MIBiG 3.0: a community-driven effort to annotate experimentally validated biosynthetic gene clusters

Microbial Biotechnolog

Pesquisas cooperativas entre universidades e institutos públicos no setor agropecuário brasileiro: um estudo na Embrapa

A presente pesquisa objetivou a caracterização das cooperações entre universidades e institutos de pesquisa (U-IP) no setor agropecuário. O referencial teórico aborda temas como tecnologia e inovação tecnológica, sistema nacional de inovação (SNI), cooperação interinstitucional para inovação tecnológica, transferência de tecnologia, além dos papéis de universidades e institutos de pesquisa dentro do SNI. Também aborda os temas de tipos de pesquisa e o contexto da pesquisa agropecuária brasileira. A revisão teórica foi fundamentada na cooperação entre universidades e empresas (U-E), dada a reduzida literatura a respeito da cooperação U-IP. A metodologia utilizada foi a de estudo de caso, de natureza exploratória e qualitativa, utilizando roteiros de entrevista semiestruturados, questionários semiestruturados, bem como análise documental. O caso estudado foi o da Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa), onde foram coletados dados em três unidades de pesquisa, três universidades que cooperam com essas unidades e três unidades administrativas da Embrapa que apresentam contato com as universidades, totalizando nove entrevistas e questionários. Foi possível dessa forma identificar motivadores, tipos de ligações, barreiras, facilitadores e resultados percebidos nessas cooperações

Distinctive features of the Gac‐Rsm

Productive plant–bacteria interactions, either beneficial or pathogenic, require that bacteria successfully sense, integrate and respond to continuously changing environmental and plant stimuli. They use complex signal transduction systems that control a vast array of genes and functions. The Gac-Rsm global regulatory pathway plays a key role in controlling fundamental aspects of the apparently different lifestyles of plant beneficial and phytopathogenic Pseudomonas as it coordinates adaptation and survival while either promoting plant health (biocontrol strains) or causing disease (pathogenic strains). Plant-interacting Pseudomonas stand out for possessing multiple Rsm proteins and Rsm RNAs, but the physiological significance of this redundancy is not yet clear. Strikingly, the components of the Gac-Rsm pathway and the controlled genes/pathways are similar, but the outcome of its regulation may be opposite. Therefore, identifying the target mRNAs bound by the Rsm proteins and their mode of action (repression or activation) is essential to explain the resulting phenotype. Some technical considerations to approach the study of this system are also given. Overall, several important features of the Gac-Rsm cascade are now understood in molecular detail, particularly in Pseudomonas protegens CHA0, but further questions remain to be solved in other plant-interacting Pseudomonas.This research was supported by grants BIO2014-55075-P and BIO2017-83533-P from the ERDF/Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities - State Research Agency. M.D.F. was supported by a FPU contract from the Spanish MECD/MEFP (ECD/1619/2013)

Brazilian Flora 2020: Leveraging the power of a collaborative scientific network

International audienceThe shortage of reliable primary taxonomic data limits the description of biological taxa and the understanding of biodiversity patterns and processes, complicating biogeographical, ecological, and evolutionary studies. This deficit creates a significant taxonomic impediment to biodiversity research and conservation planning. The taxonomic impediment and the biodiversity crisis are widely recognized, highlighting the urgent need for reliable taxonomic data. Over the past decade, numerous countries worldwide have devoted considerable effort to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which called for the preparation of a working list of all known plant species by 2010 and an online world Flora by 2020. Brazil is a megadiverse country, home to more of the world's known plant species than any other country. Despite that, Flora Brasiliensis, concluded in 1906, was the last comprehensive treatment of the Brazilian flora. The lack of accurate estimates of the number of species of algae, fungi, and plants occurring in Brazil contributes to the prevailing taxonomic impediment and delays progress towards the GSPC targets. Over the past 12 years, a legion of taxonomists motivated to meet Target 1 of the GSPC, worked together to gather and integrate knowledge on the algal, plant, and fungal diversity of Brazil. Overall, a team of about 980 taxonomists joined efforts in a highly collaborative project that used cybertaxonomy to prepare an updated Flora of Brazil, showing the power of scientific collaboration to reach ambitious goals. This paper presents an overview of the Brazilian Flora 2020 and provides taxonomic and spatial updates on the algae, fungi, and plants found in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. We further identify collection gaps and summarize future goals that extend beyond 2020. Our results show that Brazil is home to 46,975 native species of algae, fungi, and plants, of which 19,669 are endemic to the country. The data compiled to date suggests that the Atlantic Rainforest might be the most diverse Brazilian domain for all plant groups except gymnosperms, which are most diverse in the Amazon. However, scientific knowledge of Brazilian diversity is still unequally distributed, with the Atlantic Rainforest and the Cerrado being the most intensively sampled and studied biomes in the country. In times of “scientific reductionism”, with botanical and mycological sciences suffering pervasive depreciation in recent decades, the first online Flora of Brazil 2020 significantly enhanced the quality and quantity of taxonomic data available for algae, fungi, and plants from Brazil. This project also made all the information freely available online, providing a firm foundation for future research and for the management, conservation, and sustainable use of the Brazilian funga and flora