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Full-Text Articles in Biology
Overexpression Of Patatin‐Related Phospholipase Aiiiδ Altered Plant Growth And Increased Seed Oil Content In Camelina, Xuemin Wang, Maoyin Li, Fang Wei, Amanda Tawfall, Michelle Tang, Allison Saettele
Overexpression Of Patatin‐Related Phospholipase Aiiiδ Altered Plant Growth And Increased Seed Oil Content In Camelina, Xuemin Wang, Maoyin Li, Fang Wei, Amanda Tawfall, Michelle Tang, Allison Saettele
Biology Department Faculty Works
Camelina sativa is a Brassicaceae oilseed species being explored as a biofuel and industrial oil crop. A growing number of studies have indicated that the turnover of phosphatidylcholine plays an important role in the synthesis and modification of triacylglycerols. This study manipulated the expression of a patatin‐related phospholipase AIIIδ (pPLAIIIδ) in camelina to determine its effect on seed oil content and plant growth. Constitutive overexpression of pPLAIIIδ under the control of the constitutive cauliflower mosaic 35S promoter resulted in a significant increase in seed oil content and a decrease in cellulose content. In addition, the content of major membrane phospholipids, …
The Complexity Of Background Clutter Affects Nectar Bat Use Of Flower Odor And Shape Cues, Nathan Muchhala, Diana Serrano
The Complexity Of Background Clutter Affects Nectar Bat Use Of Flower Odor And Shape Cues, Nathan Muchhala, Diana Serrano
Biology Department Faculty Works
Given their small size and high metabolism, nectar bats need to be able to quickly locate flowers during foraging bouts. Chiropterophilous plants depend on these bats for their reproduction, thus they also benefit if their flowers can be easily located, and we would expect that floral traits such as odor and shape have evolved to maximize detection by bats. However, relatively little is known about the importance of different floral cues during foraging bouts. In the present study, we undertook a set of flight cage experiments with two species of nectar bats (Anoura caudifer and A. geoffroyi) and artificial flowers …
Role Of Aminoalcoholphosphotransferases 1 And 2 In Phospholipid Homeostasis In Arabidopsis, Xuemin Wang, Yu Liu, Geliang Wang
Role Of Aminoalcoholphosphotransferases 1 And 2 In Phospholipid Homeostasis In Arabidopsis, Xuemin Wang, Yu Liu, Geliang Wang
Biology Department Faculty Works
Aminoalcoholphosphotransferase (AAPT) catalyzes the synthesis of phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphotidylethanolamine (PE), which are the most prevalent membrane phospholipids in all eukaryotic cells. Here, we show that suppression of AAPTs results in extensive membrane phospholipid remodeling in Arabidopsis thaliana. Double knockout (KO) mutants that are hemizygous for either aapt1 or aapt2 display impaired pollen and seed development, leading to embryotic lethality of the double KO plants, whereas aapt1 or aapt2 single KO plants show no overt phenotypic alterations. The growth rate and seed yield of AAPT RNA interference (RNAi) plants are greatly reduced. Lipid profiling shows decreased total galactolipid and phospholipid …
Comprehensive Quantification Of Triacylglycerols In Soybean Seeds By Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry With Multiple Neutral Loss Scans, Maoyin Li, Emily Butka, Xuemin Wang
Comprehensive Quantification Of Triacylglycerols In Soybean Seeds By Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry With Multiple Neutral Loss Scans, Maoyin Li, Emily Butka, Xuemin Wang
Biology Department Faculty Works
Soybean seeds are an important source of vegetable oil and biomaterials. The content of individual triacylglycerol species (TAG) in soybean seeds is difficult to quantify in an accurate and rapid way. The present study establishes an approach to quantify TAG species in soybean seeds utilizing an electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry with multiple neutral loss scans. Ten neutral loss scans were performed to detect the fatty acyl chains of TAG, including palmitic (P, 16:0), linolenic (Ln, 18:3), linoleic (L, 18:2), oleic (O, 18:1), stearic (S, 18:0), eicosadienoic (20:2), gadoleic (20:1), arachidic (20:0), erucic (22:1), and behenic (22:0). The abundance of …
