title: Cross-species transcriptional network analysis reveals conservation and variation in response to metal stress in cyanobacteria.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  As one of the most dominant bacterial groups on Earth, cyanobacteria play a pivotal role in the global carbon cycling and the Earth atmosphere composition. Understanding their molecular responses to environmental perturbations has important scientific and environmental values. Since important biological processes or networks are often evolutionarily conserved, the cross-species transcriptional network analysis offers a useful strategy to decipher conserved and species-specific transcriptional mechanisms that cells utilize to deal with various biotic and abiotic disturbances, and it will eventually lead to a better understanding of associated adaptation and regulatory networks.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this study, the Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) approach was used to establish transcriptional networks for four important cyanobacteria species under metal stress, including iron depletion and high copper conditions. Cross-species network comparison led to discovery of several core response modules and genes possibly essential to metal stress, as well as species-specific hub genes for metal stresses in different cyanobacteria species, shedding light on survival strategies of cyanobacteria responding to different environmental perturbations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The WGCNA analysis demonstrated that the application of cross-species transcriptional network analysis will lead to novel insights to molecular response to environmental changes which will otherwise not be achieved by analyzing data from a single species.
authors: School of Chemical Engineering & Technology, Tianjin University, 300072, Tianjin, People's Republic of China.
authors: Jiangxin
authors: J
authors: Wang
authors: Gang
authors: G
authors: Wu
authors: Lei
authors: L
authors: Chen
authors: Weiwen
authors: W
authors: Zhang
mesh_terms: D017124:Conserved Sequence; D000458:Cyanobacteria / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D004777:Environment; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks / Q000187:drug effects*; D005798:Genes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics*; D008670:Metals / Q000494:pharmacology*; D013045:Species Specificity; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D008670:Metals