Biology subjects

Cano, R.

Publications and source records attributed to Cano, R..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

The glycosyltransferase POGLUT1 regulates muscle stem cell development and maintenance in mice

Mutations in protein O-glucosyltransferase 1 (POGLUT1) cause a recessive form of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD-R21) associated with reduced satellite cell number and NOTCH1 signaling in adult patient muscles and impaired myogenic capacity of patient-derived muscle progenitors. However, the in vivo roles of POGLUT1 in the development, function, and maintenance of satellite cells are not well understood. Here, we show that conditional deletion of mouse Poglut1 in myogenic progenitors leads to early lethality, postnatal muscle growth defects, reduced Pax7 expression, abnormality in muscle extracellular matrix, and impaired muscle repair. Poglut1-deficient muscle progenitors exhibit reduced proliferation, enhanced differentiation, and accelerated fusion into myofibers. Inducible loss of Poglut1 in adult satellite cells leads to their precocious differentiation and impairs muscle repair upon serial injury. Cell-based signaling assays and mass spectrometric analysis indicate that POGLUT1 is required for the activation of NOTCH1, NOTCH2, and NOTCH3 in myoblasts and that NOTCH3 is a target of POGLUT1 like NOTCH1 and NOTCH2. These observations provide insight into the roles of POGLUT1 in muscle development and repair and the pathophysiology of LGMD-R21.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2024

Red harvester ant nests impact soil compaction but not temperature in peri-urban habitats of the Lower Rio Grande Valley

Ants are vital ecosystem engineers that can influence soil properties, subsequent soil processes, and associated biota via underground nest construction. Harvester ants consume seeds and are often found in arid areas, frequently altering soil chemistry and bulk density of the soils in and around their nest sites. Many species of harvester ants also intentionally remove vegetation around nest openings, creating cones or discs of bare soil that may further alter soil temperatures. However, much of the work investigating the impacts of harvester ants on soil properties has occurred in shrubland and grassland settings rather than suburban environments. We aimed to determine if Pogonomyrmex barbatus (Smith) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) nests in a suburban habitat in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas similarly altered soil properties. First, we measured active nest disc size to determine changes and colony persistence. Then we assessed soil compaction and surface temperature along a gradient centered on the disc. We found that disc size did not increase throughout the two-year observation period and that nests with smaller discs were less likely to persist between years. While we did not observe any changes in surface temperature across the gradient, we found a significant increase in soil compaction with greater distance from the center of the disc. These data indicate that increased nest size increases the extent of soil impacted. The impacts of nests reducing soil compaction, particularly within a suburban landscape with precipitation run-off issues and a highly disturbed plant community should be addressed in future studies.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Highly accurate metagenome-assembled genomes from human gut microbiota using long-read assembly, binning, and consolidation methods

Long-read metagenomic sequencing is a powerful approach for cataloging the microbial diversity present in complex microbiomes, including the human gut microbiome. We performed a deep-sequencing experiment using PacBio HiFi reads to obtain metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from a pooled human gut microbiome. We performed long-read metagenome assembly using two methods (hifiasm-meta, metMDBG), used improved bioinformatic and proximity ligation binning strategies to cluster contigs and identify MAGs, and developed a novel framework to compare and consolidate MAGs (pb-MAG-mirror). We found proximity ligation binning yielded more MAGs than bioinformatic binning, but our novel comparison framework resulted in higher MAG yields than either binning strategy individually. In total, from 255 Gbp of total HiFi data we produced 595 total MAGs (including 175 high-quality MAGs) using hifiasm-meta, and 547 total MAGs (including 277 high-quality MAGs) with metaMDBG. Hifiasm-meta assembled almost twice as many strain-level MAGs as metaMDBG (246 vs. 156), but both assembly methods produced up to five strains for a species. Approximately 85% of the MAGs were assigned to known species, but we recovered >35 high-quality MAGs that represent uncultured diversity. Based on strict similarity scores, we found 125 MAGs were unequivocally shared across the assembly methods at the strain level, representing [~]22% of the total MAGs recovered per method. Finally, we detected more total viral sequences in the metaMDBG assembly versus the hifiasm-meta assembly ([~]6,700 vs. [~]4,500). Overall, we find the use of HiFi sequencing, improved metagenome assembly methods, and complementary binning strategies is highly effective for rapidly cataloging microbial genomes in complex microbiomes.

microbiology↗