| Grant number: | 15/24956-1 |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate |
| Start date: | February 05, 2016 |
| End date: | June 04, 2016 |
| Field of knowledge: | Biological Sciences - Genetics - Molecular Genetics and Genetics of Microorganisms |
| Principal Investigator: | Marie-Anne Van Sluys |
| Grantee: | Paula Cristina Gasperazzo Turrini |
| Supervisor: | Jan Elnor Leach |
| Host Institution: | Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil |
| Institution abroad: | Colorado State University, United States |
| Associated to the scholarship: | 12/24954-0 - The influence of mobile genetic elements on Xanthomonas oryzae lineages, BP.DR |
Abstract Mobile genetic elements have largely influenced the bacterial genomic evolution. They play an important role in increasing genetic variability and therefore, promoting genetically diverse populations in a constantly changing environment. My Doctorate research project investigates how mobile elements potentially influenced the evolutionary history of phytopathogenic Xanthomonas oryzae lineages. The species X. oryzae is further classified into two different pathogenic varieties: X. oryzae pv. oryzae and X. oryzae pv. oryzicola. Despite being phylogenetically closely related, both pathovars differ in colonization strategies, pathogenicity, and also have a different profile of transposable elements in their genomes. This BEPE project aims to investigate the influence of mobile elements exploring one particular event of horizontal transfer - the genomic island XODB602, exclusively found in the pathovar Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola, similar to fragments found in members of the Rhizobiales group. Recent elucidation of the biochemical nature of XODB602 product, as well as in vivo studies performed in oryzicola redirected our project specific objectives. The experiments published are congruent to the experiments we were pursuing and consists of very fundamental information. Yet, it allowed us to establish a more focused approach to answer the initial hypothesis proposed in the main Doctorate project. Therefore, we redirected our efforts, emphasizing the evolutionary impact of a horizontally transferred trait, namely understanding the population genetics of XODB602 in different strains of oryzicola and performing competitions studies as measure of fitness.We will perform competition studies as a measure of fitness. Using competing strains harboring and not harboring XODB602 - the genomic island containing a metabolic pathway - we intend to identify if the acquisition of the ent-kaurene operon represents an adaptive innovation. We will assess fitness measuring the rate at which an engineered XODB602 knockout mutant strain and its wild type counterpart excludes each other after their co-inoculation in the host.We have previously investigated the presence of XODB602 in different populations of X. oryzae pv. oryzicola sampled from different geographic regions, revealing a complex population dynamics of the ent-kaurene operon in oryzicola lineage. As a complimentary approach to the competition studies, we are proposing to sequence the XODB602 region of a larger number of oryzicola populations, along with genes of central metabolism or housekeeping genes necessary to index neutral genetic variation. Our goal is to comprehensively examine genetic changes and capture enough information on the processes by which variation is being achieved or maintained, providing a broad evolutionary framework of a metabolic trait. (AU) | |
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