TY  - JOUR
A1  - Förster, Frank
A1  - Beisser, Daniela
A1  - Grohme, Markus A.
A1  - Liang, Chunguang
A1  - Mali, Brahim
A1  - Siegl, Alexander Matthias
A1  - Engelmann, Julia C.
A1  - Shkumatov, Alexander V.
A1  - Schokraie, Elham
A1  - Müller, Tobias
A1  - Schnölzer, Martina
A1  - Schill, Ralph O.
A1  - Frohme, Marcus
A1  - Dandekar, Thomas
T1  - Transcriptome analysis in tardigrade species reveals specific molecular pathways for stress adaptations
JF  - Bioinformatics and biology insights
N2  - Tardigrades have unique stress-adaptations that allow them to survive extremes of cold, heat, radiation and vacuum. To study this, encoded protein clusters and pathways from an ongoing transcriptome study on the tardigrade \(Milnesium\) \(tardigradum\) were analyzed using bioinformatics tools and compared to expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from \(Hypsibius\) \(dujardini\), revealing major pathways involved in resistance against extreme environmental conditions. ESTs are available on the Tardigrade Workbench along with software and databank updates. Our analysis reveals that RNA stability motifs for \(M.\) \(tardigradum\) are different from typical motifs known from higher animals. \(M.\) \(tardigradum\) and \(H.\) \(dujardini\) protein clusters and conserved domains imply metabolic storage pathways for glycogen, glycolipids and specific secondary metabolism as well as stress response pathways (including heat shock proteins, bmh2, and specific repair pathways). Redox-, DNA-, stress- and protein protection pathways complement specific repair capabilities to achieve the strong robustness of \(M.\) \(tardigradum\). These pathways are partly conserved in other animals and their manipulation could boost stress adaptation even in human cells. However, the unique combination of resistance and repair pathways make tardigrades and \(M.\) \(tardigradum\) in particular so highly stress resistant.
KW  - RNA
KW  - expressed sequence tag
KW  - cluster
KW  - protein familiy
KW  - adaption
KW  - tardigrada
KW  - transcriptome
Y1  - 2012
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-123089
N1  - This is an open access article. Unrestricted non-commercial use is permitted provided the original work is properly cited.
VL  - 6
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ampattu, Biju Joseph
A1  - Hagmann, Laura
A1  - Liang, Chunguang
A1  - Dittrich, Marcus
A1  - Schlüter, Andreas
A1  - Blom, Jochen
A1  - Krol, Elizaveta
A1  - Goesmann, Alexander
A1  - Becker, Anke
A1  - Dandekar, Thomas
A1  - Müller, Tobias
A1  - Schoen, Christoph
T1  - Transcriptomic buffering of cryptic genetic variation contributes to meningococcal virulence
JF  - BMC Genomics
N2  - Background:
Commensal bacteria like Neisseria meningitidis sometimes cause serious disease. However, genomic comparison of hyperinvasive and apathogenic lineages did not reveal unambiguous hints towards indispensable virulence factors. Here, in a systems biological approach we compared gene expression of the invasive strain MC58 and the carriage strain α522 under different ex vivo conditions mimicking commensal and virulence compartments to assess the strain-specific impact of gene regulation on meningococcal virulence.
Results:
Despite indistinguishable ex vivo phenotypes, both strains differed in the expression of over 500 genes under infection mimicking conditions. These differences comprised in particular metabolic and information processing genes as well as genes known to be involved in host-damage such as the nitrite reductase and numerous LOS biosynthesis genes. A model based analysis of the transcriptomic differences in human blood suggested ensuing metabolic flux differences in energy, glutamine and cysteine metabolic pathways along with differences in the activation of the stringent response in both strains. In support of the computational findings, experimental analyses revealed differences in cysteine and glutamine auxotrophy in both strains as well as a strain and condition dependent essentiality of the (p)ppGpp synthetase gene relA and of a short non-coding AT-rich repeat element in its promoter region.
Conclusions:
Our data suggest that meningococcal virulence is linked to transcriptional buffering of cryptic genetic variation in metabolic genes including global stress responses. They further highlight the role of regulatory elements for bacterial virulence and the limitations of model strain approaches when studying such genetically diverse species as N. meningitidis.
KW  - neisseria meningitidis
KW  - MITE
KW  - virulenceregulatory evolution
KW  - systems biology
KW  - metabolism
KW  - cryptic
KW  - genetic variation
KW  - stringent response
KW  - relA
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-157534
VL  - 18
IS  - 282
ER  -