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April 21, 2020

Precise temporal regulation of Dux is important for embryo development.

Zygotic genome activation (ZGA) following fertilization is accomplished through a process termed the maternal-to-zygotic transition, during which the maternal RNAs and proteins are degraded and zygotic genome is transcriptionally activated.1 In mice, minor ZGA occurs from S phase of the zygote to G1 phase of the two-cell (2C) embryo, while major ZGA takes place during the middle-to-late 2C stage with a burst of transcription of totipotent cleavage stage-specific genes and retrotransposons.2Dux has been recently identified and considered as a master inducer that regulates the ZGA process.3–5Dux can directly bind and robustly activate 2C stage-specific ZGA transcripts and convert mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) to a 2C-like state with unique features that resembles the 2C embryos.4Intriguingly, ~20% embryos with zygotic depletion of Dux unexpectedly reached morula or blastocyst stage even though defective ZGA program was detected.


April 21, 2020

Tandem repeats lead to sequence assembly errors and impose multi-level challenges for genome and protein databases.

The widespread occurrence of repetitive stretches of DNA in genomes of organisms across the tree of life imposes fundamental challenges for sequencing, genome assembly, and automated annotation of genes and proteins. This multi-level problem can lead to errors in genome and protein databases that are often not recognized or acknowledged. As a consequence, end users working with sequences with repetitive regions are faced with ‘ready-to-use’ deposited data whose trustworthiness is difficult to determine, let alone to quantify. Here, we provide a review of the problems associated with tandem repeat sequences that originate from different stages during the sequencing-assembly-annotation-deposition workflow, and that may proliferate in public database repositories affecting all downstream analyses. As a case study, we provide examples of the Atlantic cod genome, whose sequencing and assembly were hindered by a particularly high prevalence of tandem repeats. We complement this case study with examples from other species, where mis-annotations and sequencing errors have propagated into protein databases. With this review, we aim to raise the awareness level within the community of database users, and alert scientists working in the underlying workflow of database creation that the data they omit or improperly assemble may well contain important biological information valuable to others. © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.


April 21, 2020

The bracteatus pineapple genome and domestication of clonally propagated crops.

Domestication of clonally propagated crops such as pineapple from South America was hypothesized to be a ‘one-step operation’. We sequenced the genome of Ananas comosus var. bracteatus CB5 and assembled 513?Mb into 25 chromosomes with 29,412 genes. Comparison of the genomes of CB5, F153 and MD2 elucidated the genomic basis of fiber production, color formation, sugar accumulation and fruit maturation. We also resequenced 89 Ananas genomes. Cultivars ‘Smooth Cayenne’ and ‘Queen’ exhibited ancient and recent admixture, while ‘Singapore Spanish’ supported a one-step operation of domestication. We identified 25 selective sweeps, including a strong sweep containing a pair of tandemly duplicated bromelain inhibitors. Four candidate genes for self-incompatibility were linked in F153, but were not functional in self-compatible CB5. Our findings support the coexistence of sexual recombination and a one-step operation in the domestication of clonally propagated crops. This work guides the exploration of sexual and asexual domestication trajectories in other clonally propagated crops.


April 21, 2020

Chlorella vulgaris genome assembly and annotation reveals the molecular basis for metabolic acclimation to high light conditions.

Chlorella vulgaris is a fast-growing fresh-water microalga cultivated at the industrial scale for applications ranging from food to biofuel production. To advance our understanding of its biology and to establish genetics tools for biotechnological manipulation, we sequenced the nuclear and organelle genomes of Chlorella vulgaris 211/11P by combining next generation sequencing and optical mapping of isolated DNA molecules. This hybrid approach allowed to assemble the nuclear genome in 14 pseudo-molecules with an N50 of 2.8 Mb and 98.9% of scaffolded genome. The integration of RNA-seq data obtained at two different irradiances of growth (high light-HL versus low light -LL) enabled to identify 10,724 nuclear genes, coding for 11,082 transcripts. Moreover 121 and 48 genes were respectively found in the chloroplast and mitochondrial genome. Functional annotation and expression analysis of nuclear, chloroplast and mitochondrial genome sequences revealed peculiar features of Chlorella vulgaris. Evidence of horizontal gene transfers from chloroplast to mitochondrial genome was observed. Furthermore, comparative transcriptomic analyses of LL vs HL provide insights into the molecular basis for metabolic rearrangement in HL vs. LL conditions leading to enhanced de novo fatty acid biosynthesis and triacylglycerol accumulation. The occurrence of a cytosolic fatty acid biosynthetic pathway can be predicted and its upregulation upon HL exposure is observed, consistent with increased lipid amount under HL. These data provide a rich genetic resource for future genome editing studies, and potential targets for biotechnological manipulation of Chlorella vulgaris or other microalgae species to improve biomass and lipid productivity.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


April 21, 2020

Chromosome-length haplotigs for yak and cattle from trio binning assembly of an F1 hybrid

Background Assemblies of diploid genomes are generally unphased, pseudo-haploid representations that do not correctly reconstruct the two parental haplotypes present in the individual sequenced. Instead, the assembly alternates between parental haplotypes and may contain duplications in regions where the parental haplotypes are sufficiently different. Trio binning is an approach to genome assembly that uses short reads from both parents to classify long reads from the offspring according to maternal or paternal haplotype origin, and is thus helped rather than impeded by heterozygosity. Using this approach, it is possible to derive two assemblies from an individual, accurately representing both parental contributions in their entirety with higher continuity and accuracy than is possible with other methods.Results We used trio binning to assemble reference genomes for two species from a single individual using an interspecies cross of yak (Bos grunniens) and cattle (Bos taurus). The high heterozygosity inherent to interspecies hybrids allowed us to confidently assign >99% of long reads from the F1 offspring to parental bins using unique k-mers from parental short reads. Both the maternal (yak) and paternal (cattle) assemblies contain over one third of the acrocentric chromosomes, including the two largest chromosomes, in single haplotigs.Conclusions These haplotigs are the first vertebrate chromosome arms to be assembled gap-free and fully phased, and the first time assemblies for two species have been created from a single individual. Both assemblies are the most continuous currently available for non-model vertebrates.MbmegabaseskbkilobasesMYAmillions of years agoMHCmajor histocompatibility complexSMRTsingle molecule real time


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