Genome architecture drives protein evolution in ciliates

Studies of microbial eukaryotes have been pivotal in the discovery of biological phenomena, including RNA editing, self-splicing RNA, and telomere addition. Here we extend this list by demonstrating that genome architecture, namely the extensive processing of somatic (macronuclear) genomes in some ciliate lineages, is associated with elevated rates of protein evolution. Using newly developed likelihood-based procedures for studying molecular evolution, we investigate 6 genes to compare 1) ciliate protein evolution to that of 3 other clades of eukaryotes (plants, animals, and fungi) and 2) protein evolution in ciliates with extensively processed macronuclear genomes to that of other ciliate lineages. In 5 of the 6 genes, ciliates are estimated to have a higher ratio of nonsynonymous/synonymous substitution rates, consistent with an increase in the rate of protein diversification in ciliates relative to other eukaryotes. Even more striking, there is a significant effect of genome architecture within ciliates as the most divergent proteins are consistently found in those lineages with the most highly processed macronuclear genomes. We propose a model whereby genome architecture-specifically chromosomal processing, amitosis within macronuclei, and epigenetics-allows ciliates to explore protein space in a novel manner. Further, we predict that examination of diverse eukaryotes will reveal additional evidence of the impact of genome architecture on molecular evolution.     

水稻基因组测序及基因功能的鉴定

水稻是重要的粮食作物。作为单子叶模式植物,水稻基因组的大规模测序具有巨大的理论价值和现实意义。目前已获得了籼稻“93—11”和粳稻“日本晴”高质量的基因组数据,这为在基因组水平上深入研究其生长、发育、抗病和高产等的遗传机理提供了便利,从而为进一步解决世界粮食危机提供了新的突破口和契机。随着水稻基因组计划的顺利结束,其研究重心也已由建立高分辨率的遗传、物理和转录图谱为主的结构基因组学转向基因功能的研究。结构基因组学研究获得的大量序列数据为揭示和开发功能基因开辟了广阔的前景。目前,利用图位克隆和电子克隆等方法已成功分离了多个水稻抗病、抗虫、抗逆境、抗倒伏、高产、优质等重要农艺性状相关的基因,对培育水稻新品种,促进农业的可持续发展意义重大。据估计,水稻至少拥有3．7万个非转座因子相关的蛋白编码基因。因此,完成全基因组序列测定后,重要基因功能的鉴定已成为当前基因组学研究的主要目标。反向遗传学、大规模基因功能表达谱分析和蛋白质组研究等策略已在研究水稻重要基因的功能方面发挥了重要作用。文章综述了水稻基因组测序及基因功能研究的现状,并就新基因发掘和基因功能注释的方法作了评述,期待为水稻遗传工程和育种实践提供参考。     

Genome Sequencing and Identification of Gene Function in Rice

Rice is known to be one of the most important crops for human consumption. As the model cereal crop, large-scale sequencing of rice genome must play quite important roles both in theoretical research and practical application in rice breeding, which announces the opening of another new way to resolve the world food crisis. At present, the emphasis of rice genome research has been transferred from structure genomics to functional analysis. The discovery of new genes and annotation of gene function was believed to be an important issue in functional genomics research. In this article, the sequencing and functional research of the rice genome were reviewed. These results may provide some useful clues for rice genetic engineering and breeding practices.     

Smoke without fire: most reported cases of intron gain in nematodes instead reflect intron losses

Identification of recently gained spliceosomal introns would provide crucial evidence in the continuing debate concerning the age and evolutionary significance of introns. A previously published genomic analysis reported to have identified 122 introns that had been gained since the divergence of the nematodes Caenorhabidits elegans and Caenorhabditis briggsae approximately 100 MYA. However, using newly available genomic sequence from additional Caenorhabditis species, we show that 74% (60/81) of the reported gains in C. elegans are present in a C. briggsae relative. This pattern indicates that these introns represent losses in C. briggsae, not gains in C. elegans. In addition, 61% (25/41) of the reported gains in C. briggsae are present in the more distant C. briggsae relative, in a pattern suggesting that additional reported gains in C. elegans and/or C. briggsae may in fact represent unrecognized losses. These results underscore the dominance of intron loss over intron gain in recent eukaryotic evolution, the pitfalls associated with parsimony in inferring intron gains, and the importance of genomic sequencing of clusters of closely related species for drawing accurate inferences about genome evolution.     

