ABSTRACT
Enhancers activate transcription in a distance-, orientation-, and position-independent manner, which makes them difficult to be identified. Self-transcribing active regulatory region sequencing (STARR-seq) measures the enhancer activity of millions of DNA fragments in parallel. Here we used STARR-seq to generate a quantitative global map of rice enhancers. Most enhancers were mapped within genes, especially at the 5' untranslated regions (5'UTR) and in coding sequences. Enhancers were also frequently mapped proximal to silent and lowly-expressed genes in transposable element (TE)-rich regions. Analysis of the epigenetic features of enhancers at their endogenous loci revealed that most enhancers do not co-localize with DNase I hypersensitive sites (DHSs) and lack the enhancer mark of histone modification H3K4me1. Clustering analysis of enhancers according to their epigenetic marks revealed that about 40% of identified enhancers carried one or more epigenetic marks. Repressive H3K27me3 was frequently enriched with positive marks, H3K4me3 and/or H3K27ac, which together label enhancers. Intergenic enhancers were also predicted based on the location of DHS regions relative to genes, which overlap poorly with STARR-seq enhancers. In summary, we quantitatively identified enhancers by functional analysis in the genome of rice, an important model plant. This work provides a valuable resource for further mechanistic studies in different biological contexts.
Subject(s)
Acetylation , Base Sequence , Deoxyribonuclease I , Metabolism , Enhancer Elements, Genetic , Epigenesis, Genetic , Genes, Plant , Genomics , Methods , Histone Code , Genetics , Histones , Metabolism , Models, Genetic , Oryza , Genetics , Promoter Regions, Genetic , Genetics , Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid , Genetics , Sequence Analysis, DNA , Transcription, GeneticABSTRACT
The low butanol concentration of acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation causes uneconomical product recovery. In this work, the effect of small molecule non-ionic surfactants on butanol fermentation was evaluated, using laboratory stocks of Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824. Non-ionic surfactants substantially increased butanol production when additive amount was higher than 1% (W/W). Butanol concentration reached 16.9 g/L with 5% (W/W) Tween 80 and 100 g/L glucose in a 5 L fermenter. It was found that surfactants micelle solubilization capacity to butanol was very limited, indicating that butanol could hardly enter the surfactants micelle. Butanol production improvement was probably caused by cell surface hydrophobicity change due to surfactants adsorption.