Browsing by Author "Wickett, Norman J."
Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- Evolution of a horizontally acquired legume gene, albumin 1, in the parasitic plant Phelipanche aegyptiaca and related speciesZhang, Yeting; Fernández-Aparicio, Mónica; Wafula, Eric K.; Das, Malay; Jiao, Yuannian; Wickett, Norman J.; Honaas, Loren A.; Ralph, Paula E.; Wojciechowski, Martin F.; Timko, Michael P.; Yoder, John I.; Westwood, James H.; dePamphilis, Claude W. (2013-02-20)Background Parasitic plants, represented by several thousand species of angiosperms, use modified structures known as haustoria to tap into photosynthetic host plants and extract nutrients and water. As a result of their direct plant-plant connections with their host plant, parasitic plants have special opportunities for horizontal gene transfer, the nonsexual transmission of genetic material across species boundaries. There is increasing evidence that parasitic plants have served as recipients and donors of horizontal gene transfer (HGT), but the long-term impacts of eukaryotic HGT in parasitic plants are largely unknown. Results Here we show that a gene encoding albumin 1 KNOTTIN-like protein, closely related to the albumin 1 genes only known from papilionoid legumes, where they serve dual roles as food storage and insect toxin, was found in Phelipanche aegyptiaca and related parasitic species of family Orobanchaceae, and was likely acquired by a Phelipanche ancestor via HGT from a legume host based on phylogenetic analyses. The KNOTTINs are well known for their unique “disulfide through disulfide knot” structure and have been extensively studied in various contexts, including drug design. Genomic sequences from nine related parasite species were obtained, and 3D protein structure simulation tests and evolutionary constraint analyses were performed. The parasite gene we identified here retains the intron structure, six highly conserved cysteine residues necessary to form a KNOTTIN protein, and displays levels of purifying selection like those seen in legumes. The albumin 1 xenogene has evolved through >150 speciation events over ca. 16 million years, forming a small family of differentially expressed genes that may confer novel functions in the parasites. Moreover, further data show that a distantly related parasitic plant, Cuscuta, obtained two copies of albumin 1 KNOTTIN-like genes from legumes through a separate HGT event, suggesting that legume KNOTTIN structures have been repeatedly co-opted by parasitic plants. Conclusions The HGT-derived albumins in Phelipanche represent a novel example of how plants can acquire genes from other plants via HGT that then go on to duplicate, evolve, and retain the specialized features required to perform a unique host-derived function.
- Functional genomics of a generalist parasitic plant: Laser microdissection of host-parasite interface reveals host-specific patterns of parasite gene expressionHonaas, Loren A.; Wafula, Eric K.; Yang, Zhenzhen; Der, Joshua P.; Wickett, Norman J.; Altman, Naomi S.; Taylor, Christopher G.; Yoder, John I.; Timko, Michael P.; Westwood, James H.; dePamphilis, Claude W. (2013-01-09)Background Orobanchaceae is the only plant family with members representing the full range of parasitic lifestyles plus a free-living lineage sister to all parasitic lineages, Lindenbergia. A generalist member of this family, and an important parasitic plant model, Triphysaria versicolor regularly feeds upon a wide range of host plants. Here, we compare de novo assembled transcriptomes generated from laser micro-dissected tissues at the host-parasite interface to uncover details of the largely uncharacterized interaction between parasitic plants and their hosts. Results The interaction of Triphysaria with the distantly related hosts Zea mays and Medicago truncatula reveals dramatic host-specific gene expression patterns. Relative to above ground tissues, gene families are disproportionally represented at the interface including enrichment for transcription factors and genes of unknown function. Quantitative Real-Time PCR of a T. versicolor β-expansin shows strong differential (120x) upregulation in response to the monocot host Z. mays; a result that is concordant with our read count estimates. Pathogenesis-related proteins, other cell wall modifying enzymes, and orthologs of genes with unknown function (annotated as such in sequenced plant genomes) are among the parasite genes highly expressed by T. versicolor at the parasite-host interface. Conclusions Laser capture microdissection makes it possible to sample the small region of cells at the epicenter of parasite host interactions. The results of our analysis suggest that T. versicolor’s generalist strategy involves a reliance on overlapping but distinct gene sets, depending upon the host plant it is parasitizing. The massive upregulation of a T. versicolor β-expansin is suggestive of a mechanism for parasite success on grass hosts. In this preliminary study of the interface transcriptomes, we have shown that T. versicolor, and the Orobanchaceae in general, provide excellent opportunities for the characterization of plant genes with unknown functions.
