| 1. |
- Ahmadi Afzadi, Masoud, et al.
(författare)
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Genome-wide expression analysis suggests a role for jasmonates in the resistance to blue mold in apple
- 2018
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Ingår i: Plant growth regulation (Print). - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0167-6903 .- 1573-5087. ; 85:3, s. 375-387
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Blue mold, caused by the necrotrophic fungal pathogen Penicillium expansum, causes serious postharvest losses in apple, and threatens human health through production of the potent mycotoxin patulin. Recent studies indicate a quantitative control of resistance against this disease in apple cultivars. A whole genome apple microarray covering 60k transcripts was used to identify gene(s) that appear to be differentially regulated between resistant and susceptible cultivars in P. expansum-infected fruits. A number of potential candidates was encountered among defense- and oxidative stress-related genes, cell wall modification and lignification genes, and genes related to localization and transport. Induction of one cell wall-related gene and three genes involved in the 'down-stream' flavonoid biosynthesis pathway, demonstrates the fundamental role of the cell wall as an important barrier, and suggests that fruit flavonoids are involved in the resistance to blue mold. Moreover, exogenous application of the plant hormone methyl jasmonate (MeJA) reduced the symptoms resulting from inoculating apples with P. expansum. This is the first report linking MeJA and activation of cell wall and flavonoid pathway genes to resistance against blue mold in a study comparing different cultivars of domesticated apple. Our results provide an initial categorization of genes that are potentially involved in the resistance mechanism, and should be useful for developing tools for gene marker-assisted breeding of apple cultivars with an improved resistance to blue mold.
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| 2. |
- Almeida, Pedro, et al.
(författare)
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Genome assembly of the basket willow, Salix viminalis, reveals earliest stages of sex chromosome expansion
- 2020
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Ingår i: BMC Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1741-7007. ; 18:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundSex chromosomes have evolved independently multiple times in eukaryotes and are therefore considered a prime example of convergent genome evolution. Sex chromosomes are known to emerge after recombination is halted between a homologous pair of chromosomes, and this leads to a range of non-adaptive modifications causing gradual degeneration and gene loss on the sex-limited chromosome. However, the proximal causes of recombination suppression and the pace at which degeneration subsequently occurs remain unclear.ResultsHere, we use long- and short-read single-molecule sequencing approaches to assemble and annotate a draft genome of the basket willow, Salix viminalis, a species with a female heterogametic system at the earliest stages of sex chromosome emergence. Our single-molecule approach allowed us to phase the emerging Z and W haplotypes in a female, and we detected very low levels of Z/W single-nucleotide divergence in the non-recombining region. Linked-read sequencing of the same female and an additional male (ZZ) revealed the presence of two evolutionary strata supported by both divergence between the Z and W haplotypes and by haplotype phylogenetic trees. Gene order is still largely conserved between the Z and W homologs, although the W-linked region contains genes involved in cytokinin signaling regulation that are not syntenic with the Z homolog. Furthermore, we find no support across multiple lines of evidence for inversions, which have long been assumed to halt recombination between the sex chromosomes.ConclusionsOur data suggest that selection against recombination is a more gradual process at the earliest stages of sex chromosome formation than would be expected from an inversion and may result instead from the accumulation of transposable elements. Our results present a cohesive understanding of the earliest genomic consequences of recombination suppression as well as valuable insights into the initial stages of sex chromosome formation and regulation of sex differentiation.
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| 3. |
- Bengtsson, Therese, et al.
