Analysis and comparison of a set of expressed sequence tags of the parthenogenetic water flea <Emphasis Type="Italic">Daphnia carinata</Emphasis>

The water flea Daphnia carinata (D. carinata) reproduces both sexually and parthenogenetically, yet little is known about the genes involved in these processes. To further clarify the reproductive biology of Daphnia and elucidate their unique mechanism of reproductive transformation, we have generated and characterized an expressed sequence tag (EST) data set from D. carinata. A set of 1,495 clusters were generated from sequencing 3,072 randomly chosen clones from a parthenogenetic, juvenile water flea cDNA library. The nucleic acid and deduced amino acid sequences were compared with known GenBank sequences. Functional annotation found that 959 clusters showed significant homology with known genes involved in a broad range of activities, including metabolism, translation, development and reproduction, as well as genes involved in sensing environmental factors. We speculate that genes involved in development and reproduction, along with genes that allow the organism to sense changes in the environment, play important roles in the process of parthenogenetic reproduction and could be markers of the early steps of sexual differentiation. Additionally, 86% of the D. Carinata unique sequences could be stringently mapped to the D. pulex genome, of which 125 mapped to intergenic and intronic regions on the current assembly. Our results provide practical insight into crustacean reproductive biology, in addition to establishing a new animal model for reproductive and developmental biology. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Xiaoqian Xu and Shuhui Song contributed equally to this work. Nucleotide sequence data reported are available in the GenBank databases under the accession numbers: GD269049−GD272045.     

Analysis of Jatropha curcas transcriptome for oil enhancement and genic markers

Oil-rich seeds of Jatropha curcas are being focussed as a source of bio-diesel. However, prior to its industrial use, a lot of crop improvement efforts are required in Jatropha. Availability of a large number of EST sequences of Jatropha in public domain allow identification of candidate genes for several agronomic characters including oil content in seeds. Here, we have analysed 42,477 ESTs of Jatropha spanning 22.9 Mbp for microsatellites and fatty acid metabolism related sequences. Unigene sequences were built using CAP 3 programme resulted in 12,358 contigs and 5,730 singlets. Nearly, 8 % unigenes showed presence of microsatellites, slightly over-represented compared to their occurrence in ESTs. Most of the microsatellites were either di- or tri-nucleotide repeats, while other categories of tetra-, penta- and hexa-nucleotide repeats together constituted ~4 % of total microsatellites. Assessment of functional relevance of unigenes was carried out using Blast2GO using its default settings. The overall sequence similarity level against sequences in ‘nr’ database was >80 %. A total of 931 sequences that participated in any of the pathways related to fatty acid or lipid metabolism were found at GO level 6. Among these, GO terms “Fatty acid metabolic process” and “Fatty acid biosynthetic process” were most over-represented. Overall, our work has due relevance in identifying molecular markers for the candidate genes for oil content in Jatropha seeds, and will prove to be an important reference for further studies for identification of trait specific markers in Jatropha.     

基于比较基因组学的玉米ESTs定位方法

描述了以水稻基因组数据和玉米与水稻的比较遗传图谱为桥梁,基于水稻和玉米间存在的标记和序列水平上的广泛的共线性,对大量的玉米ESTs初步定位于玉米连锁群上新方法,为对ESTs开展进一步的基因组学研究和基因克隆提供参考信息。对139条玉米ESTs的定位发现,96条玉米ESTs（69%）可在水稻基因组中找到同源序列,77条ESTs（55%）可使用该策略进行定位,证实了该方法的可行性和有效性。      

香猪肌肉组织cDNA文库的构建及其EST测序成功率的分析

以香猪背最长肌为实验材料,以Lambda ZAP II为载体,构建了肌肉组织的cDNA文库。结果表明,cDNA文库的滴度在3.4×107 pfu/ml以上,重组率在94%以上,插入片段大小平均在1.5kb以上。同时指出,如果从3′端测序,多于30 个碱基T的插入片段是造成ESTs测序成功率低的主要因素。 Abstract:Using Longissimus Dorsi muscle as material and Lambda ZAP II as Vector,Xiang Pig Longissimus Dorsi muscle cDNA library has been constructed in our study.The results showed that the tritation of the library was 3.4×107 pfu/ml,the recombinant percentage was 94%,and the fragment length of inserted average cDNA were 1.5kb.The study pointed out that the more than 30 T insertion is the major factor for low percetage if sequencing the 3′-end.     

鸡下丘脑cDNA文库的构建及部分克隆ESTs序列初步分析

以鸡下丘脑为实验材料,以λgt10为载体,构建了鸡下丘脑cDNA文库。结果表明,文库的滴度为3.8×10     

dbEST‐derived microsatellite markers in celery (Apium graveolens L. var. dulce)

We report on the development of 11 (from database expressed sequence tags) dbEST‐derived microsatellite markers in celery (Apium graveolens L. var. dulce). The sequences were obtained from DNA accessions available from GenBank and contained di‐, tri‐ and pentanucleotidic motifs. All the microsatellites were found in expressed sequence tags and they are expected to become useful tools for ecological, genetic and evolutionary studies, as well as for celery breeding. Polymorphism was explored in 16 celery commercial varieties, and marker transferability was tested on three accessions of celeriac (A. graveolens var. rapaceum). Primers and PCR conditions for microsatellite amplification are reported.     

Eimeria tenella: cloning of a novel Eimeria tenella cDNA encoding a protein related to rhomboid family from F2 hybrid strain

A novel cDNA sequence with an open reading frame of 774 bp from Eimeria tenella F2 hybrid strain (ETRH01) was isolated from a lambda cDNA library with a monoclonal antibody against sporozoite. Analysis of the genomic sequence suggests that this is an intronless gene. The deduced protein sequence has 257 amino acids with a calculated molecular weight of 28.349 kDa and an isoelectric point of 8.56. Sequence analysis revealed seven transmembrane domains and a rhomboid domain within the protein. RT-PCR result indicates that this gene was expressed in all of the five E. tenella isolates analyzed. To further study the role of this novel gene in the life cycle of E. tenella, ETRH01 was successfully expressed using pET28b(+) expression system.