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Fungi Contribute Critical but Spatially Varying Roles in Nitrogen and Carbon Cycling in Acid Mine Drainage

The ecosystem roles of fungi have been extensively studied by targeting one organism and/or biological process at a time, but the full metabolic potential of fungi has rarely been captured in an environmental context. We hypothesized that fungal genome sequences could be assembled directly from the environment using metagenomics and that transcriptomics and proteomics could… [Read More]

Facile Recoding of Selenocysteine in Nature

Selenocysteine (Sec or U) is encoded by UGA, a stop codon reassigned by a Sec-specific elongation factor and a distinctive RNA structure. To discover possible code variations in extant organisms we analyzed 6.4 trillion base pairs of metagenomic sequences and 24 903 microbial genomes for tRNA(Sec) species. As expected, UGA is the predominant Sec codon… [Read More]

Ochratoxin A production by Penicillium thymicola

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a mycotoxin produced by some Aspergillus and Penicillium species that grow on economically important agricultural crops and food products. OTA is classified as Group 2B carcinogen and is potently nephrotoxic, which is the basis for its regulation in some jurisdictions. Using high resolution mass spectroscopy, OTA and ochratoxin B (OTB) were… [Read More]

Microbiome Data Science: Understanding Our Microbial Planet

Microbiology is experiencing a revolution brought on by recent developments in sequencing technology. The unprecedented volume of microbiome data being generated poses significant challenges that are currently hindering progress in the field. Here, we outline the major bottlenecks and propose a vision to advance microbiome research as a data-driven science. [Read More]

End-to-end automated microfluidic platform for synthetic biology: from design to functional analysis

BACKGROUND: Synthetic biology aims to engineer biological systems for desired behaviors. The construction of these systems can be complex, often requiring genetic reprogramming, extensive de novo DNA synthesis, and functional screening. RESULTS: Herein, we present a programmable, multipurpose microfluidic platform and associated software and apply the platform to major steps of the synthetic biology research… [Read More]

Drought responsive gene expression regulatory divergence between upland and lowland ecotypes of a perennial C4 grass

Climatic adaptation is an example of a genotype-by-environment interaction (GxE) of fitness. Selection upon gene expression regulatory variation can contribute to adaptive phenotypic diversity; however, surprisingly few studies have examined how genome-wide patterns of gene expression GxE are manifested in response to environmental stress and other selective agents that cause climatic adaptation. Here, we characterize… [Read More]

Investigation of Proposed Ladderane Biosynthetic Genes from Anammox Bacteria by Heterologous Expression in E. coli

Ladderanes are hydrocarbon chains with three or five linearly concatenated cyclobutane rings that are uniquely produced as membrane lipid components by anammox (anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing) bacteria. By virtue of their angle and torsional strain, ladderanes are unusually energetic compounds, and if produced biochemically by engineered microbes, could serve as renewable, high-energy-density jet fuel components. The biochemistry… [Read More]

Geochemistry and Mixing Drive the Spatial Distribution of Free-Living Archaea and Bacteria in Yellowstone Lake

Yellowstone Lake, the largest subalpine lake in the United States, harbors great novelty and diversity of Bacteria and Archaea. Size-fractionated water samples (0.1-0.8, 0.8-3.0, and 3.0-20 mum) were collected from surface photic zone, deep mixing zone, and vent fluids at different locations in the lake by using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). Quantification with real-time… [Read More]