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Fueling the future with fungal genomics

Fungi play important roles across the range of current and future biofuel production processes. From crop/feedstock health to plant biomass saccharification, enzyme production to bioprocesses for producing ethanol, higher alcohols, or future hydrocarbon biofuels, fungi are involved. Research and development are underway to understand the underlying biological processes and improve them to make bioenergy production… [Read More]

Metagenome of a versatile chemolithoautotroph from expanding oceanic dead zones

Oxygen minimum zones, also known as oceanic “dead zones,” are widespread oceanographic features currently expanding because of global warming. Although inhospitable to metazoan life, they support a cryptic microbiota whose metabolic activities affect nutrient and trace gas cycling within the global ocean. Here, we report metagenomic analyses of a ubiquitous and abundant but uncultivated oxygen… [Read More]

Assembly of 500,000 inter-specific catfish expressed sequence tags and large scale gene-associated marker development for whole genome association studies

BACKGROUND: Through the Community Sequencing Program, a catfish EST sequencing project was carried out through a collaboration between the catfish research community and the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute. Prior to this project, only a limited EST resource from catfish was available for the purpose of SNP identification. RESULTS: A total of 438,321 quality… [Read More]

SoyDB: a knowledge database of soybean transcription factors

BACKGROUND: Transcription factors play the crucial rule of regulating gene expression and influence almost all biological processes. Systematically identifying and annotating transcription factors can greatly aid further understanding their functions and mechanisms. In this article, we present SoyDB, a user friendly database containing comprehensive knowledge of soybean transcription factors. DESCRIPTION: The soybean genome was recently… [Read More]

Laccase and its role in production of extracellular reactive oxygen species during wood decay by the brown rot basidiomycete Postia placenta

Brown rot basidiomycetes initiate wood decay by producing extracellular reactive oxygen species that depolymerize the structural polysaccharides of lignocellulose. Secreted fungal hydroquinones are considered one contributor because they have been shown to reduce Fe(3+), thus generating perhydroxyl radicals and Fe(2+), which subsequently react further to produce biodegradative hydroxyl radicals. However, many brown rot fungi also… [Read More]

Structural determinants underlying photoprotection in the photoactive orange carotenoid protein of cyanobacteria

The photoprotective processes of photosynthetic organisms involve the dissipation of excess absorbed light energy as heat. Photoprotection in cyanobacteria is mechanistically distinct from that in plants; it involves the orange carotenoid protein (OCP), a water-soluble protein containing a single carotenoid. The OCP is a new member of the family of blue light-photoactive proteins; blue-green light… [Read More]

Complete genome sequence of Thermocrinis albus type strain (HI 11/12)

Thermocrinis albus Eder and Huber 2002 is one of three species in the genus Thermocrinis in the family Aquificaceae. Members of this family have become of significant interest because of their involvement in global biogeochemical cycles in high-temperature ecosystems. This interest had already spurred several genome sequencing projects for members of the family. We here… [Read More]

One bacterial cell, one complete genome

While the bulk of the finished microbial genomes sequenced to date are derived from cultured bacterial and archaeal representatives, the vast majority of microorganisms elude current culturing attempts, severely limiting the ability to recover complete or even partial genomes from these environmental species. Single cell genomics is a novel culture-independent approach, which enables access to… [Read More]

A phylogeny-driven genomic encyclopaedia of Bacteria and Archaea

Sequencing of bacterial and archaeal genomes has revolutionized our understanding of the many roles played by microorganisms(1). There are now nearly 1,000 completed bacterial and archaeal genomes available(2), most of which were chosen for sequencing on the basis of their physiology. As a result, the perspective provided by the currently available genomes is limited by… [Read More]

A single-base resolution map of an archaeal transcriptome

Organisms of the third domain of life, the Archaea, share molecular characteristics both with Bacteria and Eukarya. These organisms attract scientific attention as research models for regulation and evolution of processes such as transcription, translation, and RNA processing. We have reconstructed the primary transcriptome of Sulfolobus solfataricus P2, one of the most widely studied model… [Read More]