the paralogous duplication, colinearity, and expression diversity of CYP82D subfamily members revealed the functional divergence of genes encoding flavone hydroxylase between S. baicalensis and S. barbata. Analyzing these Scutellaria genomes reveals the common and species-specific evolution of flavone biosynthetic genes. Thus, these findings would facilitate the development of molecular breeding and studies of biosynthesis and regulation of bioactive compounds.     

PSMD: An extensive database for pan‐species microsatellite investigation and marker development

Microsatellites are widely distributed throughout nearly all genomes which have been extensively exploited as powerful genetic markers for diverse applications due to their high polymorphisms. Their length variations are involved in gene regulation and implicated in numerous genetic diseases even in cancers. Although much effort has been devoted in microsatellite database construction, the existing microsatellite databases still had some drawbacks, such as limited number of species, unfriendly export format, missing marker development, lack of compound microsatellites and absence of gene annotation, which seriously restricted researchers to perform downstream analysis. In order to overcome the above limitations, we developed PSMD (Pan‐Species Microsatellite Database, http://big.cdu.edu.cn/psmd/ ) as a web‐based database to facilitate researchers to easily identify microsatellites, exploit reliable molecular markers and compare microsatellite distribution pattern on genome‐wide scale. In current release, PSMD comprises 678,106,741 perfect microsatellites and 43,848,943 compound microsatellites from 18,408 organisms, which covered almost all species with available genomic data. In addition to interactive browse interface, PSMD also offers a flexible filter function for users to quickly gain desired microsatellites from large data sets. PSMD allows users to export GFF3 formatted file and CSV formatted statistical file for downstream analysis. We also implemented an online tool for analysing occurrence of microsatellites with user‐defined parameters. Furthermore, Primer3 was embedded to help users to design high‐quality primers with customizable settings. To our knowledge, PSMD is the most extensive resource which is likely to be adopted by scientists engaged in biological, medical, environmental and agricultural research.     

基于CRISPR/Cas生物传感原理的病原菌检测技术研究进展*

病原菌的快速准确检测是实现疫情高效防控、疾病精准治疗、污染环境及时处置的关键。而现有的病原菌现场快速检测技术,主要以定性分析为主,假阳性/假阴性受到诟病,检测准确性仍有待提升,亟待发展基于新原理、新方法的病原菌快速检测技术。基于CRISPR(clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)的生物传感技术因具有高灵活性(对不同的基因靶点只需改变crRNA序列)、高特异性(单碱基分辨)、高灵敏(优于10^-18 mol/L浓度)、可编程、可模块化、低成本、可在各种体外介质中高效稳定运行等独特优势,打破了传统分子诊断与检测技术的局限性,正在成为下一代病原菌检测技术的引领者。在该技术中,Cas效应蛋白被用作高特异性的序列识别元件,结合不同的生物传感机制,即可用于病原菌的高特异性快速灵敏检测。在总结CRISPR/Cas生物传感技术原理的基础上,综述了用于病原菌检测的CRISPR/Cas12和CRISPR/Cas13生物传感技术研究进展。通过阐述CRISPR/Cas生物传感技术在实际应用中面临的挑战,展望其未来的发展前景。     

Two Types of Alpha Satellite DNA in Distinct Chromosomal Locations in Azara's Owl Monkey

Alpha satellite DNA is a repetitive sequence known to be a major DNA component of centromeres in primates (order Primates). New World monkeys form one major taxon (parvorder Platyrrhini) of primates, and their alpha satellite DNA is known to comprise repeat units of around 340 bp. In one species (Azara''s owl monkey Aotus azarae) of this taxon, we identified two types of alpha satellite DNA consisting of 185- and 344-bp repeat units that we designated as OwlAlp1 and OwlAlp2, respectively. OwlAlp2 exhibits similarity throughout its entire sequence to the alpha satellite DNA of other New World monkeys. The chromosomal locations of the two types of sequence are markedly distinct: OwlAlp1 was observed at the centromeric constrictions, whereas OwlAlp2 was found in the pericentric regions. From these results, we inferred that OwlAlp1 was derived from OwlAlp2 and rapidly replaced OwlAlp2 as the principal alpha satellite DNA on a short time scale at the speciation level. A less likely alternative explanation is also discussed.     

Extending the coverage of spectral libraries: A neighbor‐based approach to predicting intensities of peptide fragmentation spectra

Searching spectral libraries in MS/MS is an important new approach to improving the quality of peptide and protein identification. The idea relies on the observation that ion intensities in an MS/MS spectrum of a given peptide are generally reproducible across experiments, and thus, matching between spectra from an experiment and the spectra of previously identified peptides stored in a spectral library can lead to better peptide identification compared to the traditional database search. However, the use of libraries is greatly limited by their coverage of peptide sequences: even for well‐studied organisms a large fraction of peptides have not been previously identified. To address this issue, we propose to expand spectral libraries by predicting the MS/MS spectra of peptides based on the spectra of peptides with similar sequences. We first demonstrate that the intensity patterns of dominant fragment ions between similar peptides tend to be similar. In accordance with this observation, we develop a neighbor‐based approach that first selects peptides that are likely to have spectra similar to the target peptide and then combines their spectra using a weighted K‐nearest neighbor method to accurately predict fragment ion intensities corresponding to the target peptide. This approach has the potential to predict spectra for every peptide in the proteome. When rigorous quality criteria are applied, we estimate that the method increases the coverage of spectral libraries available from the National Institute of Standards and Technology by 20–60%, although the values vary with peptide length and charge state. We find that the overall best search performance is achieved when spectral libraries are supplemented by the high quality predicted spectra.     

浙江赤霉病抗性不同的大麦地方品种遗传多样性分析

采用SSR标记方法研究了43份对大麦赤霉病有不同抗性的浙江地方品种的遗传多样性。结果显示29对SSR引物在上述品种中共检测到87个等位基因,每对引物等位基因数在2~9之间,平均为3个;平均多态性信息含量（PIC）为0.3509,平均Shannon指数(I)为0.6951,平均Nei’s基因多样性指数(H)为0.4268。品种间的遗传相似系数变幅为0.082~0.986,平均值为0.467。聚类分析将参试品种分为4大类。浙江省地方品种遗传多样性较高,二棱品种的遗传变异明显高于六棱品种;抗和中抗赤霉病品种的遗传变异也较大。聚类结果与品种来源无任何关系;主成分分析结果与聚类分析结果基本一致。     

Stem cells: Insights into the secretome

Stem cells have been considered as possible therapeutic vehicles for different health related problems such as cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. Secreted molecules are key mediators in cell–cell interactions and influence the cross talk with the surrounding tissues. There is strong evidence supporting that crucial cellular functions such as proliferation, differentiation, communication and migration are strictly regulated from the cell secretome. The investigation of stem cell secretome is accumulating continuously increasing interest given the potential use of these cells in regenerative medicine. The scope of the review is to report the main findings from the investigation of stem cell secretome by the use of contemporary proteomics methods and discuss the current status of research in the field. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: An Updated Secretome.