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How a White Rot Tackles Freshly-Cut Wood

Unlike many other white rot fungi, P. gigantea prefers to colonize freshly-harvested wood. The Science: Researchers sequenced and analyzed the white rot fungus Phlebiopsis gigantea, which can break down fresh-cut conifer sapwood. They also sequenced and analyzed the set of P. gigantea’s secreted proteins (secretome) and the set of all of its RNA molecules (transcriptome)…. [Read More]

Eucalyptus grandis Genome 2.0—Community Resource

Genetic maps improve the reference genome assembly of the candidate bioenergy feedstock The Science: A team of French researchers developed an array that allowed them to produce high-resolution genetic maps of two eucalyptus species that they then compared to the reference genome of eucalyptus produced by a team including DOE JGI researchers. The Impact: The… [Read More]

Noteworthy DOE JGI papers in Nature Methods

Three publications are featured in the Special 10th Anniversary issue. The Science: To mark its 10th anniversary, the journal Nature Methods released a Special Issue highlighting impactful articles. Among these noteworthy articles are three from DOE JGI researchers. The Impact: Microbial Sequencing is one of the areas of methods development highlighted by the journal, and… [Read More]

Shipworm project in the Washington Post

“Shipworms were already weird animals, but they just got weirder. The ocean-dwelling clams, which actually look much more like slimy worms, are some of the only creatures in the world that can eat wood. Now scientists have figured out that shipworms are even more unique than we thought…” The Washington Post article was published November 11, 2014. Learn… [Read More]

Termite of the Sea’s Wood Destruction Strategy Revealed

Directed production of wood-degrading enzymes begins away from the gut The sight of termites anywhere near one’s house is enough to raise a homeowner’s concerns about the potential damage these insects might inflict. Shipbuilders and engineers have similar feelings about shipworms, worm-like wood-eating marine clams that have also been called the “termites of the sea.”… [Read More]

Discovering the Undiscovered

Advancing New Tools to Fill in the Microbial Tree of Life To paraphrase a famous passage from Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: microbes, microbes everywhere, though most we do not know. This is changing, though. In a perspective piece published November 6 in the journal Science, Eddy Rubin, Director of the U.S. Department… [Read More]

Mapping water management traits related to panic grass variants

Water availability is often a factor in how variants of plant species evolve. The Science: Researchers statistically mapped regions of the panic grass genome linked to morphological traits such as thriving under scarce (xeric) or moderate (mesic) water availability. The information lends insights into how ecotypes are formed as evolving populations of a species adapt… [Read More]

Celebrating National Bioenergy Day

In honor of National Bioenergy Day, we thought we’d highlight some of our recent projects that are related to developing plant biomass, as well as agricultural waste and forestry byproducts, to generate heat and energy. Among the plants being considered for biomass crops are eucalyptus trees, which grow in 100 countries and cover over 40… [Read More]

Automating the Selection Process for a Genome Assembler

A publicly available repository allows genomics researchers to compare multiple assemblers. The Science: A repository of genome assemblers is being developed to automate the process of selecting the best assembler for the task at hand. The Impact: There are many different genome assemblers being introduced and touted. On the nucleotid.es site (http://nucleotid.es/), the test results… [Read More]

Tracing Ancestral Responses to Light from Algae to Plants

Analysis track origins of algal light sensors to a shared ancestor approximately one billion years ago. The Science: Researchers determined the origin of a group of protein-based light sensors in land plants and a series of related phytoplankton by sequencing and comparing RNA in these genomes. The Impact: Marine phytoplankton are considered responsible for roughly… [Read More]