Productivity potentials of upland rice landraces (URLs) are continuously compromised by scanty water supply due to competing priorities for irrigations and fluctuations in agro-ecological conditions peculiar to low-in...Productivity potentials of upland rice landraces (URLs) are continuously compromised by scanty water supply due to competing priorities for irrigations and fluctuations in agro-ecological conditions peculiar to low-input farming systems. A growing demand for rice amidst decline in productive agricultural areas plunges into an urgent contribution of marginal areas critical in attaining food sufficiency among Filipino households. Agronomic performances of URLs locally found in Catanduanes province, Philippines were evaluated in a replicated trial utilizing three URLs: Kamanang [1], Kadari [2] and Bulaw [3]. The experimental set-up was closely monitored for consistent dry moisture content and zero fertilizer application. Results were significant for traditional upland landraces: Kamanang and Kadari, scored in terms of higher germination rate, increment plant height and the number of tillers during the vegetative stage. Leaf color gradations, although statistically not significant across cultivars, were suggestive of varying adaptive performance between traditional cultivars subjected to low-input system. Putative low-input responsive lines indicated by the higher survival percentage and overall agronomic responses were selected from the study site. Screened lines took part of the advance population which would be potentially able to tolerate poor soil conditions (i.e. poor storehouse of water and nutrients) especially in areas with edaphological constraints and changing rainfall distribution pattern. The development of putative drought tolerant lines among URLs forms the most economical solution implicated to areas with limited access to agricultural interventions.展开更多
Transcriptomic studies are an important tool for understanding the molecular pathways underlying host plant use by agricultural pests,including vectors of damaging plant pathogens.Thus far,bulk RNA-Seq has been the ma...Transcriptomic studies are an important tool for understanding the molecular pathways underlying host plant use by agricultural pests,including vectors of damaging plant pathogens.Thus far,bulk RNA-Seq has been the main approach for non-model insects.This method relies on pooling large numbers of whole organisms or hundreds of individually dissected organs.The latter approach is logistically challenging,may introduce artifacts of handling and storage,and is not compatible with biological replication.Here,we tested an approach to generate transcriptomes of individual salivary glands and other low-input body tissues from whiteflies(Bemisia tabaci MEAM1),which are major vectors of plant viruses.By comparing our outputs to published bulk RNA-Seq datasets for whole whitefly bodies and pools of salivary glands,we demonstrate that this approach recovers similar numbers of transcripts relative to bulk RNA-Seq in a tissue-specific manner,and for some metrics,exceeds performance of bulk tissue RNA-Seq.Libraries generated from individual salivary glands also yielded additional novel transcripts not identified in pooled salivary gland datasets,and had hundreds of enriched transcripts when compared with whole head tissues.Overall,our study demonstrates that it is feasible to produce high quality,replicated transcriptomes of whitefly salivary glands and other low-input tissues.We anticipate that our approach will expand hypothesis-driven research on salivary glands of whiteflies and other Hemiptera,thus enabling novel control strategies to disrupt feeding and virus transmission.展开更多
To enable diverse functions and precise regulation,an RNA sequence often folds into complex yet distinct structures in different cellular states.Probing RNA in its native environment is essential to uncovering RNA str...To enable diverse functions and precise regulation,an RNA sequence often folds into complex yet distinct structures in different cellular states.Probing RNA in its native environment is essential to uncovering RNA structures of biological contexts.However,current methods generally require large amounts of input RNA and are challenging for physiologically relevant use.Here,we report smartSHAPE,a new RNA structure probing method that requires very low amounts of RNA input due to the largely reduced artefact of probing signals and increased efficiency of library construction.Using smartSHAPE,we showcased the profiling of the RNA structure landscape of mouse intestinal macrophages upon inflammation,and provided evidence that RNA conformational changes regulate immune responses.These results demonstrate that smartSHAPE can greatly expand the scope of RNA structure-based investigations in practical biological systems,and also provide a research paradigm for the study of post-transcriptional regulation.展开更多
