生命科学最新文献

Anthracnose is a devastating fungal disease in tea plants caused by the pathogen Colletotrichum species. It severely affects tea yield and quality. Pathogenesis-related (PR) genes play indispensable roles in plant resistance to fungal pathogens. Our transcriptome data showed that PR10 family genes are involved in the immune response to anthracnose infection in tea plants; however, the underlying regulatory mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we identified a PR10 family gene, CsPR10-9, which was highly induced by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides infection and salicylic acid (SA)/methyl jasmonate (MeJA) treatments. Transient silencing of CsPR10-9 substantially compromised the disease resistance of tea plants, and this was accompanied by reduced activities of the antioxidant enzymes, peroxidase (POD) and superoxide dismutase (SOD), resulting in elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, decreased SA content, and increased jasmonic acid (JA) content. Transient overexpression of CsPR10-9 in tobacco leaves showed that the lesion area on CsPR10-9-overexpressing leaves was significantly smaller than the control leaves, accompanied by decreased H₂O₂ level and increased POD and SOD activities. CsPR10-9 was negatively regulated by an R2R3-type MYB transcription factor, CsMYB72, which directly bound to MYB transcription factor binding site cis-acting elements in its promoter to inhibit the expression of CsPR10-9. CsMYB72 is localised in the nucleus and participate in the response to anthracnose infection and SA/MeJA treatment. Moreover, silencing of CsMYB72 significantly enhanced disease resistance, increased POD and SOD activities, reduced ROS levels, increased SA content, and decreased JA content. Taken together, our results revealed that the CsMYB72-CsPR10-9 module regulates the SA/JA-mediated defence response of tea plants to anthracnose. This study provides new molecular targets and a theoretical foundation for breeding of disease-resistant tea germplasms.

Deep sequencing of ribosome footprints, also known as ribosome profiling (Ribo-seq), enables the quantification of mRNA translation and a comprehensive view of the translatome landscape. Here, we report an optimised Ribo-seq protocol and analysis pipeline for the model green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtiii (Chlamydomonas). Compared to the previously published data sets, the ribosome-protected fragments generated by our protocol showed improved mapping rates to the main open reading frames, reduced bias mapping to the gene coding regions and high 3-nt footprint periodicity. Using this optimised protocol, we employed Ribo-seq alongside RNA-seq to compute translation efficiency and identify genes with differential translation during the diurnal cycle. Interestingly, we found that the translation efficiency of many core cell cycle genes was significantly enhanced in cells at the early synthesis/mitosis (S/M) stage. This result suggests that translational regulation plays a role in cell cycle regulation in C. reinhardtii. Furthermore, the high periodicity of ribosome footprints allowed us to identify potential C. reinhardtii upstream open reading frames (uORFs). Further analysis revealed that some of these uORFs are differentially regulated and may play a role in diurnal regulation. In summary, we used an optimised Ribo-seq protocol to generate a high-quality Ribo-seq data set that constitutes a valuable resource for Chlamydomonas genomics. The ribosome profile data is linked to the Chlamydomonas reference genome and accessible to the scientific community.

Proteins are the key molecular players of life, carrying out their functions through interactions. Microfluidic technologies have emerged as powerful tools for studying protein interactions with exquisite sensitivity, resolution, and throughput. In this review, we highlight recent advances in microfluidic approaches for protein interaction studies. We first explore continuous-flow microfluidics, which utilize diffusion-based techniques and electrophoretic methods, before examining the role of droplet microfluidics in probing protein interactions. We provide an overview of the diverse applications of these technologies in biophysical research, drug discovery, and clinical diagnostics. We conclude with a discussion of the potential of microfluidics for driving future innovations and emerging opportunities.

Detecting long-term environmental trends is a fundamental requirement for organisms living in fluctuating environments to optimize their physiological and developmental responses. This characteristic depends on long-term memory. However, whether gene promoters alone confer week-scale environmental responses (WERs) and the mechanisms governing the appearance of these responses at different levels of gene expression—including phenotype, protein, histone modification, and mRNA levels—remains unknown. Herein, we performed a genome-wide screening for WER promoters using 1-year-long time-series data of a repressive histone modification, H3K27me3, in the promoter region of Arabidopsis halleri growing in a natural population. We further analyzed the characteristics of the selected WER promoter using the promoter–reporter lines of A. thaliana. H3K27me3 levels in the endogenous A. halleri ALCOHOL DEHYDROGENASE 1 (ADH1) promoter showed WERs, and it responded to 2-week-long low temperatures but not to 1-day-long low temperatures. Moreover, the fusion of the ADH1 promoter to the β-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene conferred WER capacity to the GUS protein independently of the mRNA response. The fusion of the coding regions of the FLOWERING LOCUS C and PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR 4 genes to this promoter successfully modified the WERs of the flowering and petiole elongation phenotypes, respectively, directionally opposite to conventional responses. Overall, these results reveal that the A. halleri ADH1 promoter alone can confer WERs at the phenotypic, protein, and H3K27me3 levels, and may potentially confer long-term environmental responsiveness to other genes.