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Deng P, Bian J, Yue H, Feng K, Wang M, Du X, Weining S, Nie X. Characterization of microRNAs and their targets in wild barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. spontaneum) using deep sequencing. Genome 2016; 59:339-48. [PMID: 27100818 DOI: 10.1139/gen-2015-0224] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/28/2023]
Abstract
MicroRNAs (miRNA) are a class of small, endogenous RNAs that play a negative regulatory role in various developmental and metabolic processes of plants. Wild barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. spontaneum), as the progenitor of cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. vulgare), has served as a valuable germplasm resource for barley genetic improvement. To survey miRNAs in wild barley, we sequenced the small RNA library prepared from wild barley using the Illumina deep sequencing technology. A total of 70 known miRNAs and 18 putative novel miRNAs were identified. Sequence analysis revealed that all of the miRNAs identified in wild barley contained the highly conserved hairpin sequences found in barley cultivars. MiRNA target predictions showed that 12 out of 52 miRNA families were predicted to target transcription factors, including 8 highly conserved miRNA families in plants and 4 wheat-barley conserved miRNA families. In addition to transcription factors, other predicted target genes were involved in diverse physiological and metabolic processes and stress defense. Our study for the first time reported the large-scale investigation of small RNAs in wild barley, which will provide essential information for understanding the regulatory role of miRNAs in wild barley and also shed light on future practical utilization of miRNAs for barley improvement.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pingchuan Deng
- State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.,State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
| | - Jianxin Bian
- State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.,State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
| | - Hong Yue
- State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.,State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
| | - Kewei Feng
- State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.,State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
| | - Mengxing Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.,State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
| | - Xianghong Du
- State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.,State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
| | - Song Weining
- State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.,State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
| | - Xiaojun Nie
- State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.,State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology in Arid Areas, College of Agronomy and Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
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Watts EJ, Shen Y, Lansky EP, Nevo E, Bobe G, Traber MG. High environmental stress yields greater tocotrienol content while changing vitamin e profiles of wild emmer wheat seeds. J Med Food 2014; 18:216-23. [PMID: 25105230 DOI: 10.1089/jmf.2014.0017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Vitamin E is an essential human nutrient that was first isolated from wheat. Emmer wheat, the cereal of Old World agriculture and a precursor to durum wheat, grows wild in the Fertile Crescent. Evolution Canyon, Israel, provides a microsite that models effects of contrasting environments. The north-facing and south-facing slopes exhibit low and high stress environments, respectively. Wild emmer wheat seeds were collected from both slopes and seed tocochromanol contents measured to test the hypothesis that high stress alters emmer wheat seed tocol-omics. Seeds from high stress areas contained more total vitamin E (108±15 nmol/g) than seeds from low stress environments (80±17 nmol/g, P=.0004). Vitamin E profiles within samples from these different environments revealed significant differences in isoform concentrations. Within each region, β- plus γ-tocotrienols represented the highest concentration of wheat tocotrienols (high stress, P<.0001; low stress, P<.0001), while α-tocopherol represented the highest concentration of the tocopherols (high stress, P=.0002; low stress, P<.0001). Percentages of both δ-tocotrienol and δ-tocopherol increased in high stress conditions. Changes under higher stress apparently are due to increased pathway flux toward more tocotrienol production. The production of more δ-isoforms suggests increased flow through a divergent path controlled by the VTE1 gene. Hence, stress conditions alter plant responses such that vitamin E profiles are changed, likely an attempt to provide additional antioxidant activity to promote seed viability and longevity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily J Watts
- 1 Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University , Corvallis, Oregon, USA
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Divergence of Drosophila melanogaster repeatomes in response to a sharp microclimate contrast in Evolution Canyon, Israel. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2014; 111:10630-5. [PMID: 25006263 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1410372111] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Repeat sequences, especially mobile elements, make up large portions of most eukaryotic genomes and provide enormous, albeit commonly underappreciated, evolutionary potential. We analyzed repeatomes of Drosophila melanogaster that have been diverging in response to a microclimate contrast in Evolution Canyon (Mount Carmel, Israel), a natural evolutionary laboratory with two abutting slopes at an average distance of only 200 m, which pose a constant ecological challenge to their local biotas. Flies inhabiting the colder and more humid north-facing slope carried about 6% more transposable elements than those from the hot and dry south-facing slope, in parallel to a suite of other genetic and phenotypic differences between the two populations. Nearly 50% of all mobile element insertions were slope unique, with many of them disrupting coding sequences of genes critical for cognition, olfaction, and thermotolerance, consistent with the observed patterns of thermotolerance differences and assortative mating.
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Nevo E. Evolution in action: adaptation and incipient sympatric speciation with gene flow across life at “Evolution Canyon”, Israel. Isr J Ecol Evol 2014. [DOI: 10.1080/15659801.2014.986879] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Abstract
Various major evolutionary problems are still open, controversial or unsettled. These include even the basic evolutionary processes of adaptation and speciation. The “Evolution Canyon” model is a microscale natural laboratory that can highlight some of the basic problems requiring clarification (Nevo list of “Evolution Canyon” publications at http://evolution.haifa.ac.il). This is especially true if an interdisciplinary approach is practiced including ecological functional genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and phenomics. Here I overview and reanalyze the incipient sympatric adaptive ecological speciation of five model organisms at “Evolution Canyon”, across life: the soil bacterium, Bacillus simplex; wild barley, the progenitor of cultivated barley, Hordeum spontaneum; the tiny beetle Oryzaephilus surinamensis; the cosmopolitan fruit-fly, Drosophila melanogaster, and the Africa-originated spiny mouse, Acomys cahirinus. All five models of organisms display evolution in action of microclimatic adaptation and incipient sympatric adaptive ecological speciation on the tropical and temperate abutting slopes, separated on average by only 250 meters. Some distant species converge in their micro-climatic adaptations to the hot and dry “African”, south-facing slope (SFS or AS) and to the cool and humid “European”, north-facing slope (NSF or ES). Natural selection overrules ongoing inter-slope gene-flow between the free interbreeding populations within and between slopes, and leads to adaptive incipient sympatric ecological speciation on the dramatically opposite abutting xeric savannoid and mesic forested slopes.
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