文摘Productivity potentials of upland rice landraces (URLs) are continuously compromised by scanty water supply due to competing priorities for irrigations and fluctuations in agro-ecological conditions peculiar to low-input farming systems. A growing demand for rice amidst decline in productive agricultural areas plunges into an urgent contribution of marginal areas critical in attaining food sufficiency among Filipino households. Agronomic performances of URLs locally found in Catanduanes province, Philippines were evaluated in a replicated trial utilizing three URLs: Kamanang [1], Kadari [2] and Bulaw [3]. The experimental set-up was closely monitored for consistent dry moisture content and zero fertilizer application. Results were significant for traditional upland landraces: Kamanang and Kadari, scored in terms of higher germination rate, increment plant height and the number of tillers during the vegetative stage. Leaf color gradations, although statistically not significant across cultivars, were suggestive of varying adaptive performance between traditional cultivars subjected to low-input system. Putative low-input responsive lines indicated by the higher survival percentage and overall agronomic responses were selected from the study site. Screened lines took part of the advance population which would be potentially able to tolerate poor soil conditions (i.e. poor storehouse of water and nutrients) especially in areas with edaphological constraints and changing rainfall distribution pattern. The development of putative drought tolerant lines among URLs forms the most economical solution implicated to areas with limited access to agricultural interventions.
基金funded by USDA NIFA grant#2019-67014-29359 to K.M.the National Institute of Health Training Grant in Environmental Toxicology T32 ES018827 to B.H.L.
文摘Transcriptomic studies are an important tool for understanding the molecular pathways underlying host plant use by agricultural pests,including vectors of damaging plant pathogens.Thus far,bulk RNA-Seq has been the main approach for non-model insects.This method relies on pooling large numbers of whole organisms or hundreds of individually dissected organs.The latter approach is logistically challenging,may introduce artifacts of handling and storage,and is not compatible with biological replication.Here,we tested an approach to generate transcriptomes of individual salivary glands and other low-input body tissues from whiteflies(Bemisia tabaci MEAM1),which are major vectors of plant viruses.By comparing our outputs to published bulk RNA-Seq datasets for whole whitefly bodies and pools of salivary glands,we demonstrate that this approach recovers similar numbers of transcripts relative to bulk RNA-Seq in a tissue-specific manner,and for some metrics,exceeds performance of bulk tissue RNA-Seq.Libraries generated from individual salivary glands also yielded additional novel transcripts not identified in pooled salivary gland datasets,and had hundreds of enriched transcripts when compared with whole head tissues.Overall,our study demonstrates that it is feasible to produce high quality,replicated transcriptomes of whitefly salivary glands and other low-input tissues.We anticipate that our approach will expand hypothesis-driven research on salivary glands of whiteflies and other Hemiptera,thus enabling novel control strategies to disrupt feeding and virus transmission.
基金the National Key R&D Program of China(2019YFA0110002 and 2018YFA0107603 to Q.C.Z,and 2020YFA0509100 to X.H.)National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grants No.32125007,91940306,91740204,and 31761163007 to Q.C.Z,and 31725010,31821003,31991174,32030037,82150105 to X.H.)Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong SAR,China Project No.N_CityU110/17 to C.K.K.
文摘To enable diverse functions and precise regulation,an RNA sequence often folds into complex yet distinct structures in different cellular states.Probing RNA in its native environment is essential to uncovering RNA structures of biological contexts.However,current methods generally require large amounts of input RNA and are challenging for physiologically relevant use.Here,we report smartSHAPE,a new RNA structure probing method that requires very low amounts of RNA input due to the largely reduced artefact of probing signals and increased efficiency of library construction.Using smartSHAPE,we showcased the profiling of the RNA structure landscape of mouse intestinal macrophages upon inflammation,and provided evidence that RNA conformational changes regulate immune responses.These results demonstrate that smartSHAPE can greatly expand the scope of RNA structure-based investigations in practical biological systems,and also provide a research paradigm for the study of post-transcriptional regulation.
