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Abstract Background Triticum monococcum L., an A genome diploid einkorn wheat, was the first domesticated crop. As a diploid, it is attractive genetic model for the study of gene structure and function of wheat-specific traits. Diploid wheat is currently not amenable to reverse genetics approaches such as insertion mutagenesis and post-transcriptional gene silencing strategies. However, TILLING offers a powerful functional genetics approach for wheat gene analysis. Results We developed a TILLING population of 1,532 M2 families using EMS as a mutagen. A total of 67 mutants were obtained for the four genes studied. Waxy gene mutation frequencies are known to be 1/17.6 - 34.4 kb DNA in polyploid wheat TILLING populations. The T. monococcum diploid wheat TILLING population had a mutation frequency of 1/90 kb for the same gene. Lignin biosynthesis pathway genes- COMT1, HCT2, and 4CL1 had mutation frequencies of 1/86 kb, 1/92 kb and 1/100 kb, respectively. The overall mutation frequency of the diploid wheat TILLING population was 1/92 kb. Conclusion The mutation frequency of a diploid wheat TILLING population was found to be higher than that reported for other diploid grasses. The rate, however, is lower than tetraploid and hexaploid wheat TILLING populations because of the higher tolerance of polyploids to mutations. Unlike polyploid wheat, most mutants in diploid wheat have a phenotype amenable to forward and reverse genetic analysis and establish diploid wheat as an attractive model to study gene function in wheat. We estimate that a TILLING population of 5, 520 will be needed to get a non-sense mutation for every wheat gene of interest with 95% probability.

Abstract Background Bread wheat, one of the world’s staple food crops, has the largest, highly repetitive and polyploid genome among the cereal crops. The wheat genome holds the key to crop genetic improvement against challenges such as climate change, environmental degradation, and water scarcity. To unravel the complex wheat genome, the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) is pursuing a chromosome- and chromosome arm-based approach to physical mapping and sequencing. Here we report on the use of a BAC library made from flow-sorted telosomic chromosome 3A short arm (t3AS) for marker development and analysis of sequence composition and comparative evolution of homoeologous genomes of hexaploid wheat. Results The end-sequencing of 9,984 random BACs from a chromosome arm 3AS-specific library (TaaCsp3AShA) generated 11,014,359 bp of high quality sequence from 17,591 BAC-ends with an average length of 626 bp. The sequence represents 3.2% of t3AS with an average DNA sequence read every 19 kb. Overall, 79% of the sequence consisted of repetitive elements, 1.38% as coding regions (estimated 2,850 genes) and another 19% of unknown origin. Comparative sequence analysis suggested that 70-77% of the genes present in both 3A and 3B were syntenic with model species. Among the transposable elements, gypsy/sabrina (12.4%) was the most abundant repeat and was significantly more frequent in 3A compared to homoeologous chromosome 3B. Twenty novel repetitive sequences were also identified using de novo repeat identification. BESs were screened to identify simple sequence repeats (SSR) and transposable element junctions. A total of 1,057 SSRs were identified with a density of one per 10.4 kb, and 7,928 junctions between transposable elements (TE) and other sequences were identified with a density of one per 1.39 kb. With the objective of enhancing the marker density of chromosome 3AS, oligonucleotide primers were successfully designed from 758 SSRs and 695 Insertion Site Based Polymorphisms (ISBPs). Of the 96 ISBP primer pairs tested, 28 (29%) were 3A-specific and compared to 17 (18%) for 96 SSRs. Conclusion This work reports on the use of wheat chromosome arm 3AS-specific BAC library for the targeted generation of sequence data from a particular region of the huge genome of wheat. A large quantity of sequences were generated from the A genome of hexaploid wheat for comparative genome analysis with homoeologous B and D genomes and other model grass genomes. Hundreds of molecular markers were developed from the 3AS arm-specific sequences; these and other sequences will be useful in gene discovery and physical mapping.

