The complete genome sequence of Burkholderia mallei ATCC 23344 provides insight into this highly infectious bacterium's pathogenicity and evolutionary history. B. mallei , the etiologic agent of glanders, has come under renewed scientific investigation as a result of recent concerns about its past and potential future use as a biological weapon. Genome analysis identified a number of putative virulence factors whose function was supported by comparative genome hybridization and expression profiling of the bacterium in hamster liver in vivo . The genome contains numerous insertion sequence elements that have mediated extensive deletions and rearrangements of the genome relative to Burkholderia pseudomallei . The genome also contains a vast number (>12,000) of simple sequence repeats. Variation in simple sequence repeats in key genes can provide a mechanism for generating antigenic variation that may account for the mammalian host's inability to mount a durable adaptive immune response to a B. mallei infection.
Jujube and sticky rice are used as raw materials to study the fermentation technology of healthy jujube rice wine, the conclusion shows that the best fermentation conditions are: the addition of jujube juice is 15%, and add the jujube juice when mix the distiller's yeast, the primary fermentation temperature is 27°C. The jujube rice wine produced by fermentation has a date-specific odor, but also has a mellow taste of rice wine, and has a strong health care function.
Aspergillus fumigatus, the most common airborne fungal pathogen of humans, employs two high-affinity iron uptake systems: iron uptake mediated by the extracellular siderophore triacetylfusarinine C and reductive iron assimilation. Furthermore, A. fumigatus utilizes two intracellular siderophores, ferricrocin and hydroxyferricrocin, to store iron. Siderophore biosynthesis, which is essential for virulence, is repressed by iron. Here we show that this control is mediated by the GATA factor SreA. During iron-replete conditions, SreA deficiency partially derepressed synthesis of triacetylfusarinine C and uptake of iron resulting in increased cellular accumulation of both iron and ferricrocin. Genome-wide DNA microarray analysis identified 49 genes that are repressed by iron in an SreA-dependent manner. This gene set, termed SreA regulon, includes all known genes involved in iron acquisition, putative novel siderophore biosynthetic genes, and also genes not directly linked to iron metabolism. SreA deficiency also caused upregulation of iron-dependent and antioxidative pathways, probably due to the increased iron content and iron-mediated oxidative stress. Consistently, the sreA disruption mutant displayed increased sensitivity to iron, menadion and phleomycin but retained wild-type virulence in a mouse model. As all detrimental effects of sreA disruption are restricted to iron-replete conditions these data underscore that A. fumigatus faces iron-depleted conditions during infection.
Abstract Background Clustering is a popular data exploration technique widely used in microarray data analysis. Most conventional clustering algorithms, however, generate only one set of clusters independent of the biological context of the analysis. This is often inadequate to explore data from different biological perspectives and gain new insights. We propose a new clustering model that can generate multiple versions of different clusters from a single dataset, each of which highlights a different aspect of the given dataset. Results By applying our SigCalc algorithm to three yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae datasets we show two results. First, we show that different sets of clusters can be generated from the same dataset using different sets of landmark genes. Each set of clusters groups genes differently and reveals new biological associations between genes that were not apparent from clustering the original microarray expression data. Second, we show that many of these new found biological associations are common across datasets. These results also provide strong evidence of a link between the choice of landmark genes and the new biological associations found in gene clusters. Conclusion We have used the SigCalc algorithm to project the microarray data onto a completely new subspace whose co-ordinates are genes (called landmark genes), known to belong to a Biological Process. The projected space is not a true vector space in mathematical terms. However, we use the term subspace to refer to one of virtually infinite numbers of projected spaces that our proposed method can produce. By changing the biological process and thus the landmark genes, we can change this subspace. We have shown how clustering on this subspace reveals new, biologically meaningful clusters which were not evident in the clusters generated by conventional methods. The R scripts (source code) are freely available under the GPL license. The source code is available [see Additional File 1] as additional material, and the latest version can be obtained at http://www4.ncsu.edu/~pchopra/landmarks.html . The code is under active development to incorporate new clustering methods and analysis.
To examine the possibility of cultivation of winter fodder crops at Saemangeum reclaimed land, barley, rye, wheat, triticale, and oat were cultivated under the various ranges of saline soils from autumn 2009 to the spring 2011, and their growth and yields were evaluated. emergence and seedling stand rate were 84 and 79% at non-salinity soil plot, 64 to 73% at 0.2% saline soil plots, 40 to 52% at 0.3% saline soil plots, and 22 to 37% at 0.4% saline soil plot, respectively. those of rye, wheat, triticale, and barely were similar, however those of oats were relatively low. Yields of fresh and dry matter were 66 to 77% level at 0.2% saline soil plot and 30 to 61 % level at over 0.3% saline soil plots compared with the yields at non-saline soil plot. Fresh matter were high in order of rye>wheat>barely>triticale>oat. and dry matter were high in order of wheat>rye=barley>tricale>oat. Thus, considering these results, Soil salinity below 0.2% were available to cultivation of winter fodder corps and rye, wheat, barely and triticale were available crops in Saemangeum recalimed land.
Abstract Aflatoxins are toxic and carcinogenic polyketide metabolites produced by fungal species, including Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus. The biosynthesis of aflatoxins is modulated by many environmental factors, including the availability of a carbon source. The gene expression profile of A. parasiticus was evaluated during a shift from a medium with low concentration of simple sugars, yeast extract (YE), to a similar medium with sucrose, yeast extract sucrose (YES). Gene expression and aflatoxins (B1, B2, G1, and G2) were quantified from fungal mycelia harvested pre- and post-shifting. When compared with YE media, YES caused temporary reduction of the aflatoxin levels detected at 3-h post-shifting and they remained low well past 12 h post-shift. Aflatoxin levels did not exceed the levels in YE until 24 h post-shift, at which time point a tenfold increase was observed over YE. Microarray analysis comparing the RNA samples from the 48-h YE culture to the YES samples identified a total of 2120 genes that were expressed across all experiments, including most of the aflatoxin biosynthesis genes. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) identified 56 genes that were expressed with significant variation across all time points. Three genes responsible for converting norsolorinic acid to averantin were identified among these significantly expressed genes. The potential involvement of these genes in the regulation of aflatoxin biosynthesis is discussed. Keywords: Aspergillus norsolorinic acidaverantinaflatoxinscarbon mediummicroarray Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank Jennifer Tonos and Bobbie Johnson for their assistance in aflatoxin detection; and Janell Becker for her secretarial help. Work was approved for publication as Journal Article No. J-11069 of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, Mississippi State University.
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