Biosciences News

“Very little is known about basal fungi such as Mucoromycotina and genomics may be the most efficient way to understand their metabolism. Many members of this phyla show very high sensitivity to environmental signals, which when understood could be used for natural control of some of these metabolic processes.”

In Current Biology, an international consortium led by DOE JGI researchers sequenced and annotated Mucoromycotina genomes, specifically those of Phycomyces blakesleeanus and its relative Mucor circinelloides. Sensory perception lies at the heart of adaptation to changing conditions, and helps fungi to improve growth and recycle organic waste, and to know when and how to infect a plant or animal host. These new results shed light on the evolution of sensory perception in fungi. Read more about this on the DOE JGI website.

Researchers — including Marco Osterwalder of the Environmenal Genomics & Systems Biology Division — have for the first time described the regulatory backups for two genes involved in mammalian limb formation. Understanding these redundancies, and how to bypass them, could be important for treating human diseases. Read more in Science.

JBEI’s Sarah LaFrance volunteered this week at “Dinner with a Scientist” organized by the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). Since 2009, OUSD has been hosting “Dinner with a Scientist” in order to bring together local scientists, teachers, and students to celebrate science.

Sarah interacted with 4th and 5th graders from OUSD to explain how plants can be turned into biofuels and why JBEI is developing alternative energy sources. She brought an Arabidopsis specimen to the event, which is used as a model plant in JBEI’s research, and each student got to take an Arabidopsis seedling home. Sarah answered many questions about bioenergy and her role as a technology expert at the lab.

To learn more about this event visit http://science.ousd.org/dinner.htm

“The time is ripe to embark on the greatest endeavor to understand Earth’s microbiome. At the dawn of the third decade of microbial genomics, and well into the information age, the establishment of a national microbiome data center can pave the way to understanding the Earth’s microbiome.”
In a paper published in Trends in Microbiology, researchers from the DOE Joint Genome Institute call for the formation of a National Microbiome Data Center to efficiently manage the datasets accumulated globally. The timely publication complements the White House’s launch of a National Microbiome Initiative focused on comparing microbial communities across ecosystems to identify the “organizing principles” that shape all microbiomes. Read more on the DOE JGI website.

Over the course of billions of years, nature has evolved particular molecular structures that form the basis of life, such as those found in nucleic acids and proteins. Using the natural form as a springboard, University of Washington researchers have designed protein homo-oligomers, or identical interacting subunits, which can contain interchangeable hydrogen bonding modules for building different structures or functions. The team of researchers, led by David Baker at the University of Washington, included Jose Henrique Pereira, Banumathi Sankaran, and Peter Zwart of the Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging Division (MBIB).