Analysis of CATMA transcriptome data identifies hundreds of novel functional genes and improves gene models in the Arabidopsis genome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Since the finishing of the sequencing of the <it>Arabidopsis thaliana </it>genome, the Arabidopsis community and the annotator centers have been working on the improvement of gene annotation at the structural and functional levels. In this context, we have used the large CATMA resource on the Arabidopsis transcriptome to search for genes missed by different annotation processes. Probes on the CATMA microarrays are specific gene sequence tags (GSTs) based on the CDS models predicted by the Eugene software. Among the 24 576 CATMA v2 GSTs, 677 are in regions considered as intergenic by the TAIR annotation. We analyzed the cognate transcriptome data in the CATMA resource and carried out data-mining to characterize novel genes and improve gene models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The statistical analysis of the results of more than 500 hybridized samples distributed among 12 organs provides an experimental validation for 465 novel genes. The hybridization evidence was confirmed by RT-PCR approaches for 88% of the 465 novel genes. Comparisons with the current annotation show that these novel genes often encode small proteins, with an average size of 137 aa. Our approach has also led to the improvement of pre-existing gene models through both the extension of 16 CDS and the identification of 13 gene models erroneously constituted of two merged CDS.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This work is a noticeable step forward in the improvement of the Arabidopsis genome annotation. We increased the number of Arabidopsis validated genes by 465 novel transcribed genes to which we associated several functional annotations such as expression profiles, sequence conservation in plants, cognate transcripts and protein motifs.</p

Functional analysis of Arabidopsis immune-related MAPKs uncovers a role for MPK3 as negative regulator of inducible defences

Background : Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) are key regulators of immune responses in animals and plants. In Arabidopsis, perception of microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) activates the MAPKs MPK3, MPK4 and MPK6. Increasing information depicts the molecular events activated by MAMPs in plants, but the specific and cooperative contributions of the MAPKs in these signalling events are largely unclear.[br/] Results: In this work, we analyse the behaviour of MPK3, MPK4 and MPK6 mutants in early and late immune responses triggered by the MAMP flg22 from bacterial flagellin. A genome-wide transcriptome analysis reveals that 36% of the flg22-upregulated genes and 68% of the flg22-downregulated genes are affected in at least one MAPK mutant. So far MPK4 was considered as a negative regulator of immunity, whereas MPK3 and MPK6 were believed to play partially redundant positive functions in defence.[br/] Our work reveals that MPK4 is required for the regulation of approximately 50% of flg22-induced genes and we identify a negative role for MPK3 in regulating defence gene expression, flg22-induced salicylic acid accumulation and disease resistance to Pseudomonas syringae. Among the MAPK-dependent genes, 27% of flg22-upregulated genes and 76% of flg22-downregulated genes require two or three MAPKs for their regulation. The flg22-induced MAPK activities are differentially regulated in MPK3 and MPK6 mutants, both in amplitude and duration, revealing a highly interdependent network.[br/] Conclusions : These data reveal a new set of distinct functions for MPK3, MPK4 and MPK6 and indicate that the plant immune signalling network is choreographed through the interplay of these three interwoven MAPK pathways

T-DNA integration into the Arabidopsis genome depends on sequences of pre-insertion sites

A statistical analysis of 9000 flanking sequence tags characterizing transferred DNA (T-DNA) transformants in Arabidopsis sheds new light on T-DNA insertion by illegitimate recombination. T-DNA integration is favoured in plant DNA regions with an A-T-rich content. The formation of a short DNA duplex between the host DNA and the left end of the T-DNA sets the frame for the recombination. The sequence immediately downstream of the plant A-T-rich region is the master element for setting up the DNA duplex, and deletions into the left end of the integrated T-DNA depend on the location of a complementary sequence on the T-DNA. Recombination at the right end of the T-DNA with the host DNA involves another DNA duplex, 2–3 base pairs long, that preferentially includes a G close to the right end of the T-DNA

GEM2Net: from gene expression modeling to -omics networks, a new CATdb module to investigate Arabidopsis thaliana genes involved in stress response

publié Epub 2014 Nov 11CATdb (http://urgv.evry.inra.fr/CATdb) is a database providing a public access to a large collection of transcriptomic data, mainly for Arabidopsis but also for other plants. This resource has the rare advantage to contain several thousands of microarray experiments obtained with the same technical protocol and analyzed by the same statistical pipelines. In this paper, we present GEM2Net, a new module of CATdb that takes advantage of this homogeneous dataset to mine co-expression units and decipher Arabidopsis gene functions. GEM2Net explores 387 stress conditions organized into 18 biotic and abiotic stress categories. For each one, a model-based clustering is applied on expression differences to identify clusters of co-expressed genes. To characterize functions associated with these clusters, various resources are analyzed and integrated: Gene Ontology, subcellular localization of proteins, Hormone Families, Transcription Factor Families and a refined stress-related gene list associated to publications. Exploiting protein-protein interactions and transcription factors-targets interactions enables to display gene networks. GEM2Net presents the analysis of the 18 stress categories, in which 17,264 genes are involved and organized within 681 co-expression clusters. The meta-data analyses were stored and organized to compose a dynamic Web resource

In plants, decapping prevents RDR6-dependent production of small interfering RNAs from endogenous mRNAs

