Ritchiemcintosh2075

Ornamental crabapple is an important woody ornamental plant with flower colors ranging from white to pink to red, and the degree of redness is directly related to the anthocyanin content. To explore the molecular mechanism leading to the variation in flower color in ornamental crabapple, transcriptome sequencing using the Illumina and PacBio Sequel platforms revealed the difference in gene expression between the petals of plants with white and red flowers in the half-sib family. PF-06873600 In total, the analysis identified 603 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), including 449 upregulated and 154 downregulated genes. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses of the DEGs showed that the oxidation-reduction process and catalytic activity were more active in red petals, and most of the DEGs were involved in secondary metabolite synthesis and plant hormone signaling. Among the 603 DEGs, 10 were enriched as structural genes. Transcription factors related to anthocyanin synthesis and five genes related to anthocyanin transport and degradation were highly expressed in red petals. In addition, this study found that five AUX gene signals were differentially expressed in the two petal types. The discovery of these DEGs indicates that plant endogenous hormones also exert a regulatory effect on flower color. Maize (Zea mays) is an important food and forage crop, as well as an industrial raw material, that plays important roles in agriculture and national economies. Drought stress has negative effects on seed germination and seedling growth, and it decreases crop production. In this study, we selected two maize inbred lines with different drought-tolerance levels drought-tolerant 287M and drought-sensitive 753F. The physiological results showed that drought stress resulted in a large accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in maize root cells. However, in 287M, the activity levels of the ROS scavenging enzymes superoxide dismutase and ascorbate peroxidase also increased, resulting in a higher ROS scavenging ability than 753F. We used Illumina RNA sequencing to obtain the gene expression profiles of the two maize inbred lines at the seedling stage in response to drought stress. The transcriptome data were analyzed to reveal the mechanisms underlying the drought tolerance of 287M at the gene regulatory level. The differences in drought tolerance between 287M and 753F may be associated with different ROS scavenging capabilities, signal interaction networks, and some transcription factors. Our results will aid in understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in plant responses to drought stress. Huanglongbing (HLB) is one of the most serious citrus diseases, caused by phloem limited endophytic bacteria Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (Clas), affecting worldwide citrus production. Metabolomics approaches were employed to gain insight into mechanisms involved in defense against Clas in endophyte Bacillus subtilis L1-21 treated diseased and healthy citrus plants. Using LC-ESI-MS/MS, we compared the metabolic profile of citrus plants before and after treatment with endophyte L1-21. Our analysis indicated large differences in citrus metabolites after endophyte L1-21 application. In total, seven hundred and fourty two metabolites were detected with highest percentage recorded for organic acids, flavone, amino acid derivatives, flavone C-glycosides, nucleotide derivatives, and flavonol. Interestingly, differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) analysis revealed the amino acids, such as lysine and tyrosine which are involved in plant defense agianst pathogen attack were regulated in diseased citrus plants after endophyte application (padj less then 0.05). In addition, other important metabolites up-regulated were xanthine, leucic acid, and α-Linolenic acid implicated in different plant defense pathways against Clas. Furhter, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis revealed important pathways related to purine metabolism, biotin metabolism, and betalain biosynthesis, terpenoid-quinone biosynthesis, phenylalanine, tyrosine and lysine biosynthesis, isoflavonoid biosynthesis (padj less then 0.05). Taken together, this is the first study using native endophytes in diseased and healthy state of citrus which has proven to be useful in disease management by strengthening the defense of citrus to Clas pathogen. BACKGROUND In the recent past (1997-2012), Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom suffered an outbreak of Brucella abortus, which at its height affected over 200 cattle herds. Initially, isolates were characterized using multi-locus variable number tandem repeats analysis (MLVA). While informative in this setting, hyper-variability in some loci limited the resolution necessary to infer fine-scale disease transmission networks. Consequently, we applied whole-genome sequencing to isolates from this outbreak to evaluate higher resolution markers for disease epizootiology. RESULTS Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the B. abortus outbreak in Northern Ireland was caused by two distinct pathogen lineages. One contained isolates consistent with the 1997-2012 outbreak being linked to a previous endemic infection thought eradicated. The dominant second lineage exhibited little genetic diversity throughout the recrudescent outbreak, with limited population sub-structure evident. This finding was inconsistent with prior MLVA molecular characterizations that suggested the presence of seven clonal complexes. Spatio-temporal modeling revealed a significant association of pairwise SNP differences between isolates and geographic distances. However, effect sizes were very small due to reduced pathogen diversity. CONCLUSIONS Genome sequence data suggested that hyper-variability in some MLVA loci contributed to an overestimate of pathogen diversity in the most recent outbreak. The low diversity observed in our genomic dataset made it inappropriate to apply phylodynamic methods to these data. We conclude that maintaining data repositories of genome sequence data will be invaluable for source attribution/epizootiological inference should recrudescence ever re-occur. However genomic epizootiological methods may have limited utility in some settings, such as when applied to recrudescent/re-emergent infections of slowly-evolving bacterial pathogens. Crown V. All rights reserved.