- One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plantsLeebens-Mack, James H.; Barker, Michael S.; Carpenter, Eric J.; Deyholos, Michael K.; Gitzendanner, Matthew A.; Graham, Sean W.; Grosse, Ivo; Li, Zheng; Melkonian, Michael; Mirarab, Siavash; Porsch, Martin; Quint, Marcel; Rensing, Stefan A.; Soltis, Douglas E.; Soltis, Pamela S.; Stevenson, Dennis W.; Ullrich, Kristian K.; Wickett, Norman J.; DeGironimo, Lisa; Edger, Patrick P.; Jordon-Thaden, Ingrid E.; Joya, Steve; Liu, Tao; Melkonian, Barbara; Miles, Nicholas W.; Pokorny, Lisa; Quigley, Charlotte; Thomas, Philip; Villarreal, Juan Carlos; Augustin, Megan M.; Barrett, Matthew D.; Baucom, Regina S.; Beerling, David J.; Benstein, Ruben Maximilian; Biffin, Ed; Brockington, Samuel F.; Burge, Dylan O.; Burris, Jason N.; Burris, Kellie P.; Burtet-Sarramegna, Valerie; Caicedo, Ana L.; Cannon, Steven B.; Cebi, Zehra; Chang, Ying; Chater, Caspar; Cheeseman, John M.; Chen, Tao; Clarke, Neil D.; Clayton, Harmony; Covshoff, Sarah; Crandall-Stotler, Barbara J.; Cross, Hugh; dePamphilis, Claude W.; Der, Joshua P.; Determann, Ron; Dickson, Rowan C.; Di Stilio, Veronica S.; Ellis, Shona; Fast, Eva; Feja, Nicole; Field, Katie J.; Filatov, Dmitry A.; Finnegan, Patrick M.; Floyd, Sandra K.; Fogliani, Bruno; Garcia, Nicolas; Gateble, Gildas; Godden, Grant T.; Goh, Falicia (Qi Yun); Greiner, Stephan; Harkess, Alex; Heaney, James Mike; Helliwell, Katherine E.; Heyduk, Karolina; Hibberd, Julian M.; Hodel, Richard G. J.; Hollingsworth, Peter M.; Johnson, Marc T. J.; Jost, Ricarda; Joyce, Blake; Kapralov, Maxim V.; Kazamia, Elena; Kellogg, Elizabeth A.; Koch, Marcus A.; Von Konrat, Matt; Konyves, Kalman; Kutchan, Toni M.; Lam, Vivienne; Larsson, Anders; Leitch, Andrew R.; Lentz, Roswitha; Li, Fay-Wei; Lowe, Andrew J.; Ludwig, Martha; Manos, Paul S.; Mavrodiev, Evgeny; McCormick, Melissa K.; McKain, Michael; McLellan, Tracy; McNeal, Joel R.; Miller, Richard E.; Nelson, Matthew N.; Peng, Yanhui; Ralph, Paula E.; Real, Daniel; Riggins, Chance W.; Ruhsam, Markus; Sage, Rowan F.; Sakai, Ann K.; Scascitella, Moira; Schilling, Edward E.; Schlosser, Eva-Marie; Sederoff, Heike; Servick, Stein; Sessa, Emily B.; Shaw, A. Jonathan; Shaw, Shane W.; Sigel, Erin M.; Skema, Cynthia; Smith, Alison G.; Smithson, Ann; Stewart, C. Neal, Jr.; Stinchcombe, John R.; Szovenyi, Peter; Tate, Jennifer A.; Tiebel, Helga; Trapnell, Dorset; Villegente, Matthieu; Wang, Chun-Neng; Weller, Stephen G.; Wenzel, Michael; Weststrand, Stina; Westwood, James H.; Whigham, Dennis F.; Wu, Shuangxiu; Wulff, Adrien S.; Yang, Yu; Zhu, Dan; Zhuang, Cuili; Zuidof, Jennifer; Chase, Mark W.; Pires, J. Chris; Rothfels, Carl J.; Yu, Jun; Chen, Cui; Chen, Li; Cheng, Shifeng; Li, Juanjuan; Li, Ran; Li, Xia; Lu, Haorong; Ou, Yanxiang; Sun, Xiao; Tan, Xuemei; Tang, Jingbo; Tian, Zhijian; Wang, Feng; Wang, Jun; Wei, Xiaofeng; Xu, Xun; Yan, Zhixiang; Yang, Fan; Zhong, Xiaoni; Zhou, Feiyu; Zhu, Ying; Zhang, Yong; Ayyampalayam, Saravanaraj; Barkman, Todd J.; Nam-Phuong Nguyen; Matasci, Naim; Nelson, David R.; Sayyari, Erfan; Wafula, Eric K.; Walls, Ramona L.; Warnow, Tandy; An, Hong; Arrigo, Nils; Baniaga, Anthony E.; Galuska, Sally; Jorgensen, Stacy A.; Kidder, Thomas I.; Kong, Hanghui; Lu-Irving, Patricia; Marx, Hannah E.; Qi, Xinshuai; Reardon, Chris R.; Sutherland, Brittany L.; Tiley, George P.; Welles, Shana R.; Yu, Rongpei; Zhan, Shing; Gramzow, Lydia; Theissen, Gunter; Wong, Gane Ka-Shu (2019-10-31)Green plants (Viridiplantae) include around 450,000-500,000 species(1,2) of great diversity and have important roles in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Here, as