(författare)
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Proteomics and transcriptomics of the BABA-induced resistance response in potato using a novel functional annotation approach
- 2014
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Ingår i: BMC Genomics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2164. ; 15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Induced resistance (IR) can be part of a sustainable plant protection strategy against important plant diseases. beta-aminobutyric acid (BABA) can induce resistance in a wide range of plants against several types of pathogens, including potato infected with Phytophthora infestans. However, the molecular mechanisms behind this are unclear and seem to be dependent on the system studied. To elucidate the defence responses activated by BABA in potato, a genome-wide transcript microarray analysis in combination with label-free quantitative proteomics analysis of the apoplast secretome were performed two days after treatment of the leaf canopy with BABA at two concentrations, 1 and 10 mM. Results: Over 5000 transcripts were differentially expressed and over 90 secretome proteins changed in abundance indicating a massive activation of defence mechanisms with 10 mM BABA, the concentration effective against late blight disease. To aid analysis, we present a more comprehensive functional annotation of the microarray probes and gene models by retrieving information from orthologous gene families across 26 sequenced plant genomes. The new annotation provided GO terms to 8616 previously un-annotated probes. Conclusions: BABA at 10 mM affected several processes related to plant hormones and amino acid metabolism. A major accumulation of PR proteins was also evident, and in the mevalonate pathway, genes involved in sterol biosynthesis were down-regulated, whereas several enzymes involved in the sesquiterpene phytoalexin biosynthesis were up-regulated. Interestingly, abscisic acid (ABA) responsive genes were not as clearly regulated by BABA in potato as previously reported in Arabidopsis. Together these findings provide candidates and markers for improved resistance in potato, one of the most important crops in the world.
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| 4. |
- Darwish, Essam, et al.
(författare)
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The dynamics of touch-responsive gene expression in cereals
- 2023
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Ingår i: The Plant Journal. - 0960-7412 .- 1365-313X. ; 116:1, s. 282-302
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Wind, rain, herbivores, obstacles, neighbouring plants, etc. provide important mechanical cues to steer plant growth and survival. Mechanostimulation to stimulate yield and stress resistance of crops is of significant research interest, yet a molecular understanding of transcriptional responses to touch is largely absent in cereals. To address this, we performed whole-genome transcriptomics following mechanostimulation of wheat, barley, and the recent genome-sequenced oat. The largest transcriptome changes occurred ±25 min after touching, with most of the genes being upregulated. While most genes returned to basal expression level by 1–2 h in oat, many genes retained high expression even 4 h post-treatment in barley and wheat. Functional categories such as transcription factors, kinases, phytohormones, and Ca2+ regulation were affected. In addition, cell wall-related genes involved in (hemi)cellulose, lignin, suberin, and callose biosynthesis were touch-responsive, providing molecular insight into mechanically induced changes in cell wall composition. Furthermore, several cereal-specific transcriptomic footprints were identified that were not observed in Arabidopsis. In oat and barley, we found evidence for systemic spreading of touch-induced signalling. Finally, we provide evidence that both the jasmonic acid-dependent and the jasmonic acid-independent pathways underlie touch-signalling in cereals, providing a detailed framework and marker genes for further study of (a)biotic stress responses in cereals.
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| 5. |
- Evkaikina, Anastasiia I., et al.
(författare)
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The Huperzia selago Shoot Tip Transcriptome Sheds New Light on the Evolution of Leaves
- 2017
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Ingår i: Genome Biology and Evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1759-6653. ; 9:9, s. 2444-2460
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lycopodiophyta-consisting of three orders, Lycopodiales, Isoetales and Selaginellales, with different types of shoot apical meristems (SAMs)-form the earliest branch among the extant vascular plants. They represent a sister group to all other vascular plants, from which they differ in that their leaves are microphylls-that is, leaves with a single, unbranched vein, emerging from the protostele without a leaf gap-not megaphylls. All leaves represent determinate organs originating on the flanks of indeterminate SAMs. Thus, leaf formation requires the suppression of indeterminacy, that is, of KNOX transcription factors. In seed plants, this is mediated by different groups of transcription factors including ARP and YABBY. We generated a shoot tip transcriptome of Huperzia selago (Lycopodiales) to examine the genes involved in leaf formation. Our H. selago transcriptome does not contain any ARP homolog, although transcriptomes of Selaginella spp. do. Surprisingly, we discovered a YABBY homolog, although these transcription factors were assumed to have evolved only in seed plants. The existence of a YABBY homolog in H. selago suggests that YABBY evolved already in the common ancestor of the vascular plants, and subsequently was lost in some lineages like Selaginellales, whereas ARP may have been lost in Lycopodiales. The presence of YABBY in the common ancestor of vascular plants would also support the hypothesis that this common ancestor had a simplex SAM. Furthermore, a comparison of the expression patterns of ARP in shoot tips of Selaginella kraussiana (Harrison CJ, et al. 2005. Independent recruitment of a conserved developmental mechanism during leaf evolution. Nature 434(7032): 509-514.) and YABBY in shoot tips of H. selago implies that the development of microphylls, unlike megaphylls, does not seem to depend on the combined activities of ARP and YABBY. Altogether, our data show that Lycopodiophyta are a diverse group; so, in order to understand the role of Lycopodiophyta in evolution, representatives of Lycopodiales, Selaginellales, as well as of Isoetales, have to be examined.
