Invasive alien species (IAS) are species whose introduction to areas outside of their native range cause harm to economics, biodiversity, and the environment.  Understanding the genetic basis of invasiveness is critical for preventing invasion by an alien species and managing IAS with eco-friendly control methods.  In addition, uncovering the genomic features of IAS is essential for accurately predicting invasiveness.  However, even though increasing efforts have been devoted to sequencing the genomes of IAS, there is still not an integrated genome database for the invasive biology community.  Here, we first determined a list of invasive plants and animals by mining references and databases.  Then, we retrieved the genomic and gene data of these IAS, and constructed a database, InvasionDB.  InvasionDB encompasses 131 IAS genomes, 76 annotated IAS assemblies, and links these data to conventional functions such as searching for gene coding sequences and Pfam, KEGG, NR annotations, BLAST server, JBrowse, and downloads services.  Next, we analyzed 19 invasiveness-related gene families which confer invasiveness in insects.  To study the roles of noncoding RNA in invasiveness, we also annotated 135 494 miRNAs, 89 294 rRNAs, and 2 671 941 tRNAs from these IAS.  In summary, InvasionDB is useful for studying the invasiveness at the genomic level, and thus helps to develop novel management strategies to control IAS.

 

We identified a wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) multi-pistil mutant from an F2 breeding population in 2012, named 12TP (three pistils in one floret).  Genetic analysis showed that one dominant gene locus controlled the multi-pistil trait.  Using homozygous normal and multi-pistil lines (near-isogenic lines; NILs) derived from the original mutant 12TP, a simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker assay located the 12TP locus on chromosome arm 2DL.  Four SSR markers were linked to 12TP and their order was Xcfd233→Xcfd62-12TP→Xwmc41→Xcfd168 at 15.85, 10.47, 2.89, and 10.37 cM, respectively.  The average genetic expressivity of the trait ‘three pistils in one floret’ was more than 98% in seven homozygous 12TP lines; however, the average genetic expressivity in heterozygous F1 plants was about 49%.  Thus, the 12TP is a semi-dominant gene locus, which differ from all previously reported multi-pistil mutants.  Mutant 12TP is a new useful germplasm for study of wheat floral development and for breeding of high yield wheat. 

 

Phosphate transporters play an important role in promoting the uptake and transport of phosphate in plants.  In this study, the McPht gene from the Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, a mitochondrial phosphate transporter, was isolated and constructed onto a constitutive expression vector carrying 35S::GFP, and the recombinant constructs were transferred into Oryza sativa japonica L. cv. Kitaake to investigate the regulatory role of the McPht gene under phosphorus deficiency.  The McPht gene encodes a protein of 357 amino acids with six transmembrane domains and is located to the mitochondria, and the mRNA transcripts of the McPht gene are highly accumulated in the shoots of M. crystallinum in response to phosphorus deficiency.  However, more mRNA transcripts of the McPht gene were accumulated in the roots of the transgenic rice under phosphorus deficiency.  Measurements showed that the transgenic rice demonstrated an enhanced promotion in the root development, the root activities, and phosphate uptake under phosphorus deficiency.  Transcriptome sequencing showed that the transgenic rice exhibited total of 198 differentially expressed genes.  Of these, total of 154 differentially expressed genes were up-regulated and total 44 genes were down-regulated comparing to the wild type in response to phosphorus deficiency.  The selective six genes of the up-regulated differentially expressed genes showed an enhanced increase in mRNA transcripts in response to phosphorus deficiency, however, the transcripts of the mitochondrial carrier protein transporter in rice, a homologous gene of the McPht,  in both the transgenic line and the wild type had no obvious differences.  Functional enrichment analyses revealed that the most of the up-regulated genes are involved in the cytoplasmic membrane-bounded vesicle, and most of the down-regulated genes are involved in the mitochondrion and cytoplasmic membrane-bounded vesicle.  The differentially expressed genes were highly enriched in plant secondary metabolisms and plant-pathogen interaction.  These results indicated that the overexpression of the McPht gene might participate in the physiological adaptive modulation of the transgenic rice to phosphorus deficiency by up- or down-regulating the differentially expressed genes.