Profiling the metatranscriptome of the protistan community in Coptotermes formosanus with emphasis on the lignocellulolytic system

Lei Xie, Lei Zhang, Yi Zhong, Ning Liu, Yanhua Long, Shengyue Wang, Xuguo Zhou, Zhihua Zhou, Yongping Huang, Qian Wang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

43 Scopus citations

Abstract

The symbiotic protists in the hindgut of lower termites are critical for lignocellulose decomposition. Due to the unculturability of these protists, information on lignocellulases and their abundance within the gut is unavailable. The advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies enables an investigation of the gene expression profile in this community without culturing these organisms. Here, we carried out 454 pyrosequencing to profile the metatranscriptome of the protistan community in Coptotermes formosanus. In total, 223,477 reads were obtained by sequencing the enriched protistan mRNA. Phagocytosis and cytoskeletal homeostasis pathways were highly represented in the metatranscriptome. Among the metabolic pathways, starch and sucrose metabolism were dominant. A detailed analysis combining Pfam and KEGG annotation identified 118 glycosyl hydrolases belonging to 18 different glycosyl hydrolase families (GHFs). Subsequently, a novel GHF10 endo-1,4-beta-xylanase was functionally characterized to complement our understanding of the protistan hemicellulases.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)246-255
Number of pages10
JournalGenomics
Volume99
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2012

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grants KSCX2-YWG-062 , KSCX2-YW-G-022 ); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 30900150 , 31172153 ); and the Cooperation Program between Guangdong Province and Chinese Academy of Science (Grant 2009B091300147 ).

Keywords

  • Coptotermes formosanu
  • Lignocellulase
  • Metatranscriptome
  • Protist

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Genetics

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