Cytoplasmic degradation of endogenous RNAs is an integral part of RNA quality control (RQC) and often relies on the removal of the 5' cap structure and their subsequent 5' to 3' degradation in cytoplasmic processing (P-)bodies. In parallel, many eukaryotes degrade exogenous and selected endogenous RNAs through post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS). In plants, PTGS depends on small interfering (si)RNAs produced after the conversion of single-stranded RNAs to double-stranded RNAs by the cellular RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 6 (RDR6) in cytoplasmic siRNA-bodies. PTGS and RQC compete for transgene-derived RNAs, but it is unknown whether this competition also occurs for endogenous transcripts. We show that the lethality of decapping mutants is suppressed by impairing RDR6 activity. We establish that upon decapping impairment hundreds of endogenous mRNAs give rise to a new class of rqc-siRNAs, that over-accumulate when RQC processes are impaired, a subset of which depending on RDR6 for their production. We observe that P- and siRNA-bodies often are dynamically juxtaposed, potentially allowing for cross-talk of the two machineries. Our results suggest that the decapping of endogenous RNA limits their entry into the PTGS pathway. We anticipate that the rqc-siRNAs identified in decapping mutants represent a subset of a larger ensemble of endogenous siRNAs

The rose genome sequencing initiative.

International audienc

The rose genome sequencing initiative.

International audienc

Differential gene expression and metabolomic analyses of Brachypodium distachyon infected by deoxynivalenol producing and non-producing strains of Fusarium graminearum

Background: Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) caused primarily by Fusarium graminearum (Fg) is one of the major diseases of small-grain cereals including bread wheat. This disease both reduces yields and causes quality losses due to the production of deoxynivalenol (DON), the major type B trichothecene mycotoxin. DON has been described as a virulence factor enabling efficient colonization of spikes by the fungus in wheat, but its precise role during the infection process is still elusive. Brachypodium distachyon (Bd) is a model cereal species which has been shown to be susceptible to FHB. Here, a functional genomics approach was performed in order to characterize the responses of Bd to Fg infection using a global transcriptional and metabolomic profiling of B. distachyon plants infected by two strains of F. graminearum: a wild-type strain producing DON (Fg DON+) and a mutant strain impaired in the production of the mycotoxin (Fg DON-). Results: Histological analysis of the interaction of the Bd21 ecotype with both Fg strains showed extensive fungal tissue colonization with the Fg DON+ strain while the florets infected with the Fg DON- strain exhibited a reduced hyphal extension and cell death on palea and lemma tissues. Fungal biomass was reduced in spikes inoculated with the Fg DON- strain as compared with the wild-type strain. The transcriptional analysis showed that jasmonate and ethylene-signalling pathways are induced upon infection, together with genes encoding putative detoxification and transport proteins, antioxidant functions as well as secondary metabolite pathways. In particular, our metabolite profiling analysis showed that tryptophan-derived metabolites, tryptamine, serotonin, coumaroyl-serotonin and feruloyl-serotonin, are more induced upon infection by the Fg DON+ strain than by the Fg DON- strain. Serotonin was shown to exhibit a slight direct antimicrobial effect against Fg. Conclusion: Our results show that Bd exhibits defense hallmarks similar to those already identified in cereal crops. While the fungus uses DON as a virulence factor, the host plant preferentially induces detoxification and the phenylpropanoid and phenolamide pathways as resistance mechanisms. Together with its amenability in laboratory conditions, this makes Bd a very good model to study cereal resistance mechanisms towards the major disease FHB

Synthetic data sets for the identification of key ingredients for RNA-seq differential analysis

Synthetic data sets for the identification of key ingredients for RNA-seq differential analysi

The RNA helicases AtMTR4 and HEN2 target specific subsets of nuclear transcripts for degradation by the nuclear exosome in Arabidopsis thaliana

The RNA exosome is the major 3'-5' RNA degradation machine of eukaryotic cells and participates in processing, surveillance and turnover of both nuclear and cytoplasmic RNA. In both yeast and human, all nuclear functions of the exosome require the RNA helicase MTR4. We show that the Arabidopsis core exosome can associate with two related RNA helicases, AtMTR4 and HEN2. Reciprocal co-immunoprecipitation shows that each of the RNA helicases co-purifies with the exosome core complex and with distinct sets of specific proteins. While AtMTR4 is a predominantly nucleolar protein, HEN2 is located in the nucleoplasm and appears to be excluded from nucleoli. We have previously shown that the major role of AtMTR4 is the degradation of rRNA precursors and rRNA maturation by-products. Here, we demonstrate that HEN2 is involved in the degradation of a large number of polyadenylated nuclear exosome substrates such as snoRNA and miRNA precursors, incompletely spliced mRNAs, and spurious transcripts produced from pseudogenes and intergenic regions. Only a weak accumulation of these exosome substrate targets is observed in mtr4 mutants, suggesting that MTR4 can contribute, but plays rather a minor role for the degradation of non-ribosomal RNAs and cryptic transcripts in Arabidopsis. Consistently, transgene post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) is marginally affected in mtr4 mutants, but increased in hen2 mutants, suggesting that it is mostly the nucleoplasmic exosome that degrades aberrant transgene RNAs to limit their entry in the PTGS pathway. Interestingly, HEN2 is conserved throughout green algae, mosses and land plants but absent from metazoans and other eukaryotic lineages. Our data indicate that, in contrast to human and yeast, plants have two functionally specialized RNA helicases that assist the exosome in the degradation of specific nucleolar and nucleoplasmic RNA populations, respectively