Identification and expression profile of the SMAX/SMXL family genes in chickpea and lentil provide important players of biotechnological interest involved in plant branching.

MAIN CONCLUSION: SMAX/SMXL family genes were successfully identified and characterized in the chickpea and lentil and gene expression data revealed several genes associated with the modulation of plant branching and powerful targets for use in transgenesis and genome editing. Strigolactones (SL) play essential roles in plant growth, rooting, development, and branching, and are associated with plant resilience to abiotic and biotic stress conditions. Likewise, karrikins (KAR) are "plant smoke-derived molecules" that act in a hormonal signaling pathway similar to SL playing an important role in seed germination and hairy root elongation. The SMAX/SMXL family genes are part of these two signaling pathways, in addition to some of these members acting in a still little known SL- and KAR-independent signaling pathway. To date, the identification and functional characterization of the SMAX/SMXL family genes has not been performed in the chickpea and lentil. In this study, nine SMAX/SMXL genes were systematically identified and characterized in the chickpea and lentil, and their expression profiles were explored under different unstressless or different stress conditions. After a comprehensive in silico characterization of the genes, promoters, proteins, and protein-protein interaction network, the expression profile for each gene was determined using a meta-analysis from the RNAseq datasets and complemented with real-time PCR analysis. The expression profiles of the SMAX/SMXL family genes were very dynamic in different chickpea and lentil organs, with some genes assuming a tissue-specific expression pattern. In addition, these genes were significantly modulated by different stress conditions, indicating that SMAX/SMXL genes, although working in three distinct signaling pathways, can act to modulate plant resilience. Most CaSMAX/SMXL and partner genes such as CaTiE1 and CaLAP1, have a positive correlation with the plant branching level, while most LcSMAX/SMXL genes were less correlated with the plant branching level. The SMXL6, SMXL7, SMXL8, TiE1, LAP1, BES1, and BRC1 genes were highlighted as powerful targets for use in transgenesis and genome editing aiming to develop chickpea and lentil cultivars with improved architecture. Therefore, this study presented a detailed characterization of the SMAX/SMXL genes in the chickpea and lentil, and provided new insights for further studies focused on each SMAX/SMXL gene.

Role of phage ϕ1 in two strains of Salmonella Rissen, sensitive and resistant to phage ϕ1.

BACKGROUND: The study describes the Salmonella Rissen phage ϕ1 isolated from the ϕ1-sensitive Salmonella Rissen strain RW. The same phage was then used to select the resistant strain RRϕ1+, which can harbour or not ϕ1. RESULTS: Following this approach, we found that ϕ1, upon excision from RW cells with mitomycin, behaves as a temperate phage: lyses host cells and generates phage particles; instead, upon spontaneous excision from RRϕ1+ cells, it does not generate phage particles; causes loss of phage resistance; switches the O-antigen from the smooth to the rough phenotype, and favors the transition of Salmonella Rissen from the planktonic to the biofilm growth. The RW and RRϕ1+ strains differ by 10 genes; of these, only two (phosphomannomutase_1 and phosphomannomutase_2; both involved in the mannose synthesis pathway) display significant differences at the expression levels. This result suggests that phage resistance is associated with these two genes. CONCLUSIONS: Phage ϕ1 displays the unusual property of behaving as template as well as lytic phage. This feature was used by the phage to modulate several phases of Salmonella Rissen lifestyle.

The Solanum commersonii Genome Sequence Provides Insights into Adaptation to Stress Conditions and Genome Evolution of Wild Potato Relatives.

Here, we report the draft genome sequence of Solanum commersonii, which consists of ∼830 megabases with an N50 of 44,303 bp anchored to 12 chromosomes, using the potato (Solanum tuberosum) genome sequence as a reference. Compared with potato, S. commersonii shows a striking reduction in heterozygosity (1.5% versus 53 to 59%), and differences in genome sizes were mainly due to variations in intergenic sequence length. Gene annotation by ab initio prediction supported by RNA-seq data produced a catalog of 1703 predicted microRNAs, 18,882 long noncoding RNAs of which 20% are shown to target cold-responsive genes, and 39,290 protein-coding genes with a significant repertoire of nonredundant nucleotide binding site-encoding genes and 126 cold-related genes that are lacking in S. tuberosum. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that domesticated potato and S. commersonii lineages diverged ∼2.3 million years ago. Three duplication periods corresponding to genome enrichment for particular gene families related to response to salt stress, water transport, growth, and defense response were discovered. The draft genome sequence of S. commersonii substantially increases our understanding of the domesticated germplasm, facilitating translation of acquired knowledge into advances in crop stability in light of global climate and environmental changes.

