With help from the Joint Genome Institute, a Stanford University team used a genetic screen to identify a mutant in the model grass Brachypodium distachyon that affects stomatal morphology and, by extension, how plants manage water. Read the JGI Science Highlight.
A study of gut microbiomes finds that a common DNA sequencing technique overlooks 90 percent of the diversity in archaea, which are single-celled microbes more closely related to humans than bacteria. Archaea are difficult to study, so not much is known about the organisms. This can lead to bias in the archaea knowledge base, says the Joint Genome Institute’s Tanja Woyke, who was quoted in this recent article in The Atlantic.
Biosciences researchers collaborated with a team at the Salk Institute that developed a computational algorithm that integrates two different data types to make locating key regions within the genome more precise and accurate than other tools. The team’s method, recently described in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help researchers conduct vastly more targeted searches for disease-causing genetic variants in the human genome, such as ones that promote cancer or cause metabolic disorders. Joseph Ecker, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and director of Salk’s Genomic Analysis Laboratory, was senior author of the study. Diane Dickel, Axel Visel and Len Pennacchio of the Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology Division, were co-authors, along with other researchers at the Salk Institute, UC San Diego, and UC San Francisco. Read more about the study in the Salk Institute press release.
In the world of fungi, Aspergillus is an industrial superstar, playing a critical role in biofuel production, and plant and human health, among other applications. But the majority of its 350 species has yet to be sequenced. A team including JGI researchers sequenced the genomes of 10 novel Aspergillus species, more than doubling the number of Aspergillus species sequenced to date. Read more in the JGI News Release.
The projects of 13 Biosciences Area scientists and engineers received funding through the FY17 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program. The funded projects cover a broad range of topics including the study of microbiomes in relation to their environment, plants, and gut health; catalysis for solar conversion to energy; and genomic expression in tissue. Among them were three projects related to Lab-wide initiatives. Together, these efforts account for 17.5% of the $25.2 million allocated. Lab-wide, a total of 88 projects were selected from a field of 166 proposals.
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