GSE168341
Transcriptional responses of Herbaspirillum seropedicae to environmental phosphate concentration
Purpose: The global changes of H. seropedicae SmR1 were evaluated in response to environmental Pi conditions, based on differential intracellular polyP levels Methods: Three independent samples (biological replicates) of H. seropedicae SmR1 cells grown in NFb5 or NFb50 media after 9 h of growth were used to construct 6 sequencing libraries.The libraries were amplified and enriched using the Ion PI Hi-QTM OT2 200 Kit, and sequenced with the Ion PI Hi-QTM Sequencing 200 kit on an Ion PITM Chip Kit v3. Obtained sequences were trimmed, mapped and analyzed using CLC Genomics Workbench 7.5.1 (Qiagen) against the H. seropedicae SmR1 genome (NC_014323). Differential gene expression was accessed using the DESeq2 package. qRT–PCR validation was performed using High Capacity cDNA Reverse Transcription Kit (Applied Biosystems), and quantified in triplicate using the Power SYBR-Green PCR MasterMix on a Step-One Plus Real Time-PCR System (Applied Biosystems). Results: After sequencing, 26 and 35 total million reads were obtained for NFb50 and NFb5 conditions, respectively, and from those, 12 million and 16 million reads were uniquely mapped to the H. seropedicae SmR1 genome. Biological replicates showed a very high level of correlation (r2 > 0.98). Among the 4805 genes of the H. seropedicae SmR1 genome, 3976 genes were expressed considering a read coverage equal or higher than three-fold. 1330 genes show expression levels statistically different (p-value = 0.05) from which 670 had fold changes of 2 or higher and were considered differentially expressed genes (DEG) in NFb50 vs NFb5 transcriptome, being 385 down-regulated and 285 up-regulated. To confirm the differential expression observed by the RNA-seq data, the regulation of some genes was confirmed by RT-qPCR. Molecular and physiological analyses revealed that features related to Pi metabolism, bacterial flagella biosynthesis and chemotaxis, energy production, and polyhydroxybutyrate metabolism were induced in the mentioned condition, while aspects involved in adhesion, and stress response were repressed. Since environmental conditions can influence the effectiveness of the PGPB, enhancement of bacterial robustness to withstand different conditions is an interesting challenge Conclusions: The present study demonstrated that variations in environmental Pi concentration affect H. seropedicae bacterial traits related to survival and other important physiological characteristics. The obtained data could serve not only to understand the bacterial behavior in respect to changes in rhizospheric Pi gradients, but also as a base to design strategies to improve different bacterial features focusing in biotechnological and/or agricultural purposes. Overall design: RNA-seq approach comparing of transcriptional profiles of H. seropedicae grown in NFb5 or NFb50 media