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| 6. |
- Iciar, Frades, et al.
(författare)
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A novel workflow correlating RNA-seq data to Phythophthora infestans resistance levels in wild Solanum species and potato clones
- 2015
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Plant Science. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-462X. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Comparative transcriptomics between species can provide valuable understanding of plant-pathogen interactions. Here, we focus on wild Solarium species and potato clones with varying degree of resistance against Phytophthora infestans, which causes the devastating late blight disease in potato. The transcriptomes of three wild Solanurn species native to Southern Sweden, Solarium dulcamara, Solanum nigrum, and Solanurn physalifolium were compared to three potato clones, Desiree (cv.), SW93-1015 and Sarpo Mira. Desiree and S. physalifolium are susceptible to P. infestans whereas the other four have different degrees of resistance. By building transcript families based on de novo assembled RNA-seq across species and clones and correlating these to resistance phenotypes, we created a novel workflow to identify families with expanded or depleted number of transcripts in relation to the P. infestans resistance level. Analysis was facilitated by inferring functional annotations based on the family structure and semantic clustering. More transcript families were expanded in the resistant clones and species and the enriched functions of these were associated to expected gene ontology (GO) terms for resistance mechanisms such as hypersensitive response, host programmed cell death and endopeptidase activity. However, a number of unexpected functions and transcripts were also identified, for example transmembrane transport and protein acylation expanded in the susceptible group and a cluster of Zinc knuckle family proteins expanded in the resistant group. Over 400 expressed putative resistance (R)genes were identified and resistant clones Sarpo Mira and 5W93-1015 had ca 25% more expressed putative R-genes than susceptible cultivar Desiree. However, no differences in numbers of susceptibility (S)gene homologs were seen between species and clones. In addition, we identified P infestans transcripts including effectors in the early stages of P. infestans-Solanum interactions.
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| 7. |
- Iciar, Frades, et al.
(författare)
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Evaluation and integration of functional annotation pipelines for newly sequenced organisms: the potato genome as a test case
- 2014
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Ingår i: BMC Plant Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2229. ; 14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: For most organisms, even if their genome sequence is available, little functional information about individual genes or proteins exists. Several annotation pipelines have been developed for functional analysis based on sequence, 'omics', and literature data. However, researchers encounter little guidance on how well they perform. Here, we used the recently sequenced potato genome as a case study. The potato genome was selected since its genome is newly sequenced and it is a non-model plant even if there is relatively ample information on individual potato genes, and multiple gene expression profiles are available.Results: We show that the automatic gene annotations of potato have low accuracy when compared to a "gold standard" based on experimentally validated potato genes. Furthermore, we evaluate six state-of-the-art annotation pipelines and show that their predictions are markedly dissimilar (Jaccard similarity coefficient of 0.27 between pipelines on average). To overcome this discrepancy, we introduce a simple GO structure-based algorithm that reconciles the predictions of the different pipelines. We show that the integrated annotation covers more genes, increases by over 50% the number of highly co-expressed GO processes, and obtains much higher agreement with the gold standard.Conclusions: We find that different annotation pipelines produce different results, and show how to integrate them into a unified annotation that is of higher quality than each single pipeline. We offer an improved functional annotation of both PGSC and ITAG potato gene models, as well as tools that can be applied to additional pipelines and improve annotation in other organisms. This will greatly aid future functional analysis of '-omics' datasets from potato and other organisms with newly sequenced genomes. The new potato annotations are available with this paper.
