Widespread ectopic expression of olfactory receptor genes

BACKGROUND: Olfactory receptors (ORs) are the largest gene family in the human genome. Although they are expected to be expressed specifically in olfactory tissues, some ectopic expression has been reported, with special emphasis on sperm and testis. The present study systematically explores the expression patterns of OR genes in a large number of tissues and assesses the potential functional implication of such ectopic expression. RESULTS: We analyzed the expression of hundreds of human and mouse OR transcripts, via EST and microarray data, in several dozens of human and mouse tissues. Different tissues had specific, relatively small OR gene subsets which had particularly high expression levels. In testis, average expression was not particularly high, and very few highly expressed genes were found, none corresponding to ORs previously implicated in sperm chemotaxis. Higher expression levels were more common for genes with a non-OR genomic neighbor. Importantly, no correlation in expression levels was detected for human-mouse orthologous pairs. Also, no significant difference in expression levels was seen between intact and pseudogenized ORs, except for the pseudogenes of subfamily 7E which has undergone a human-specific expansion. CONCLUSION: The OR superfamily as a whole, show widespread, locus-dependent and heterogeneous expression, in agreement with a neutral or near neutral evolutionary model for transcription control. These results cannot reject the possibility that small OR subsets might play functional roles in different tissues, however considerable care should be exerted when offering a functional interpretation for ectopic OR expression based only on transcription information

Ecological significance of extracellular vesicles in modulating host-virus interactions during algal blooms

Extracellular vesicles are produced by organisms from all kingdoms and serve a myriad of functions, many of which involve cell-cell signaling, especially during stress conditions and host-pathogen interactions. In the marine environment, communication between microorganisms can shape trophic level interactions and population succession, yet we know very little about the involvement of vesicles in these processes. In a previous study, we showed that vesicles produced during viral infection by the ecologically important model alga Emiliania huxleyi, could act as a pro-viral signal, by expediting infection and enhancing the half-life of the virus in the extracellular milieu. Here, we expand our laboratory findings and show the effect of vesicles on natural populations of E. huxleyi in a mesocosm setting. We profile the small-RNA (sRNA) cargo of vesicles that were produced by E. huxleyi during bloom succession, and show that vesicles applied to natural assemblages expedite viral infection and prolong the half-life of this major mortality agent of E. huxleyi. We subsequently reveal that exposure of the natural assemblage to E. huxleyi-derived vesicles modulates not only host-virus dynamics, but also other components of the microbial food webs, thus emphasizing the importance of extracellular vesicles to microbial interactions in the marine environment.publishedVersio

The molecular mechanisms that determine different degrees of polyphagy in the Bemisia tabaci species complex

The whitefly Bemisia tabaci is a closely related group of >35 cryptic species that feed on the phloem sap of a broad range of host plants. Species in the complex differ in their host‐range breadth, but the mechanisms involved remain poorly understood. We investigated, therefore, how six different B. tabaci species cope with the environmental unpredictability presented by a set of four common and novel host plants. Behavioral studies indicated large differences in performances on the four hosts and putative specialization of one of the species to cassava plants. Transcriptomic analyses revealed two main insights. First, a large set of genes involved in metabolism (>85%) showed differences in expression between the six species, and each species could be characterized by its own unique expression pattern of metabolic genes. However, within species, these genes were constitutively expressed, with a low level of environmental responsiveness (i.e., to host change). Second, within each species, sets of genes mainly associated with the super‐pathways “environmental information processing” and “organismal systems” responded to the host switching events. These included genes encoding for proteins involved in sugar homeostasis, signal transduction, membrane transport, and immune, endocrine, sensory and digestive responses. Our findings suggested that the six B. tabaci species can be divided into four performance/transcriptomic “Types” and that polyphagy can be achieved in multiple ways. However, polyphagy level is determined by the specific identity of the metabolic genes/pathways that are enriched and overexpressed in each species (the species' individual metabolic “tool kit”)

Rewiring Host Lipid Metabolism by Large Viruses Determines the Fate of Emiliania huxleyi

Marine viruses are major ecological and evolutionary drivers of microbial food webs regulating the fate of carbon in the ocean. We combined transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses to explore the cellular pathways mediating the interaction between the bloom-forming coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi and its specific coccolithoviruses (E. huxleyi virus [EhV]). We show that EhV induces profound transcriptome remodeling targeted toward fatty acid synthesis to support viral assembly. A metabolic shift toward production of viral-derived sphingolipids was detected during infection and coincided with downregulation of host de novo sphingolipid genes and induction of the viral-encoded homologous pathway. The depletion of host-specific sterols during lytic infection and their detection in purified virions revealed their novel role in viral life cycle. We identify an essential function of the mevalonate-isoprenoid branch of sterol biosynthesis during infection and propose its downregulation as an antiviral mechanism. We demonstrate how viral replication depends on the hijacking of host lipid metabolism during the chemical “arms race” in the ocean

Genomic-wide transcriptional profiling in primary myoblasts reveals Runx1-regulated genes in muscle regeneration

In response to muscle damage the muscle adult stem cells are activated and differentiate into myoblasts that regenerate the damaged tissue. We have recently showed that following myopathic damage the level of the Runx1 transcription factor (TF) is elevated and that during muscle regeneration this TF regulates the balance between myoblast proliferation and differentiation (Umansky et al.). We employed Runx1-dependent gene expression, Chromatin Immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq), Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin with high-throughput sequencing (ATAC-seq) and histone H3K4me1/H3K27ac modification analyses to identify a subset of Runx1-regulated genes that are co-occupied by the TFs MyoD and c-Jun and are involved in muscle regeneration (Umansky et al.). The data is available at the GEO database under the superseries accession number GSE56131

Supplemental data for the publication: "The Role of Vitamin D in Emiliania huxleyi: A Microalgal Perspective on UV-B Exposure"

The following table contains raw transcriptomic data of Emiliania huxleyi CCMP3266 grown under continuous UV radiation or control conditions for 7, 10, and 13 days, obtained using the MARS-seq protocol (Keren-Shaul H. et al. 2013) Column A: E. huxleyi CCMP3266 gene locus IDs Column B: E. huxleyi CCMP3266 representative gene transcripts Columns C: Best matching transcripts in E. huxleyi CCMP1516 Columns D - U: Raw read counts Columns V - AM: DESew2 normalized read counts Columns AN - BE: rlog transformed read counts. Columns BF - FC: Each block of 6 columns represents the results of the differential gene expression analysis between two treatments (time point or UV/nonUV). Columns FD - FJ: Functional annotation