Phenotypic Heterogeneity In Metabolic Traits Among Single Cells Of A Rare Bacterial Species In Its Natural Environment Quantified With A Combination Of Flow Cell Sorting And Nanosims, Matthias Zimmermann, Matthias Zimmermann, Stéphanie Escrig, Thomas Hübschmann, Mathias Kirf, Mathias Kirf, Andreas Brand, Andreas Brand, R. Inglis, R. Inglis, Niculina Musat, Susann Müller, Andres Meibom, Andres Meibom, Martin Ackermann, Martin Ackermann, Frank Schreiber, Frank Schreiber
Phenotypic Heterogeneity In Metabolic Traits Among Single Cells Of A Rare Bacterial Species In Its Natural Environment Quantified With A Combination Of Flow Cell Sorting And Nanosims, Matthias Zimmermann, Matthias Zimmermann, Stéphanie Escrig, Thomas Hübschmann, Mathias Kirf, Mathias Kirf, Andreas Brand, Andreas Brand, R. Inglis, R. Inglis, Niculina Musat, Susann Müller, Andres Meibom, Andres Meibom, Martin Ackermann, Martin Ackermann, Frank Schreiber, Frank Schreiber
Biology Department Faculty Works
Populations of genetically identical microorganisms residing in the same environment can display marked variability in their phenotypic traits; this phenomenon is termed phenotypic heterogeneity. The relevance of such heterogeneity in natural habitats is unknown, because phenotypic characterization of a sufficient number of single cells of the same species in complex microbial communities is technically difficult. We report a procedure that allows to measure phenotypic heterogeneity in bacterial populations from natural environments, and use it to analyze N2 and CO2 fixation of single cells of the green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium phaeobacteroides from the meromictic lake Lago di Cadagno. We incubated lake …
Species Interactions Differ In Their Genetic Robustness, Lon Chubiz, Brian Granger, Daniel Segrè, William Harcombe
Species Interactions Differ In Their Genetic Robustness, Lon Chubiz, Brian Granger, Daniel Segrè, William Harcombe
Biology Department Faculty Works
Conflict and cooperation between bacterial species drive the composition and function of microbial communities. Stability of these emergent properties will be influenced by the degree to which species’ interactions are robust to genetic perturbations. We use genome-scale metabolic modeling to computationally analyze the impact of genetic changes when Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica compete, or cooperate. We systematically knocked out in silico each reaction in the metabolic network of E. coli to construct all 2583 mutant stoichiometric models. Then, using a recently developed multi-scale computational framework, we simulated the growth of each mutant E. coli in the presence of S. …
Parallel And Divergent Evolutionary Solutions For The Optimization Of An Engineered Central Metabolism In Methylobacterium Extorquens Am1, Sean Carroll, Lon Chubiz, Deepa Agashe, Christopher Marx
Parallel And Divergent Evolutionary Solutions For The Optimization Of An Engineered Central Metabolism In Methylobacterium Extorquens Am1, Sean Carroll, Lon Chubiz, Deepa Agashe, Christopher Marx
Biology Department Faculty Works
Bioengineering holds great promise to provide fast and efficient biocatalysts for methanol-based biotechnology, but necessitates proven methods to optimize physiology in engineered strains. Here, we highlight experimental evolution as an effective means for optimizing an engineered Methylobacterium extorquens AM1. Replacement of the native formaldehyde oxidation pathway with a functional analog substantially decreased growth in an engineered Methylobacterium, but growth rapidly recovered after six hundred generations of evolution on methanol. We used whole-genome sequencing to identify the basis of adaptation in eight replicate evolved strains, and examined genomic changes in light of other growth and physiological data. We observed great variety …
Conditional Regulation Of Puf1p, Puf4p, And Puf5p Activity Alters Yhb1 Mrna Stability For A Rapid Response To Toxic Nitric Oxide Stress In Yeast, Joseph Russo, Wendy Olivas
Conditional Regulation Of Puf1p, Puf4p, And Puf5p Activity Alters Yhb1 Mrna Stability For A Rapid Response To Toxic Nitric Oxide Stress In Yeast, Joseph Russo, Wendy Olivas
Biology Department Faculty Works
Puf proteins regulate mRNA degradation and translation through interactions with 3' untranslated regions (UTRs). Such regulation provides an efficient method to rapidly alter protein production during cellular stress. YHB1 encodes the only protein to detoxify nitric oxide in yeast. Here we show that YHB1 mRNA is destabilized by Puf1p, Puf4p, and Puf5p through two overlapping Puf recognition elements (PREs) in the YHB1 3' UTR. Overexpression of any of the three Pufs is sufficient to fully rescue wild-type decay in the absence of other Pufs, and overexpression of Puf4p or Puf5p can enhance the rate of wild-type decay. YHB1 mRNA decay …
