Collaborating to Compete: Blood Profiling Atlas in Cancer (BloodPAC) Consortium

The cancer community understands the value of blood profiling measurements in assessing and monitoring cancer. We describe an effort among academic, government, biotechnology, diagnostic, and pharmaceutical companies called the Blood Profiling Atlas in Cancer (BloodPAC) Project. BloodPAC will aggregate, make freely available, and harmonize for further analyses, raw datasets, relevant associated clinical data (e.g., clinical diagnosis, treatment history, and outcomes), and sample preparation and handling protocols to accelerate the development of blood profiling assays.

Examining the transcriptional response of overexpressing anthranilate synthase in the hairy roots of an important medicinal plant Catharanthus roseus by RNA-seq

BACKGROUND

Clinically important anti-cancer drugs vinblastine and vincristine are solely synthesized by the terpenoid indole alkaloid (TIA) pathway in Catharanthus roseus. Anthranilate synthase (AS) is a rate-limiting enzyme in the TIA pathway. The transgenic C. roseus hairy root line overexpressing a feedback insensitive ASα subunit under the control of an inducible promoter and the ASβ subunit constitutively was previously created for the overproduction of TIAs. However, both increases and decreases in TIAs were detected after overexpressing ASα. Although genetic modification is targeted to one gene in the TIA pathway, it could trigger global transcriptional changes that can directly or indirectly affect TIA biosynthesis. In this study, Illumina sequencing and RT-qPCR were used to detect the transcriptional responses to overexpressing AS, which can increase understanding of the complex regulation of the TIA pathway and further inspire rational metabolic engineering for enhanced TIA production in C. roseus hairy roots.

RESULTS

Overexpressing AS in C. roseus hairy roots altered the transcription of most known TIA pathway genes and regulators after 12, 24, and 48 h induction detected by RT-qPCR. Changes in the transcriptome of C. roseus hairy roots was further investigated 18 hours after ASα induction and compared to the control hairy roots using RNA-seq. A unigene set of 30,281 was obtained by de novo assembly of the sequencing reads. Comparison of the differentially expressed transcriptional profiles resulted in 2853 differentially expressed transcripts. Functional annotation of these transcripts revealed a complex and systematically transcriptome change in ASαβ hairy roots. Pathway analysis shows alterations in many pathways such as aromatic amino acid biosynthesis, jasmonic acid (JA) biosynthesis and other secondary metabolic pathways after perturbing AS. Moreover, many genes in overall stress response were differentially expressed after overexpressing ASα.

CONCLUSION

The transcriptomic analysis illustrates overexpressing AS stimulates the overall stress response and affects the metabolic networks in C. roseus hairy roots. The up-regulation of endogenous JA biosynthesis pathway indicates the involvement of JA signal transduction to regulate TIA biosynthesis in ASαβ engineered roots and explained why many of the transcripts for TIA genes and regulators are seen to increase with AS overexpression.

Development and characterization of mutant winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) accessions resistant to the herbicide quizalofop

New herbicide resistance traits in wheat were produced through the use of induced mutagenesis. While herbicide-resistant crops have become common in many agricultural systems, wheat has seen few introductions of herbicide resistance traits. A population of Hatcher winter wheat treated with ethyl methanesulfonate was screened with quizalofop to identify herbicide-resistant plants. Initial testing identified plants that survived multiple quizalofop applications. A series of experiments were designed to characterize this trait. In greenhouse studies the mutants exhibited high levels of quizalofop resistance compared to non-mutant wheat. Sequencing ACC1 revealed a novel missense mutation causing an alanine to valine change at position 2004 (Alopecurus myosuroides reference sequence). Plants carrying single mutations in wheat's three genomes (A, B, D) were identified. Acetyl co-enzyme A carboxylase in resistant plants was 4- to 10-fold more tolerant to quizalofop. Populations of segregating backcross progenies were developed by crossing each of the three individual mutants with wild-type wheat. Experiments conducted with these populations confirmed largely normal segregation, with each mutant allele conferring an additive level of resistance. Further tests showed that the A genome mutation conferred the greatest resistance and the B genome mutation conferred the least resistance to quizalofop. The non-transgenic herbicide resistance trait identified will enhance weed control strategies in wheat.

Virus-induced gene silencing of Arabidopsis thaliana gene homologues in wheat identifies genes conferring improved drought tolerance

In a non-model staple crop like wheat (Triticum aestivumI L.), functional validation of potential drought stress responsive genes identified in Arabidopsis could provide gene targets for breeding. Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) of genes of interest can overcome the inherent problems of polyploidy and limited transformation potential that hamper functional validation studies in wheat. In this study, three potential candidate genes shown to be involved in abiotic stress response pathways in Arabidopsis thaliana were selected for VIGS experiments in wheat. These include Era1 (enhanced response to abscisic acid), Cyp707a (ABA 8'-hydroxylase), and Sal1 (inositol polyphosphate 1-phosphatase). Gene homologues for these three genes were identified in wheat and cloned in the viral vector barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV) in the antisense direction, followed by rub inoculation of BSMV viral RNA transcripts onto wheat plants. Quantitative real-time PCR showed that VIGS-treated wheat plants had significant reductions in target gene transcripts. When VIGS-treated plants generated for Era1 and Sal1 were subjected to limiting water conditions, they showed increased relative water content, improved water use efficiency, reduced gas exchange, and better vigour compared to water-stressed control plants inoculated with RNA from the empty viral vector (BSMV0). In comparison, the Cyp707a-silenced plants showed no improvement over BSMV0-inoculated plants under limited water condition. These results indicate that Era1 and Sal1 play important roles in conferring drought tolerance in wheat. Other traits affected by Era1 silencing were also studied. Delayed seed germination in Era1-silenced plants suggests this gene may be a useful target for developing resistance to pre-harvest sprouting.