Technologies like next-generation sequencing, proteomics, and high-throughput phenotyping have transformed the way we do biology. There is a continued need for scientists with computational skills to analyze biological data while understanding the underlying biological concepts. The Integrated training Model in Plant And ComputaTional Sciences (IMPACTS) is an interdisciplinary training program that trains doctoral students to employ computational and data science approaches to address grand challenges in plant biology. The first course in the curriculum, Foundations in Computational Plant Science, focuses on fundamental knowledge in computational and plant science through group learning and peer instruction while using real-world data. The lesson plan described here was developed by the 2019 cohort of IMPACTS trainees (authoring cohort) as part of a subsequent course on STEM teaching and learning. The authoring cohort collaborated to identify a gap in the Foundations curriculum and applied their learning about evidence-based instructional design to develop and subsequently teach the lesson in the next iteration of the course (2020). The lesson plan’s goal was to develop students’ abilities to apply dictionaries and functions as core tools in computational science to answer biological questions. The 2020 cohort that completed the lesson reported confidence in being able to effectively apply dictionaries and functions and provided feedback about modifications to improve lesson efficacy. This feedback was incorporated in the iterative version of this lesson. This lesson is designed to help bridge the gap between computer scientists and biologists by teaching them interdisciplinary concepts using real-world data. Primary Image: Graphical depiction of how students will use programming concepts like functions and dictionaries to simulate the biological processes in the central dogma. Students write a function to translate DNA using a dictionary that represents the genetic code.

PremiseLeaf morphology is dynamic, continuously deforming during leaf expansion and among leaves within a shoot. Here, we measured the leaf morphology of more than 200 grapevines (Vitis spp.) over four years and modeled changes in leaf shape along the shoot to determine whether a composite leaf shape comprising all the leaves from a single shoot can better capture the variation and predict species identity compared with individual leaves.MethodsUsing homologous universal landmarks found in grapevine leaves, we modeled various morphological features as polynomial functions of leaf nodes. The resulting functions were used to reconstruct modeled leaf shapes across the shoots, generating composite leaves that comprehensively capture the spectrum of leaf morphologies present.ResultsWe found that composite leaves are better predictors of species identity than individual leaves from the same plant. We were able to use composite leaves to predict the species identity of previously unassigned grapevines, which were verified with genotyping.DiscussionObservations of individual leaf shape fail to capture the true diversity between species. Composite leaf shape—an assemblage of modeled leaf snapshots across the shoot—is a better representation of the dynamic and essential shapes of leaves, in addition to serving as a better predictor of species identity than individual leaves.

The protein kinase MpkA plays a prominent role in the cell wall integrity signaling (CWIS) pathway, acting as the terminal MAPK activating expression of genes which encode cell wall biosynthetic enzymes and other repair functions. Numerous studies focus on MpkA function during cell wall perturbation. Here, we focus on the role MpkA plays outside of cell wall stress, during steady state growth. In an effort to seek other, as yet unknown, connections to this pathway, an mpkA deletion mutant (ΔmpkA) was subjected to phosphoproteomic and transcriptomic analysis. When compared to the control (isogenic parent of ΔmpkA), there is strong evidence suggesting MpkA is involved with maintaining cell wall strength, branching regulation, and the iron starvation pathway, among others. Particle-size analysis during shake flask growth revealed ΔmpkA mycelia were about 4 times smaller than the control strain and more than 90 cell wall related genes show significantly altered expression levels. The deletion mutant had a significantly higher branching rate than the control and phosphoproteomic results show putative branching-regulation proteins, such as CotA, LagA, and Cdc24, have a significantly different level of phosphorylation. When grown in iron limited conditions, ΔmpkA had no difference in growth rate or production of siderophores, whereas the control strain showed decreased growth rate and increased siderophore production. Transcriptomic data revealed over 25 iron related genes with altered transcript levels. Results suggest MpkA is involved with regulation of broad cellular functions in the absence of stress.

The cyclic AMP (cAMP)-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) signaling pathway is well conserved across eukaryotes, and previous work has shown that it plays an important role in regulating development, growth, and virulence in a number of fungi. PKA is activated in response to extracellular nutrients and acts to regulate metabolism and growth. While a number of components in the PKA pathway have been defined in filamentous fungi, current understanding does not provide a global perspective on PKA function. Thus, this work is significant in that it comprehensively identifies proteins and functional pathways regulated by PKA in a model filamentous fungus. This information enhances our understanding of PKA action and may provide information on how to manipulate it for specific purposes.

Background: A total of 62,591 cowpea expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were BLAST aligned to the whole-genome sequence of barrel medic (Medicago truncatula) to develop conserved intron scanning primers (CISPs). The efficacy of the primers was tested across 10 different legumes and on different varieties of cowpea, chickpea, and pigeon pea. Genetic diversity was assessed using the same primers on different cowpea genotypes. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected, which were later converted to length polymorphism markers for easy genotyping. CISPs developed in this study were used in tagging resistance to bacterial leaf blight disease in cowpea. Results: A total of 1262 CISPs were designed. The single-copy amplification success rates using these primers on 10 different legumes and on different varieties of cowpea, chickpea, and pigeon pea were approximately 60% inmost of the legumes except soybean (47%) and peanut (37%). Genetic diversity analysis of 35 cowpea genotypes using 179 CISPs revealed 123 polymorphic markers with PIC values ranging from 0.05 to 0.59. Potential SNPs identified in cowpea, chickpea, and pigeon pea were converted to PCR primers of various sizes for easy genotyping. Using the markers developed in this study, a genetic linkage map was constructed with 11 linkage groups in cowpea. QTL mapping with 194 F-3 progeny families derived from the cross C-152 x V-16 resulted in the identification of three QTLs for resistance to bacterial leaf blight disease. Conclusions: CISPs were proved to be efficient markers to identify various other marker classes like SNPs through comparative genomic studies in lesser studied crops and to aid in systematic sampling of the entire genome for well-distributed markers at low cost. (C) 2019 Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

It is a little known fact that plastoquinone-9, a vital redox cofactor of photosynthesis, doubles as a precursor for the biosynthesis of a vitamin E analog called plastochromanol-8, the physiological significance of which has remained elusive. Gene network reconstruction, GFP fusion experiments, and targeted metabolite profiling of insertion mutants indicated that Arabidopsis possesses two paralogous solanesyl-diphosphate synthases, AtSPS1 (At1g78510) and AtSPS2 (At1g17050), that assemble the side chain of plastoquinone-9 in plastids. Similar paralogous pairs were detected throughout terrestrial plant lineages but were not distinguished in the literature and genomic databases from mitochondrial homologs involved in the biosynthesis of ubiquinone. The leaves of the atsps2 knock-out were devoid of plastochromanol-8 and displayed severe losses of both non-photoactive and photoactive plastoquinone-9, resulting in near complete photoinhibition at high light intensity. Such a photoinhibition was paralleled by significant damage to photosystem II but not to photosystem I. In contrast, in the atsps1 knock-out, a small loss of plastoquinone-9, restricted to the non-photoactive pool, was sufficient to eliminate half of the plastochromanol-8 content of the leaves. Taken together, these results demonstrate that plastochromanol-8 originates from a subfraction of the non-photoactive pool of plastoquinone-9. In contrast to other plastochromanol-8 biosynthetic mutants, neither the single atsps knock-outs nor the atsps1 atsps2 double knock-out displayed any defects in tocopherols accumulation or germination.