Profiling the metatranscriptome of the protistan community in Coptotermes formosanus with emphasis on the lignocellulolytic system.
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.
Key Laboratory of Insect Developmental and Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, People's Republic of China.
Lei
L
Xie
Lei
L
Zhang
Yi
Y
Zhong
Ning
N
Liu
Yanhua
Y
Long
Shengyue
S
Wang
Xuguo
X
Zhou
Zhihua
Z
Zhou
Yongping
Y
Huang
Qian
Q
Wang
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D043364:Endo-1,4-beta Xylanases / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism; D056890:Eukaryota / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics*; D041981:Gastrointestinal Tract / Q000378:metabolism / Q000382:microbiology; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods*; D015723:Gene Library; D020049:Isoptera / Q000382:microbiology*; D008031:Lignin / Q000378:metabolism*; D054892:Metagenome; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009699:N-Glycosyl Hydrolases / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism; D010802:Phylogeny; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013559:Symbiosis; D059467:Transcriptome
C036909:lignocellulose; D008031:Lignin; D043364:Endo-1,4-beta Xylanases; D009699:N-Glycosyl Hydrolases