Surviving extreme polar winters by desiccation: clues from Arctic springtail (Onychiurus arcticus) EST libraries
Abstract Background Ice, snow and temperatures of -14°C are conditions which most animals would find difficult, if not impossible, to survive in. However this exactly describes the Arctic winter, and the Arctic springtail Onychiurus arcticus regularly survives these extreme conditions and re-emerges...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
---|---|
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
BioMed Central Ltd.
2007
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/8/475 |
id |
ftbiomed:oai:biomedcentral.com:1471-2164-8-475 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftbiomed:oai:biomedcentral.com:1471-2164-8-475 2023-05-15T14:53:05+02:00 Surviving extreme polar winters by desiccation: clues from Arctic springtail (Onychiurus arcticus) EST libraries Clark, Melody S Thorne, Michael AS Purać, Jelena Grubor-Lajšić, Gordana Kube, Michael Reinhardt, Richard Worland, M Roger 2007-12-21 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/8/475 en eng BioMed Central Ltd. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/8/475 Copyright 2007 Clark et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. Research article 2007 ftbiomed 2008-02-23T00:10:50Z Abstract Background Ice, snow and temperatures of -14°C are conditions which most animals would find difficult, if not impossible, to survive in. However this exactly describes the Arctic winter, and the Arctic springtail Onychiurus arcticus regularly survives these extreme conditions and re-emerges in the spring. It is able to do this by reducing the amount of water in its body to almost zero: a process that is called "protective dehydration". The aim of this project was to generate clones and sequence data in the form of ESTs to provide a platform for the future molecular characterisation of the processes involved in protective dehydration. Results Five normalised libraries were produced from both desiccating and rehydrating populations of O. arcticus from stages that had previously been defined as potentially informative for molecular analyses. A total of 16,379 EST clones were generated and analysed using Blast and GO annotation. 40% of the clones produced significant matches against the Swissprot and trembl databases and these were further analysed using GO annotation. Extraction and analysis of GO annotations proved an extremely effective method for identifying generic processes associated with biochemical pathways, proving more efficient than solely analysing Blast data output. A number of genes were identified, which have previously been shown to be involved in water transport and desiccation such as members of the aquaporin family. Identification of these clones in specific libraries associated with desiccation validates the computational analysis by library rather than producing a global overview of all libraries combined. Conclusion This paper describes for the first time EST data from the arctic springtail ( O. arcticus ). This significantly enhances the number of Collembolan ESTs in the public databases, providing useful comparative data within this phylum. The use of GO annotation for analysis has facilitated the identification of a wide variety of ESTs associated with a number of different biochemical pathways involved in the dehydration and recovery process in O. arcticus . Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Springtail BioMed Central Arctic |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
BioMed Central |
op_collection_id |
ftbiomed |
language |
English |
description |
Abstract Background Ice, snow and temperatures of -14°C are conditions which most animals would find difficult, if not impossible, to survive in. However this exactly describes the Arctic winter, and the Arctic springtail Onychiurus arcticus regularly survives these extreme conditions and re-emerges in the spring. It is able to do this by reducing the amount of water in its body to almost zero: a process that is called "protective dehydration". The aim of this project was to generate clones and sequence data in the form of ESTs to provide a platform for the future molecular characterisation of the processes involved in protective dehydration. Results Five normalised libraries were produced from both desiccating and rehydrating populations of O. arcticus from stages that had previously been defined as potentially informative for molecular analyses. A total of 16,379 EST clones were generated and analysed using Blast and GO annotation. 40% of the clones produced significant matches against the Swissprot and trembl databases and these were further analysed using GO annotation. Extraction and analysis of GO annotations proved an extremely effective method for identifying generic processes associated with biochemical pathways, proving more efficient than solely analysing Blast data output. A number of genes were identified, which have previously been shown to be involved in water transport and desiccation such as members of the aquaporin family. Identification of these clones in specific libraries associated with desiccation validates the computational analysis by library rather than producing a global overview of all libraries combined. Conclusion This paper describes for the first time EST data from the arctic springtail ( O. arcticus ). This significantly enhances the number of Collembolan ESTs in the public databases, providing useful comparative data within this phylum. The use of GO annotation for analysis has facilitated the identification of a wide variety of ESTs associated with a number of different biochemical pathways involved in the dehydration and recovery process in O. arcticus . |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Clark, Melody S Thorne, Michael AS Purać, Jelena Grubor-Lajšić, Gordana Kube, Michael Reinhardt, Richard Worland, M Roger |
spellingShingle |
Clark, Melody S Thorne, Michael AS Purać, Jelena Grubor-Lajšić, Gordana Kube, Michael Reinhardt, Richard Worland, M Roger Surviving extreme polar winters by desiccation: clues from Arctic springtail (Onychiurus arcticus) EST libraries |
author_facet |
Clark, Melody S Thorne, Michael AS Purać, Jelena Grubor-Lajšić, Gordana Kube, Michael Reinhardt, Richard Worland, M Roger |
author_sort |
Clark, Melody S |
title |
Surviving extreme polar winters by desiccation: clues from Arctic springtail (Onychiurus arcticus) EST libraries |
title_short |
Surviving extreme polar winters by desiccation: clues from Arctic springtail (Onychiurus arcticus) EST libraries |
title_full |
Surviving extreme polar winters by desiccation: clues from Arctic springtail (Onychiurus arcticus) EST libraries |
title_fullStr |
Surviving extreme polar winters by desiccation: clues from Arctic springtail (Onychiurus arcticus) EST libraries |
title_full_unstemmed |
Surviving extreme polar winters by desiccation: clues from Arctic springtail (Onychiurus arcticus) EST libraries |
title_sort |
surviving extreme polar winters by desiccation: clues from arctic springtail (onychiurus arcticus) est libraries |
publisher |
BioMed Central Ltd. |
publishDate |
2007 |
url |
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/8/475 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Springtail |
genre_facet |
Arctic Springtail |
op_relation |
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/8/475 |
op_rights |
Copyright 2007 Clark et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. |
_version_ |
1766324501058945024 |