Abstract Background Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum var. distichum) is a coniferous tree of tremendous ecological and economic importance. It is a member of the family Cupressaceae which also includes cypresses, redwoods, sequoias, thujas, and junipers. While the bald cypress genome is more than three times the size of the human genome, its 1C DNA content is amongst the smallest of any conifer. To learn more about the genome of bald cypress and gain insight into the evolution of Cupressaceae genomes, we performed a Cot analysis and used Cot filtration to study Taxodium DNA. Additionally, we constructed a 6.7 genome-equivalent BAC library that we screened with known Taxodium genes and select repeats. Results The bald cypress genome is composed of 90% repetitive DNA with most sequences being found in low to mid copy numbers. The most abundant repeats are found in fewer than 25,000 copies per genome. Approximately 7.4% of the genome is single/low-copy DNA (i.e., sequences found in 1 to 5 copies). Sequencing of highly repetitive Cot clones indicates that most Taxodium repeats are highly diverged from previously characterized plant repeat sequences. The bald cypress BAC library consists of 606,336 clones (average insert size of 113 kb) and collectively provides 6.7-fold genome equivalent coverage of the bald cypress genome. Macroarray screening with known genes produced, on average, about 1.5 positive clones per probe per genome-equivalent. Library screening with Cot-1 DNA revealed that approximately 83% of BAC clones contain repetitive sequences iterated 103 to 104 times per genome. Conclusions The BAC library for bald cypress is the first to be generated for a conifer species outside of the family Pinaceae. The Taxodium BAC library was shown to be useful in gene isolation and genome characterization and should be an important tool in gymnosperm comparative genomics, physical mapping, genome sequencing, and gene/polymorphism discovery. The single/low-copy (SL) component of bald cypress is 4.6 times the size of the Arabidopsis genome. As suggested for other gymnosperms, the large amount of SL DNA in Taxodium is likely the result of divergence among ancient repeat copies and gene/pseudogene duplication.

Abstract Background Accuracy of document retrieval from MEDLINE for gene queries is crucially important for many applications in bioinformatics. We explore five information retrieval-based methods to rank documents retrieved by PubMed gene queries for the human genome. The aim is to rank relevant documents higher in the retrieved list. We address the special challenges faced due to ambiguity in gene nomenclature: gene terms that refer to multiple genes, gene terms that are also English words, and gene terms that have other biological meanings. Results Our two baseline ranking strategies are quite similar in performance. Two of our three LocusLink-based strategies offer significant improvements. These methods work very well even when there is ambiguity in the gene terms. Our best ranking strategy offers significant improvements on three different kinds of ambiguities over our two baseline strategies (improvements range from 15.9% to 17.7% and 11.7% to 13.3% depending on the baseline). For most genes the best ranking query is one that is built from the LocusLink (now Entrez Gene) summary and product information along with the gene names and aliases. For others, the gene names and aliases suffice. We also present an approach that successfully predicts, for a given gene, which of these two ranking queries is more appropriate. Conclusion We explore the effect of different post-retrieval strategies on the ranking of documents returned by PubMed for human gene queries. We have successfully applied some of these strategies to improve the ranking of relevant documents in the retrieved sets. This holds true even when various kinds of ambiguity are encountered. We feel that it would be very useful to apply strategies like ours on PubMed search results as these are not ordered by relevance in any way. This is especially so for queries that retrieve a large number of documents.

Abstract Background The neurological complications of HIV infection remain poorly understood. Clinically, in vivo 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) demonstrates brain injury caused by HIV infection even when the MRI is normal. Our goal was to undertsand the dynamics of cerebral injury by performing a longitudinal in vivo 1H MRS study of the SIV/macaque model of neuroAIDS. Results Eight rhesus macaques were infected with SIVmac251 and serially imaged with MRI and 1H MRS to terminal AIDS or the endpoint of 2 years. During acute infection, there were stereotypical brain MRS changes, dominated by a significant elevation of the Cho/Cr ratio in the frontal cortex. Subsequently, brain metabolic patterns diverged between animals. There was an elevation of basal ganglia Cho/Cr four weeks post-inoculation in 2 animals that developed SIV encephalitis (p = 0.022). Metabolite ratios averaged across all 8 animals were not significantly different from baseline at any time point after 2 weeks post inoculation. However, linear regression analysis on all 8 animals revealed a positive correlation between a change in frontal lobe Cho/Cr and plasma viral load (P < 0.001, R = 0.80), and a negative correlation between NAA/Cr in the basal ganglia and the plasma viral load (P < 0.02, R = -0.73). No MRI abnormalities were detected at any time. Conclusions After infection with SIV, macaque brain metabolism changes in a complex manner that is dependent on brain region, host factors and viral load. An elevation of basal ganglia Cho/Cr 4 weeks after SIV infection may be marker of a propensity to develop SIV encephalitis. Elevations of Cho/Cr, often observed in CNS inflammation, were associated with increased plasma viral load during acute and chronic infection. Evidence of neuronal injury in the basal ganglia was associated with increased plasma viral load in the chronic stage of infection. These observations support the use of drugs capable of controlling the viral replication and trafficking of virus into the CNS, and may help explain the reduction in incidence of HIV-associated dementia in the era of HAART despite the inability of most of those drugs to effectively enter the CNS.