Epigenetic changes induced by chronic and acute chromium stress treatments in Arabidopsis thaliana identified by the MSAP-Seq.

Chromium (Cr) is an highly toxic metal to plants and causes severe damage to their growth, development, and reproduction. Plant exposure to chronic and acute Cr stress treatments results in significant changes at short time in the gene expression profile and at long time in the genomic DNA methylation profile at a transgenerational level and, consequently, in gene expression. These epigenetic modifications and their implications imposed by the Cr stress are not yet completely known in plants. Herein, were identified the epigenetic changes induced by chronic and acute Cr stress treatments in Arabidopsis thaliana plants using Methylation Sensitive Amplification Polymorphism coupled with next-generation sequencing (MSAP-Seq). First-generation Arabidopsis plants (termed F0 plants) kept under hoagland solution were subjected to Cr stress treatments. For chronic Cr stress, plants were treated through hoagland solution with 2.5 µM Cr during the entire cultivation period until seed harvest. Meanwhile, for acute Cr stress, plants were treated with 5 µM Cr during the first three weeks and returned to unstressful control condition until seed harvest. Seeds from F0 plants were sown and F1 plants were re-submitted to the same Cr stress treatments. The seed germination rate was evaluated from F-2 seeds harvested of F1 plants kept under different Cr stress treatments (0, 10, 20, and 40 µM) compared to the unstressful control condition. These data showed significant changes in the germination rate of F-2 seeds originating from stressed F1 plants compared to F-2 seeds harvested from unstressful control plants. Given this data, F1 plants kept under these chronic and acute Cr stress treatments and unstressful control condition were evaluated for the transgenerational epigenetic modifications using MSAP-Seq. The MSAP-Seq data showed that several genes were modified in their methylation status as a consequence of chronic and acute Cr stress treatment to maintain plant defenses activated. In particular, RNA processing, protein translation, photorespiration, energy production, transmembrane transport, DNA transcription, plant development, and plant resilience were the major biological processes modulated by epigenetic mechanisms identified in F1 plants kept under chronic and acute Cr stress. Therefore, collective data suggested that Arabidopsis plants kept under Cr stress regulate their epigenetic status over generations based on DNA methylation to modulate defense and resilience mechanisms.

Expression profile of the NCED/CCD genes in chickpea and lentil during abiotic stress reveals a positive correlation with increased plant tolerance.

Carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase (CCD) gene family is organized in two subfamilies: (i) 9-cis epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase (NCED) genes and (ii) CCD genes. NCED genes are essential for catalyzing the first step of the abscisic-acid (ABA) biosynthesis, while CCD genes produce precursors of the strigolactones hormone. The functional characterization of these gene subfamilies has not been yet performed in chickpea and lentil. Herein, were identified and systematically characterized two NCED and five CCD genes in the chickpea and two NCED and six CCD genes in lentil. After in silico sequence analysis and phylogeny, the expression profile of the NCED/CCD genes was determined by meta-analysis and real-time PCR in plants under different stress conditions. Sequence data revealed that NCED/CCD genes are highly conserved between chickpea and lentil. This conservation was observed both at gene and protein sequence levels and phylogenetic relationships. Analysis of the promoter sequences revealed that all NCED/CCD genes have a considerable number of cis-regulatory elements responsive to biotic and abiotic stress. Protein sequence analysis evidenced that NCED/CCD genes share several conserved motifs and that they have a highly interconnected interaction network. Furthermore, the three-dimensional structure of these proteins was determined and indicated that some proteins have structures with considerable similarity. The meta-analysis revealed that NCED/CCD genes are dynamically modulated in different organs and under different stress conditions, but they have a positive correlation with plant tolerance. In accordance, real-time PCR data showed that both NCED and CCD genes are differentially modulated in plants under drought stress. In particular, CaNCED2, CaCCD5, LcNCED2, LcCCD1, and LcCCD2 genes have a positive correlation with improved plant tolerance to drought stress. Therefore, this study presented a detailed characterization of the chickpea and lentil NCED/CCD genes and provided new insights to improve abiotic stress tolerance in these two important crops.

