Cited Reference: Spribille, Toby, et al. “Basidiomycete Yeasts in the Cortex of
ID: 214139 • Letter: C
Question
Cited Reference: Spribille, Toby, et al. “Basidiomycete Yeasts in the Cortex of Ascomycete Macrol... Cited Reference: Spribille, Toby, et al. “Basidiomycete Yeasts in the Cortex of Ascomycete Macrolichens.”Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 21 July 2016,
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/07/20/science.aaf8287.full (link with entire free article)
Please explain in detail in own words. Try to not to just copy answers from the article, so I can understand the article. Thank you
a Why did the authors begin with metatranscriptomics approach? What had other researchers tried to do, but did not succeed in finding?
b What was the result the metatranscriptomics approach? How did the authors uncover an unsuspected a third symbiont? What was the main lichen phenotype that correlated with the increased presence of the 3rd symbiont? Please be detailed as much as possible in own words
Explanation / Answer
a) Other researchers used phylogenetic analysis to understand the difference between the two species of lichens. Phylogenetic analysis is mainly used to find the difference in the gene sequence between different species. In this case, there was no gene sequence observed between the two species of lichens.
Even though the gene sequence is same in both the species, similar cannot be said in case of the protein levels these similar genes produces. So, there is a chance that the genes are being differentially expressed in both the species. Thus, phylogenetic analysis would fail to detect such differential expression. However, transcriptomics can easily identify the difference since it majorly is used to understand the gene expression within a cell. Hence, the authors began with metatranscriptomics approach.
b) Transcriptome analysis of both lichen species showed no relation between genotype and phenotype of the species. This showed that the differential gene expression is not the cause for the phenotype-of-interest.
To find the cause, they compared their data to other phylum of fungi. The comparison showed that the phenotype-of-interest was because of an organism belonging to basidiomycetes.
The main lichen phenotype correlated with the third symbiont is the production of toxic substance vulpinic acid.