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| 8. |
- Le Rhun, Anais, et al.
(författare)
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Identification of endoribonuclease specific cleavage positions reveals novel targets of RNase III in Streptococcus pyogenes
- 2017
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Ingår i: Nucleic Acids Research. - : OXFORD UNIV PRESS. - 0305-1048 .- 1362-4962. ; 45:5, s. 2329-2340
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A better understanding of transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in bacteria relies on studying their transcriptome. RNA sequencing methods are used not only to assess RNA abundance but also the exact boundaries of primary and processed transcripts. Here, we developed a method, called identification of specific cleavage position (ISCP), which enables the identification of direct endoribonuclease targets in vivo by comparing the 5' and 3' ends of processed transcripts between wild type and RNase deficient strains. To demonstrate the ISCP method, we used as a model the double-stranded specific RNase III in the human pathogen Streptococcus pyogenes. We mapped 92 specific cleavage positions (SCPs) among which, 48 were previously described and 44 are new, with the characteristic 2 nucleotides 3' overhang of RNase III. Most SCPs were located in untranslated regions of RNAs. We screened for RNase III targets using transcriptomic differential expression analysis (DEA) and compared those with the RNase III targets identified using the ISCP method. Our study shows that in S. pyogenes, under standard growth conditions, RNase III has a limited impact both on antisense transcripts and on global gene expression with the expression of most of the affected genes being downregulated in an RNase III deletion mutant.
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| 9. |
- Nicolia, Alessandro, et al.
(författare)
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Targeted gene mutation in tetraploid potato through transient TALEN expression in protoplasts
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Biotechnology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-1656 .- 1873-4863. ; 204, s. 17-24
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Potato is the third largest food crop in the world, however, the high degree of heterozygosity, the tetrasomic inheritance and severe inbreeding depression are major difficulties for conventional potato breeding. The rapid development of modern breeding methods offers new possibilities to enhance breeding efficiency and precise improvement of desirable traits. New site-directed mutagenesis techniques that can directly edit the target genes without any integration of recombinant DNA are especially favorable. Here we present a successful pipeline for site-directed mutagenesis in tetraploid potato through transient TALEN expression in protoplasts. The transfection efficiency of protoplasts was 38-39% and the site-directed mutation frequency was 7-8% with a few base deletions as the predominant type of mutation. Among the protoplast-derived calli, 11-13% showed mutations and a similar frequency (10%) was observed in the regenerated shoots. Our results indicate that the site-directed mutagenesis technology could be used as a new breeding method in potato as well as for functional analysis of important genes to promote sustainable potato production. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 10. |
- Planells, Jordi, et al.
(författare)
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The exosome degrades chromatin-associated RNAs genome-wide and maintains chromatin homeostasis
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Chromatin-associated RNAs (caRNAs) modulate chromatin organization and function. The RNAexosome degrades different types of nuclear transcripts, but its role in chromatin has not beenaddressed. Here we have used Drosophila melanogaster S2 cells as a model system to identify therepertoire of caRNAs and establish the role of the exosome in their regulation. We have analyzed bothunique and repetitive sequences, and combining RNA-seq and ATAC-seq we show that thesimultaneous depletion of the exosome catalytic subunits RRP6 and DIS3 not only affects caRNAlevels but also changes the local chromatin accessibility at specific loci. We have identified a group ofexosome-sensitive genes that are involved in developmental regulation and are characterized by abalanced chromatin state in which Polycomb and Trithorax factors coexist. Our results reveal that RNAdegradation by the exosome is an important mechanism for the homeostasis of such balancedchromatin states. Given that eukaryotic genomes are repetitive to a large extent, we have also analyzed repetitive caRNAs (rep-caRNAs) and we show that the exosome is needed to control repcaRNAlevels and to maintain the degree of chromatin packaging in repetitive genomic regions. Thisrole is particularly relevant in the pericentromeric regions where the exosome is required to silenceLTR elements and maintain centromere organization.
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