Fighting Microbial Drug Resistance: A Primer On The Role Of Evolutionary Biology In Public Health, Gabriel Perron, R. Inglis, Pleuni Pennings, Sarah Cobey
Fighting Microbial Drug Resistance: A Primer On The Role Of Evolutionary Biology In Public Health, Gabriel Perron, R. Inglis, Pleuni Pennings, Sarah Cobey
Biology Department Faculty Works
Although microbes have been evolving resistance to antimicrobials for millennia, the spread of resistance in pathogen populations calls for the development of new drugs and treatment strategies. We propose that successful, long-term resistance management requires a better understanding of how resistance evolves in the first place. This is an opportunity for evolutionary biologists to engage in public health, a collaboration that has substantial precedent. Resistance evolution has been an important tool for developing and testing evolutionary theory, especially theory related to the genetic basis of new traits and constraints on adaptation. The present era is no exception. The articles in …
The Global Distribution Of Diet Breadth In Insect Herbivores, Robert Marquis, Matthew Forister, Vojtech Novotny, Anna Panorska, Leontine Baje, Yves Basset, Philip Butterill, Lukas Cizek, Phyllis Coley, Francesca Dem, Ivone Diniz, Pavel Drozd, Mark Fox, Andrea Glassmire, Rebecca Hazen, Jan Hrcek, Joshua Jahner, Ondrej Kaman, Tomasz Kozubowski, Thomas Kursar, Owen Lewis, John Lill, Scott Miller, Helena Morais, Masashi Murakami, Herbert Nickel, Nicholas Pardikes, Robert Ricklefs, Michael Singer, Angela Smilanich, John Stireman, Santiago Villamarín-Cortez, Stepan Vodka, Martin Volf, David Wagner, Thomas Walla, George Weiblen, Lee Dyer
The Global Distribution Of Diet Breadth In Insect Herbivores, Robert Marquis, Matthew Forister, Vojtech Novotny, Anna Panorska, Leontine Baje, Yves Basset, Philip Butterill, Lukas Cizek, Phyllis Coley, Francesca Dem, Ivone Diniz, Pavel Drozd, Mark Fox, Andrea Glassmire, Rebecca Hazen, Jan Hrcek, Joshua Jahner, Ondrej Kaman, Tomasz Kozubowski, Thomas Kursar, Owen Lewis, John Lill, Scott Miller, Helena Morais, Masashi Murakami, Herbert Nickel, Nicholas Pardikes, Robert Ricklefs, Michael Singer, Angela Smilanich, John Stireman, Santiago Villamarín-Cortez, Stepan Vodka, Martin Volf, David Wagner, Thomas Walla, George Weiblen, Lee Dyer
Biology Department Faculty Works
Understanding variation in resource specialization is important for progress on issues that include coevolution, community assembly, ecosystem processes, and the latitudinal gradient of species richness. Herbivorous insects are useful models for studying resource specialization, and the interaction between plants and herbivorous insects is one of the most common and consequential ecological associations on the planet. However, uncertainty persists regarding fundamental features of herbivore diet breadth, including its relationship to latitude and plant species richness. Here, we use a global dataset to investigate host range for over 7,500 insect herbivore species covering a wide taxonomic breadth and interacting with more than …
Lineage Sorting In Multihost Parasites: Eidmanniella Albescens And Fregatiella Aurifasciata On Seabirds From The Galapagos Islands, Jose Rivera-Parra, Iris Levin, Kevin Johnson, Patricia Parker
Lineage Sorting In Multihost Parasites: Eidmanniella Albescens And Fregatiella Aurifasciata On Seabirds From The Galapagos Islands, Jose Rivera-Parra, Iris Levin, Kevin Johnson, Patricia Parker
Biology Department Faculty Works
Parasites comprise a significant percentage of the biodiversity of the planet and are useful systems to test evolutionary and ecological hypotheses. In this study, we analyze the effect of host species identity and the immediate local species assemblage within mixed species colonies of nesting seabirds on patterns of genetic clustering within two species of multihost ectoparasitic lice. We use three genetic markers (one mitochondrial, COI, and two nuclear, EF1‐α and wingless) and maximum likelihood phylogenetic trees to test whether (1) parasites show lineage sorting based on their host species; and (2) switching of lineages to the alternate host species depends …