Practical Workflow from High-Throughput Genotyping to Genomic Estimated Breeding Values (GEBVs).

The global climate is changing, resulting in significant economic losses worldwide. It is thus necessary to speed up the plant selection process, especially for complex traits such as biotic and abiotic stresses. Nowadays, genomic selection (GS) is paving new ways to boost plant breeding, facilitating the rapid selection of superior genotypes based on the genomic estimated breeding value (GEBV). GEBVs consider all markers positioned throughout the genome, including those with minor effects. Indeed, although the effect of each marker may be very small, a large number of genome-wide markers retrieved by high-throughput genotyping (HTG) systems (mainly genotyping-by-sequencing, GBS) have the potential to explain all the genetic variance for a particular trait under selection. Although several workflows for GBS and GS data have been described, it is still hard for researchers without a bioinformatics background to carry out these analyses. This chapter has outlined some of the recently available bioinformatics resources that enable researchers to establish GBS applications for GS analysis in laboratories. Moreover, we provide useful scripts that could be used for this purpose and a description of key factors that need to be considered in these approaches.

Genome-Wide HMG Family Investigation and Its Role in Glycoalkaloid Accumulation in Wild Tuber-Bearing Solanum commersonii.

Steroidal glycoalkaloids (SGAs) are a class of nitrogen-containing glycosides occurring in several plant families and biosynthesized through a specific pathway. HMG-CoA reductase is the first enzyme of this pathway, and its transcription can be regulated by biotic and abiotic stressors and even in a tissue-specific manner. This study aimed to characterize the HMG genes family in a tuber-bearing potato species, Solanum commersonii, using transcriptional and functional approaches. Our results provided evidence that four ScHMGs with different tissue-specificities represent the HMG gene family in S. commersonii and that they originated from ScHMG1 through segmental duplications. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that ScHMG1 is the direct ortholog of AtHMG1, which is associated with SGAs accumulation in plants. Its overexpression in S. commersonii revealed that this gene plays a key role in the accumulation of glycoalkaloids regulating the production of dehydrocommersonine.

Biomimetic hydroxyapatite nanocrystals are an active carrier for Salmonella bacteriophages.

PURPOSE: The use of bacteriophages represents a valid alternative to conventional antimicrobial treatments, overcoming the widespread bacterial antibiotic resistance phenomenon. In this work, we evaluated whether biomimetic hydroxyapatite (HA) nanocrystals are able to enhance some properties of bacteriophages. The final goal of this study was to demonstrate that biomimetic HA nanocrystals can be used for bacteriophage delivery in the context of bacterial infections, and contribute - at the same time - to enhance some of the biological properties of the same bacteriophages such as stability, preservation, antimicrobial activity, and so on. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Phage isolation and characterization were carried out by using Mitomycin C and following double-layer agar technique. The biomimetic HA water suspension was synthesized in order to obtain nanocrystals with plate-like morphology and nanometric dimensions. The interaction of phages with the HA was investigated by dynamic light scattering and Zeta potential analyses. The cytotoxicity and intracellular killing activities of the phage-HA complex were evaluated in human hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells. The bacterial inhibition capacity of the complex was assessed on chicken minced meat samples infected with Salmonella Rissen. RESULTS: Our data highlighted that the biomimetic HA nanocrystal-bacteriophage complex was more stable and more effective than phages alone in all tested experimental conditions. CONCLUSION: Our results evidenced the important contribution of biomimetic HA nanocrystals: they act as an excellent carrier for bacteriophage delivery and enhance its biological characteristics. This study confirmed the significant role of the mineral HA when it is complexed with biological entities like bacteriophages, as it has been shown for molecules such as lactoferrin.

Whole blood transcriptome analysis in ewes fed with hemp seed supplemented diet.