Genome-wide survey of prokaryotic O-protein phosphatases

Complex and diverse signal transduction circuits are responsible for the efficient functioning of cellular network. Protein kinases and O-protein phosphatases are primarily responsible for propagating such stimuli within a eukaryotic cell. However, there is limited understanding of O-protein phosphatases in the prokaryotic genomes. The availability of complete genome sequence information for several prokaryotes permits a genome-wide survey of O-protein phosphatases. The distribution of the various protein phosphatase families has been observed to be mosaic, with the exception of the members of the phospho protein family P (PPP), which is consistent with previous studies. The PPP family is ubiquitous in the prokaryotic world and undergoes the highest sequence divergence within a genome amongst phosphatases studied. The co-occurrence of low molecular mass tyrosine phosphatase (LMWPc) and PPP domain in a single polypeptide suggests that the protein present in Archaeoglobus fulgidus might represent the progenitor for all protein phosphatases. The curation of data on prokaryotic protein phosphatases provides a convenient framework for the analysis of domain architectures and for characterising structural and functional properties of this important family of signalling proteins.     

Putative in silico mapping of DNA sequences to livestock genome maps using SSLP flanking sequences

In this study, an in silico approach was developed to identify homologies existing between livestock microsatellite flanking sequences and GenBank nucleotide sequences. Initially, 1955 bovine, 1570 porcine and 1121 chicken microsatellites were downloaded and the flanking sequences were compared with the nr and dbEST databases of GenBank. A total of 74 bovine, 44 porcine and 37 chicken microsatellite flanking sequences passed our criteria and had at least one significant match to human genomic sequence, genes/expressed sequence tags (ESTs) or both. GenBank annotation and BLAT searches of the UCSC human genome assembly revealed that 38 bovine, 13 porcine and 17 chicken microsatellite flanking sequences were highly similar to known human genes. Map locations were available for 67 bovine, 44 porcine and 21 chicken microsatellite flanking sequences, providing useful links in the comparative maps of humans and livestock. In support of our approach, 112 alignments with both microsatellite and match mapping information were located in the expected chromosomal regions based on previously reported syntenic relationships. The development of this in silico mapping approach has significantly increased the number of genes and EST sequences anchored to the bovine, porcine and chicken genome maps and the number of links in various human-livestock comparative maps.     

用电子克隆新基因C17orf32和ZNF362对NCBI人类基因数据库模式参考序列5种错误类型的分析与纠正

采用生物信息学分析与实验确认相结合的技术路线,通过所识别的基因在非冗余数据库比对发现了网上公布的计算机注释人类基因组编码序列存在各种类型的多处错误。该策略既有助于发现更多的人类新基因,又有助于纠正美国国家生物技术信息中心(NCBI)基因组注释项目公布的参考序列(REFSEQs)中所存在的错误。比如他们采用基因预测方法通过自动计算分析从NCBIcontig NT_010808预测到两个模式参考序列LOC124919和LOC147007,本该都是C17orf32,但却都是C17orf32的不同错误形式,分别为第1和2类型错误;再如,他们采用基因预测方法通过自动计算分析从NCBIcontig NT_004511预测到3个模式参考序列LOC14907、LOC200084和LOC91126,实际上都是．ZNF362一种基因,却提交了ZNF362的3种不同错误形式,分别为第4、5和7类型错误。本研究利用计算机识别并结合实验验证能够纠正或避免现有的人类基因组编码序列错误。以前公开发表的文献没有明确指出NCBI人类基因模式参考序列存在错误,因此直当慎重看待计算机注释的可能存在各种类型错误的人类基因组编码序列。人类新基因的正确识别和注释仍是一项长期而繁重的任务。     

锈菌类真菌基因组结构分析研究进展

锈菌种群庞大,可以引起许多重要经济作物和林木病害,严重威胁全球粮食和林业生产安全。全基因组分析为锈菌基因功能研究、毒性变异研究及锈菌演化规律研究提供了重要基础,为制定锈病有效防控策略和创制抗锈新材料提供理论依据。本文综述了目前锈菌全基因组分析领域的进展,对锈菌的基因组结构、基因组成、基因组变异等特征进行了归纳分析,对基因组变异与其专性寄生特性的关系、基因组变异对其毒性变异的可能影响等进行了阐述。基因组学将为最终揭示锈菌生活史复杂性和毒性高度变异性的根本成因提供有力工具。     

An evolutionary treasure: unification of a broad set of amidohydrolases related to urease

The recent determination of the three-dimensional structure of urease revealed striking similarities of enzyme architecture to adenosine deaminase and phosphotriesterase, evidence of a distant evolutionary relationship that had gone undetected by one-dimensional sequence comparisons. Here, based on an analysis of conservation patterns in three dimensions, we report the discovery of the same active-site architecture in an even larger set of enzymes involved primarily in nucleotide metabolism. As a consequence, we predict the three-dimensional fold and details of the active site architecture for dihydroorotases, allantoinases, hydantoinases, AMP-, adenine and cytosine deaminases, imidazolonepropionase, aryldialkylphosphatase, chlorohydrolases, formylmethanofuran dehydrogenases, and proteins involved in animal neuronal development. Two member families are common to archaea, eubacteria, and eukaryota. Thirteen other functions supported by the same structural motif and conserved chemical mechanism apparently represent later adaptations for different substrate specificities in different cellular contexts. © 1997 Wiley-Liss Inc.     

