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Three founding ancestral genomes involved in the origin of sugarcane

Modern sugarcane cultivars (Saccharum spp.) are high polyploids, aneuploids (2n = ~12x = ~120) derived from interspecific hybridizations between the domesticated sweet species Saccharum officinarum and the wild species S. spontaneum. To analyse the architecture and origin of such a complex genome, we analysed the sequences of all 12 hom(oe)ologous haplotypes (BAC clones) from two distinct genomic regions of… [Read More]

Expanding standards in viromics: In silico evaluation of dsDNA viral genome identification, classification, and auxiliary metabolic gene curation

Viruses influence global patterns of microbial diversity and nutrient cycles. Though viral metagenomics (viromics), specifically targeting dsDNA viruses, has been critical for revealing viral roles across diverse ecosystems, its analyses differ in many ways from those used for microbes. To date, viromics benchmarking has covered read pre-processing, assembly, relative abundance, read mapping thresholds and diversity… [Read More]

Toward sustainable, cell-free biomanufacturing

Industrial biotechnology is an attractive approach to address the need for low-cost fuels and products from sustainable resources. Unfortunately, cells impose inherent limitations on the effective synthesis and release of target products. One key constraint is that cellular survival objectives often work against the production objectives of biochemical engineers. Additionally, industrial strains release CO2 and… [Read More]

Decrypting bacterial polyphenol metabolism in an anoxic wetland soil

Microorganisms play vital roles in modulating organic matter decomposition and nutrient cycling in soil ecosystems. The enzyme latch paradigm posits microbial degradation of polyphenols is hindered in anoxic peat leading to polyphenol accumulation, and consequently diminished microbial activity. This model assumes that polyphenols are microbially unavailable under anoxia, a supposition that has not been thoroughly… [Read More]

Flavin-dependent halogenases catalyze enantioselective olefin halocyclization

Halocyclization of alkenes is a powerful bond-forming tool in synthetic organic chemistry and a key step in natural product biosynthesis, but catalyzing halocyclization with high enantioselectivity remains a challenging task. Identifying suitable enzymes that catalyze enantioselective halocyclization of simple olefins would therefore have significant synthetic value. Flavin-dependent halogenases (FDHs) catalyze halogenation of arene and enol(ate)… [Read More]

Genomic analysis of the yet-uncultured binatota reveals broad methylotrophic, alkane-degradation, and pigment production capacities

The recent leveraging of genome-resolved metagenomics has generated an enormous number of genomes from novel uncultured microbial lineages yet left many clades undescribed. Here, we present a global analysis of genomes belonging to Binatota (UBP10), a globally distributed, yet-uncharacterized bacterial phylum. All orders in Binatota encoded the capacity for aerobic methylotrophy using methanol, methylamine, sulfomethanes,… [Read More]

Metagenomic compendium of 189,680 DNA viruses from the human gut microbiome

Bacteriophages have important roles in the ecology of the human gut microbiome but are under-represented in reference databases. To address this problem, we assembled the Metagenomic Gut Virus catalogue that comprises 189,680 viral genomes from 11,810 publicly available human stool metagenomes. Over 75% of genomes represent double-stranded DNA phages that infect members of the Bacteroidia… [Read More]

Genetic dissection of natural variation in oilseed traits of camelina by whole-genome resequencing and QTL mapping

Camelina [Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz] is an oilseed crop in the Brassicaceae family that is currently being developed as a source of bioenergy and healthy fatty acids. To facilitate modern breeding efforts through marker-assisted selection and biotechnology, we evaluated genetic variation among a worldwide collection of 222 camelina accessions. We performed whole-genome resequencing to obtain… [Read More]