The hemp plant (Cannabis sativa L.) has a long tradition of being used for many different purposes such as industry, medicine and nutrition. In particular, because hemp seed (HS) is rich in oil protein and considerable amounts of dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals that are particularly suitable also for animal nutrition. Different studies have evaluated HS on qualitative and quantitative properties of livestock products but as of today, nobody has investigated the molecular pathway behind HS supplementation in farm animals. Thus, in this study, we will report the first RNA sequencing of the whole-blood transcriptome of ewes fed either with a controlled diet (CTR, n = 5) or with a diet supplemented with 5% of hemp seed (HSG, n = 5). Applying a false discovery rate (FDR) <0.05 and a log2FC either higher than 0.5 or lower than -0.5, we identified 314 differentially regulated genes in the HS-supplemented group compared to the CTR group. Several genes encoding for different subunits belonging to the complex I, II, III, IV and ATP-synthase were up-regulated making oxidative phosphorylation (FDR: 3.05e-19) and thermogenesis (FDR: 2.17e-16) the highest up-regulated pathways in our study. Moreover, we found up-regulation in different genes involved in lactose biosyntheses such as GALK1 and PGM1 and, as a result, we observed a statistically higher lactose percentage in the HSG group (p < 0.05). These results indicate that HS supplementation positively affects the energy production pathway in lactating ewes conferring them also more resistance to adverse climatic conditions such as low temperature. Finally, the higher milk lactose content makes the derived dairy products more profitable.

Author Correction: The hypothesis that Helicobacter pylori predisposes to Alzheimer's disease is biologically plausible.

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper.

The hypothesis that Helicobacter pylori predisposes to Alzheimer's disease is biologically plausible.

There is epidemiological evidence that H. pylori might predispose to Alzheimer's disease. To understand the cellular processes potentially linking such unrelated events, we incubated the human gastric cells MNK-28 with the H. pylori peptide Hp(2-20). We then monitored the activated genes by global gene expression. The peptide modulated 77 genes, of which 65 are listed in the AlzBase database and include the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease: APP, APOE, PSEN1, and PSEN2. A large fraction of modulated genes (30 out of 77) belong to the inflammation pathway. Remarkably, the pathways dis-regulated in Alzheimer's and Leasch-Nyhan diseases result dis-regulated also in this study. The unsuspected links between such different diseases - though still awaiting formal validation - suggest new directions for the study of neurological diseases.

Comparative metabolite and genome analysis of tuber-bearing potato species.

The cultivated potato Solanum tuberosum is unrivalled among crop plants for its wild relatives, which potentially represent an important source of genetic diversity to improve the nutritional value of potato varieties and understand metabolism regulation. The main aim of this research was to profile human health-related metabolites in a number of clones from 13 Solanum species. Results from HPLC-DAD and LC-ESI-MS analyses highlighted a high interspecific variability in the level of metabolites analysed. Ascorbic acid was confirmed to be the most abundant antioxidant in potato and chlorogenic acid the primary polyphenol. Generally, metabolite-based hierarchical clustering (HCL) and correlation networks did not group clones of identical species in the same cluster. This might be due to various factors, including the outcrossing nature of potato species, gene expression level and metabolic profiling techniques. Access to the genome sequence of S. tuberosum and S. commersonii allowed comparison of the genes involved in ascorbic acid, aromatic amino acid, phenylpropanoid and glycoalkaloid biosynthesis and helped interpret their respective pathways.

Epistatic interaction between MyD88 and TIRAP against Helicobacter pylori.

The genes MyD88 and TIRAP encode the adaptor proteins MyD88 and TIRAP. TIRAP plays the crucial role of activating the MyD88-dependent pathway, which in turn controls the immune response (innate and adaptive) to Helicobacter pylori. We looked for an association of MyD88 and TIRAP with H. pylori infection. Cases and controls were genotyped at the polymorphic sites MyD88 rs6853 and TIRAP rs8177374 by real-time PCR. When the genes were analyzed separately, only TIRAP was associated with infection. When the genes were analyzed concurrently, certain combinations of MyD88 and TIRAP protected the host against H. pylori colonization more efficiently than could be done by TIRAP alone.