马属动物全基因组高通量测序研究进展

马属(Equus)动物的祖先大约在5500万年前出现,经过持续分化形成现今的马、驴和斑马,统称马属动物。马作为家畜中的重要一员,是推动人类文明发展的载体,在人类的饮食、战争、农耕、运输和娱乐等领域做出了巨大贡献。然而,人类为了满足需求,或多或少影响着马的进化方向,从而在长时间自然和人工选择过程中形成了多种独具特色性状的不同马种。驴和骡在全球的存栏量也较多,在人类的生产和生活中起到的作用同样不可忽视,不但为人类提供了生产力而且还提供了食物和营养保健品。可见,马属动物对人类的重要性。近年来,高通量测序技术和生物信息学分析方法被广泛运用于家畜的遗传学研究。人们利用高通量测序手段探索马属动物在进化过程中的种群变化历史,解析形成独特性状的分子机制,为其育种工作提供有效的数据支持。本文综述了马属动物全基因组高通量测序的研究进展,以及利用该技术在马属动物的进化历史和功能基因挖掘研究领域所取得的成就,以期今后对马属动物的深入研究、产业开发和利用等方面提供参考信息。     

A species-specific nucleosomal signature defines a periodic distribution of amino acids in proteins

Nucleosomes are the basic structural units of chromatin. Most of the yeast genome is organized in a pattern of positioned nucleosomes that is stably maintained under a wide range of physiological conditions. In this work, we have searched for sequence determinants associated with positioned nucleosomes in four species of fission and budding yeasts. We show that mononucleosomal DNA follows a highly structured base composition pattern, which differs among species despite the high degree of histone conservation. These nucleosomal signatures are present in transcribed and non-transcribed regions across the genome. In the case of open reading frames, they correctly predict the relative distribution of codons on mononucleosomal DNA, and they also determine a periodicity in the average distribution of amino acids along the proteins. These results establish a direct and species-specific connection between the position of each codon around the histone octamer and protein composition.     

马基因组研究进展

各种生物都具有其独特的遗传信息, 深入了解生物体的形成过程以及各种生命活动都离不开基因组的研究成果。由于在世界范围内马具有良好的健康情况记录和详细的系谱记录, 使得马成为生命科学研究中极具价值的模式动物。尽管起步较晚, 但在过去的几年中, 马基因组图谱经历了前所未有的发展。文章主要对近年来马基因组遗传图谱、物理图谱、基因组比较作图以及功能基因组学等研究进展进行了综述, 这些图谱也正是世界各地研究人员用以探寻与马的各种性状(包括全部的健康状况、抗病性能、生殖生育能力、运动性能以及诸如毛色这样的表型特征等)相关基因的重要工具。相信这些研究成果将为马匹疾病预防、诊断和治疗提供新的思路与方法, 并将为马遗传育种提供更好的选配依据。     

In silico evidence for functional specialization after genome duplication in yeast

A fairly recent whole-genome duplication (WGD) event in yeast enables the effects of gene duplication and subsequent functional divergence to be characterized. We examined 15 ohnolog pairs (i.e. paralogs from a WGD) out of c . 500 Saccharomyces cerevisiae ohnolog pairs that have persisted over an estimated 100 million years of evolution. These 15 pairs were chosen for their high levels of asymmetry, i.e. within the pair, one ohnolog had evolved much faster than the other. Sequence comparisons of the 15 pairs revealed that the faster evolving duplicated genes typically appear to have experienced partially – but not fully – relaxed negative selection as evidenced by an average nonsynonymous/synonymous substitution ratio (d N /d S _avg=0.44) that is higher than the slow-evolving genes' ratio (d N /d S _avg=0.14) but still <1. Increased number of insertions and deletions in the fast-evolving genes also indicated loosened structural constraints. Sequence and structural comparisons indicated that a subset of these pairs had significant differences in their catalytically important residues and active or cofactor-binding sites. A literature survey revealed that several of the fast-evolving genes have gained a specialized function. Our results indicate that subfunctionalization and even neofunctionalization has occurred along with degenerative evolution, in which unneeded functions were destroyed by mutations.