part of the One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative, we sequenced the vegetative transcriptomes of 1,124 species that span the diversity of plants in a broad sense (Archaeplastida), including green plants (Viridiplantae), glaucophytes (Glaucophyta) and red algae (Rhodophyta). Our analysis provides a robust phylogenomic framework for examining the evolution of green plants. Most inferred species relationships are well supported across multiple species tree and supermatrix analyses, but discordance among plastid and nuclear gene trees at a few important nodes highlights the complexity of plant genome evolution, including polyploidy, periods of rapid speciation, and extinction. Incomplete sorting of ancestral variation, polyploidization and massive expansions of gene families punctuate the evolutionary history of green plants. Notably, we find that large expansions of gene families preceded the origins of green plants, land plants and vascular plants, whereas whole-genome duplications are inferred to have occurred repeatedly throughout the evolution of flowering plants and ferns. The increasing availability of high-quality plant genome sequences and advances in functional genomics are enabling research on genome evolution across the green tree of life.
- Parasitic Plants Striga and Phelipanche Dependent upon Exogenous Strigolactones for Germination Have Retained Genes for Strigolactone BiosynthesisDas, Malay; Fernández-Aparicio, Mónica; Yang, Zhenzhen; Huang, Kan; Wickett, Norman J.; Alford, Shannon R.; Wafula, Eric K.; dePamphilis, Claude W.; Bouwmeester, Harro; Timko, Michael P.; Yoder, John I.; Westwood, James H. (2015-05)Strigolactones are plant hormones with multiple functions, including regulating various aspects of plant architecture such as shoot branching, facilitating the colonization of plant roots by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, and acting as seed germination stimulants for certain parasitic plants of the family Orobanchaceae. The obligate parasitic species Phelipanche aegyptiaca and Striga hermonthica require strigolactones for germination, while the facultative parasite Triphysaria versicolor does not. It has been hypothesized that P. aegyptiaca and S. hermonthica would have undergone evolutionary loss of strigolactone biosynthesis as a part of their mechanism to enable specific detection of exogenous strigolactones. We analyzed the transcriptomes of P. aegyptiaca, S. hermonthica and T. versicolor and identified genes known to act in strigolactone synthesis (D27, CCD7, CCD8, and MAX1), perception (MAX2 and D14) and transport (PDR12). These genes were then analyzed to assess likelihood of function. Transcripts of all strigolactone-related genes were found in P. aegyptiaca and S. hermonthica, and evidence points to their encoding functional proteins. Gene open reading frames were consistent with homologs from Arabidopsis and other strigolactone-producing plants, and all genes were expressed in parasite tissues. In general, the genes related to strigolactone synthesis and perception appeared to be evolving under codon-based selective constraints in strigolactone-dependent species. Bioassays of S. hermonthica root extracts indicated the presence of strigolactone class stimulants on germination of P. aegyptiaca seeds. Taken together, these results indicate that Phelipanche aegyptiaca and S. hermonthica have retained functional genes involved in strigolactone biosynthesis, suggesting that the parasites use both endogenous and exogenous strigolactones and have mechanisms to differentiate the two.