Browsing by Author "Moraga, Carol"

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    BrumiR: A toolkit for de novo discovery of microRNAs from sRNA-seq data
    (2020) Moraga, Carol; Sanchez, Evelyn; Ferrarini, Mariana Galvão; Gutiérrez Ilabaca, Rodrigo Antonio; Vidal, Elena A.; Sagot, Marie-France
    MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that are key players in the regulation of gene expression. In the last decade, with the increasing accessibility of high-throughput sequencing technologies, different methods have been developed to identify miRNAs, most of which rely on pre-existing reference genomes. However, when a reference genome is absent or is not of high quality, such identification becomes more difficult. In this context, we developed BrumiR, an algorithm that is able to discover miRNAs directly and exclusively from sRNA-seq data. We benchmarked BrumiR with datasets encompassing animal and plant species using real and simulated sRNA-seq experiments. The results demonstrate that BrumiR reaches the highest recall for miRNA discovery, while at the same time being much faster and more efficient than the state-of-the-art tools evaluated. The latter allows BrumiR to analyze a large number of sRNA-seq experiments, from plants or animals species. Moreover, BrumiR detects additional information regarding other expressed sequences (sRNAs, isomiRs, etc.), thus maximizing the biological insight gained from sRNA-seq experiments. Finally, when a reference genome is available, BrumiR provides a new mapping tool (BrumiR2ref) that performs an a posteriori exhaustive search to identify the precursor sequences. The code of BrumiR is freely available at https://github.com/camoragaq/BrumiR.
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    Plant ecological genomics at the limits of life in the Atacama Desert
    (2021) Eshel, Gil; Araus, Viviana; Undurraga, Soledad; Soto, Daniela C.; Moraga, Carol; Montecinos, Alejandro; Moyano, Tomas; Maldonado, Jonathan; Diaz, Francisca P.; Varala, Kranthi; Nelson, Chase W.; Contreras-Lopez, Orlando; Pal-Gabor, Henrietta; Kraiser, Tatiana; Carrasco-Puga, Gabriela; Nilo-Poyanco, Ricardo; Zegar, Charles M.; Orellana, Ariel; Montecino, Martin; Maass, Alejandro; Allende, Miguel L.; DeSalle, Robert; Stevenson, Dennis W.; Gonzalez, Mauricio; Latorre, Claudio; Coruzzi, Gloria M.; Gutierrez, Rodrigo A.
    The Atacama Desert in Chile-hyperarid and with high-ultraviolet irradiance levels-is one of the harshest environments on Earth. Yet, dozens of species grow there, including Atacama-endemic plants. Herein, we establish the Talabre-Leji = a transect (TLT) in the Atacama as an unparalleled natural laboratory to study plant adaptation to extreme environmental conditions. We characterized climate, soil, plant, and soil-microbe diversity at 22 sites (every 100 m of altitude) along the TLT over a 10-y period. We quantified drought, nutrient deficiencies, large diurnal temperature oscillations, and pH gradients that define three distinct vegetational belts along the altitudinal cline. We deep-sequenced transcriptomes of 32 dominant plant species spanning the major plant clades, and assessed soil microbes by metabarcoding sequencing. The top-expressed genes in the 32 Atacama species are enriched in stress responses, metabolism, and energy production. Moreover, their root-associated soils are enriched in growthpromoting bacteria, including nitrogen fixers. To identify genes associated with plant adaptation to harsh environments, we compared 32 Atacama species with the 32 closest sequenced species, comprising 70 taxa and 1,686,950 proteins. To perform phylogenomic reconstruction, we concatenated 15,972 ortholog groups into a supermatrix of 8,599,764 amino acids. Using two codonbased methods, we identified 265 candidate positively selected genes (PSGs) in the Atacama plants, 64% of which are located in Pfam domains, supporting their functional relevance. For 59/184 PSGs with an Arabidopsis ortholog, we uncovered functional evidence linking them to plant resilience. As some Atacama plants are closely related to staple crops, these candidate PSGs are a "genetic goldmine" to engineer crop resilience to face climate change.
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    Whole Genome Sequence, Variant Discovery and Annotation in Mapuche-Huilliche Native South Americans
    (2019) Vidal, Elena A.; Moyano, Tomas C.; Bustos, Bernabe, I; Perez-Palma, Eduardo; Moraga, Carol; Riveras Hernández, Eleodoro Javier; Pérez-Palma E.; Moraga, C.; Montecinos, A.; Azócar, L.; Soto, D. C.; Di Genova, A.; Puschel Illanes, Klaus; Nürnberg, P.; Buch, S.; Hampe, J; Allende, M. L.; Cambiazo, V.; González, M.; Hodar, C.; Montecino, M.; Muñoz-Espinoza, C.; Orellana, A.; Reyes-Jara, A.; Travisany, D.; Vizoso, P.; Moraga, M.; Eyheramendy Duerr, Susana; Maass, A.; Ferrari, G. V. de; Miquel P., Juan Francisco; Gutiérrez Ilabaca, Rodrigo Antonio