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Genomic Identification and Functional Characterization of Essential Genes in Caenorhabditis elegans. G3-GENES GENOMES GENETICS 2018; 8:981-997. [PMID: 29339407 PMCID: PMC5844317 DOI: 10.1534/g3.117.300338] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
Using combined genetic mapping, Illumina sequencing, bioinformatics analyses, and experimental validation, we identified 60 essential genes from 104 lethal mutations in two genomic regions of Caenorhabditis elegans totaling ∼14 Mb on chromosome III(mid) and chromosome V(left). Five of the 60 genes had not previously been shown to have lethal phenotypes by RNA interference depletion. By analyzing the regions around the lethal missense mutations, we identified four putative new protein functional domains. Furthermore, functional characterization of the identified essential genes shows that most are enzymes, including helicases, tRNA synthetases, and kinases in addition to ribosomal proteins. Gene Ontology analysis indicated that essential genes often encode for enzymes that conduct nucleic acid binding activities during fundamental processes, such as intracellular DNA replication, transcription, and translation. Analysis of essential gene shows that they have fewer paralogs, encode proteins that are in protein interaction hubs, and are highly expressed relative to nonessential genes. All these essential gene traits in C. elegans are consistent with those of human disease genes. Most human orthologs (90%) of the essential genes in this study are related to human diseases. Therefore, functional characterization of essential genes underlines their importance as proxies for understanding the biological functions of human disease genes.
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Comparative Genomics Analysis of Two Different Virulent Bovine Pasteurella multocida Isolates. Int J Genomics 2016; 2016:4512493. [PMID: 28070502 PMCID: PMC5192330 DOI: 10.1155/2016/4512493] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2016] [Accepted: 11/02/2016] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The Pasteurella multocida capsular type A isolates can cause pneumonia and bovine respiratory disease (BRD). In this study, comparative genomics analysis was carried out to identify the virulence genes in two different virulent P. multocida capsular type A isolates (high virulent PmCQ2 and low virulent PmCQ6). The draft genome sequence of PmCQ2 is 2.32 Mbp and contains 2,002 protein-coding genes, 9 insertion sequence (IS) elements, and 1 prophage region. The draft genome sequence of PmCQ6 is 2.29 Mbp and contains 1,970 protein-coding genes, 2 IS elements, and 3 prophage regions. The genome alignment analysis revealed that the genome similarity between PmCQ2 and PmCQ6 is 99% with high colinearity. To identify the candidate genes responsible for virulence, the PmCQ2 and PmCQ6 were compared together with that of the published genomes of high virulent Pm36950 and PmHN06 and avirulent Pm3480 and Pm70 (capsular type F). Five genes and two insertion sequences are identified in high virulent strains but not in low virulent or avirulent strains. These results indicated that these genes or insertion sequences might be responsible for the virulence of P. multocida, providing prospective candidates for further studies on the pathogenesis and the host-pathogen interactions of P. multocida.
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Watanabe KA, Ma K, Homayouni A, Rushton PJ, Shen QJ. Transcript structure and domain display: a customizable transcript visualization tool. Bioinformatics 2016; 32:2024-5. [PMID: 27153680 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btw095] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2015] [Accepted: 02/12/2016] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
UNLABELLED Transcript Structure and Domain Display (TSDD) is a publicly available, web-based program that provides publication quality images of transcript structures and domains. TSDD is capable of producing transcript structures from GFF/GFF3 and BED files. Alternatively, the GFF files of several model organisms have been pre-loaded so that users only needs to enter the locus IDs of the transcripts to be displayed. Visualization of transcripts provides many benefits to researchers, ranging from evolutionary analysis of DNA-binding domains to predictive function modeling. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION TSDD is freely available for non-commercial users at http://shenlab.sols.unlv.edu/shenlab/software/TSD/transcript_display.html CONTACT : jeffery.shen@unlv.nevada.edu.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kenneth A Watanabe
- School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA
| | - Kaiwang Ma
- School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA School of Medical Technology & Engineering, Henan University of Science & Technology, Luoyang, 471003, China
| | - Arielle Homayouni
- School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA
| | | | - Qingxi J Shen
- School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA
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Hu B, Jin J, Guo AY, Zhang H, Luo J, Gao G. GSDS 2.0: an upgraded gene feature visualization server. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2014; 31:1296-7. [PMID: 25504850 PMCID: PMC4393523 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btu817] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2232] [Impact Index Per Article: 223.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2014] [Accepted: 12/07/2014] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Summary: Visualizing genes’ structure and annotated features helps biologists to investigate their function and evolution intuitively. The Gene Structure Display Server (GSDS) has been widely used by more than 60 000 users since its first publication in 2007. Here, we reported the upgraded GSDS 2.0 with a newly designed interface, supports for more types of annotation features and formats, as well as an integrated visual editor for editing the generated figure. Moreover, a user-specified phylogenetic tree can be added to facilitate further evolutionary analysis. The full source code is also available for downloading. Availability and implementation: Web server and source code are freely available at http://gsds.cbi.pku.edu.cn. Contact: gaog@mail.cbi.pku.edu.cn or gsds@mail.cbi.pku.edu.cn Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bo Hu
- State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, College of Life Sciences, Center for Bioinformatics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China, College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China and Department of Systems Biology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, College of Life Sciences, Center for Bioinformatics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China, College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China and Department of Systems Biology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China
| | - Jinpu Jin
- State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, College of Life Sciences, Center for Bioinformatics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China, College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China and Department of Systems Biology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China
| | - An-Yuan Guo
- State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, College of Life Sciences, Center for Bioinformatics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China, College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China and Department of Systems Biology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China
| | - He Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, College of Life Sciences, Center for Bioinformatics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China, College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China and Department of Systems Biology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China
| | - Jingchu Luo
- State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, College of Life Sciences, Center for Bioinformatics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China, College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China and Department of Systems Biology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China
| | - Ge Gao
- State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, College of Life Sciences, Center for Bioinformatics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China, College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China and Department of Systems Biology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China
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Frech C, Chen N. Variant surface antigens of malaria parasites: functional and evolutionary insights from comparative gene family classification and analysis. BMC Genomics 2013; 14:427. [PMID: 23805789 PMCID: PMC3747859 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2164-14-427] [Citation(s) in RCA: 60] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2013] [Accepted: 06/19/2013] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Plasmodium parasites, the causative agents of malaria, express many variant antigens on cell surfaces. Variant surface antigens (VSAs) are typically organized into large subtelomeric gene families that play critical roles in virulence and immune evasion. Many important aspects of VSA function and evolution remain obscure, impeding our understanding of virulence mechanisms and vaccine development. To gain further insights into VSA function and evolution, we comparatively classified and examined known VSA gene families across seven Plasmodium species. Results We identified a set of ultra-conserved orthologs within the largest Plasmodium gene family pir, which should be considered as high-priority targets for experimental functional characterization and vaccine development. Furthermore, we predict a lipid-binding domain in erythrocyte surface-expressed PYST-A proteins, suggesting a role of this second largest rodent parasite gene family in host cholesterol salvage. Additionally, it was found that PfMC-2TM proteins carry a novel and putative functional domain named MC-TYR, which is conserved in other P. falciparum gene families and rodent parasites. Finally, we present new conclusive evidence that the major Plasmodium VSAs PfEMP1, SICAvar, and SURFIN are evolutionarily linked through a modular and structurally conserved intracellular domain. Conclusion Our comparative analysis of Plasmodium VSA gene families revealed important functional and evolutionary insights, which can now serve as starting points for further experimental studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian Frech
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
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