Francisco Prosdocimi | Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) (original) (raw)
Papers by Francisco Prosdocimi
International Journal of Astrobiology, 2016
Gene, 2016
Here we describe the mitochondrial genome of the golden mussel Limnoperna fortunei, an Asian biva... more Here we describe the mitochondrial genome of the golden mussel Limnoperna fortunei, an Asian bivalve which has become one of the most aggressive invasive species in Japan and South America. The mitochondrial genome of L. fortunei does not present conserved gene arrangement when compared to the other Mytilidae species suggesting a high degree of gene recombination in the mitochondria of this clade. In addition, the golden mussel mitogenome encodes two copies of tRNA(Lys) and presents a putative pseudogene for the atp8 gene sequence that encodes a 27 amino acid peptide containing an in-frame stop codon. The presence of this pseudogene raises the question as to whether atp8 is encoded in some bivalve mitochondrial genomes or not. The phylogenetic analysis of all complete mitochondrial genomes available from Mytilidae mussels confirmed the close evolutionary relationships among bivalves from the genus Mytilys and placed L. fortunei coming from a more ancestral branch on the family. The supermatrix phylogeny described used the concatenation of all 12 genes from the mitochondria and disputed the monophyly of the genus Perna, as Perna perna was shown to be more closely related to Brachidontes exustus than to Perna viridis. The comparative analysis of mitogenome synteny also confirmed the polyphyly of the genus Perna. The complete and annotated mitogenome has been published in GenBank under the accession number KP756905.
Mitochondrial DNA, 2015
Among known bird species, oscines are one of the few groups that produce complex vocalizations du... more Among known bird species, oscines are one of the few groups that produce complex vocalizations due to vocal learning. One of the most conspicuous oscine passerines in southeastern South America is the Rufous-bellied Thrush, Turdus rufiventris. The complete mitochondrial genome of this species was sequenced with the Illumina HiSeq platform (Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA), assembled using MITObim software and annotated by MITOS web server and Artemis software. This mitogenome contained 16 669 bases, organized as 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNAs, two ribosomal RNAs, and a control region (d-loop). The sequencing of the Rufous-bellied Thrush mitochondrial genome is of particular interest for better understanding of population genetics and phylogeography of the Turdidae family.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015
Rhodnius prolixus not only has served as a model organism for the study of insect physiology, but... more Rhodnius prolixus not only has served as a model organism for the study of insect physiology, but also is a major vector of Chagas disease, an illness that affects approximately seven million people worldwide. We sequenced the genome of R. prolixus, generated assembled sequences covering 95% of the genome (∼702 Mb), including 15,456 putative protein-coding genes, and completed comprehensive genomic analyses of this obligate blood-feeding insect. Although immune-deficiency (IMD)-mediated immune responses were observed, R. prolixus putatively lacks key components of the IMD pathway, suggesting a reorganization of the canonical immune signaling network. Although both Toll and IMD effectors controlled intestinal microbiota, neither affected Trypanosoma cruzi, the causal agent of Chagas disease, implying the existence of evasion or tolerance mechanisms. R. prolixus has experienced an extensive loss of selenoprotein genes, with its repertoire reduced to only two proteins, one of which is a selenocysteine-based glutathione peroxidase, the first found in insects. The genome contained actively transcribed, horizontally transferred genes from Wolbachia sp., which showed evidence of codon use evolution toward the insect use pattern. Comparative protein analyses revealed many lineage-specific expansions and putative gene absences in R. prolixus, including tandem expansions of genes related to chemoreception, feeding, and digestion that possibly contributed to the evolution of a blood-feeding lifestyle. The genome assembly and these associated analyses provide critical information on the physiology and evolution of this important vector species and should be instrumental for the development of innovative disease control methods.
Spiders possess distinctive evolutionary adaptations, such as venom and silk production, providin... more Spiders possess distinctive evolutionary adaptations, such as venom and silk production, providing an ample system for evolutionary and developmental studies of anatomical adaptation. Here we compare transcripts from 2 suborders of the Araneae order: ...
Mitochondrial DNA, Nov 28, 2015
The complete sequence of the brown mussel Perna perna mitochondrial genome is described in this a... more The complete sequence of the brown mussel Perna perna mitochondrial genome is described in this article. It was sequenced in 1/11 of an Illumina HiSeq lane using Nextera multiplexing kit. The mitogenome was assembled using both (i) de novo assembly and (ii) referenced-based strategies with mitoMaker software. Perna perna mitogenome is a circular molecule of 18,415 bp in size, containing 12 protein-coding genes, 23 transfer RNAs, 2 ribossomal RNAs and several non-coding regions. As shown in the previous studies, Perna perna does not present the doubly uniparental inheritance system (DUI) of mitochondria and does not encode the ATPase8 gene, in accordance with other Mytilidae data.
Mitochondrial DNA, 2015
The genome of the versicoloured emerald hummingbird (Amazilia versicolor) was partially sequenced... more The genome of the versicoloured emerald hummingbird (Amazilia versicolor) was partially sequenced in one-sixth of an Illumina HiSeq lane. The mitochondrial genome was assembled using MIRA and MITObim software, yielding a circular molecule of 16,861 bp in length and deposited in GenBank under the accession number KF624601. The mitogenome contained 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer tRNAs, 2 ribosomal RNAs and 1 non-coding control region. The molecule was assembled using 21,927 sequencing reads of 100 bp each, resulting in $130 Â coverage of uniformly distributed reads along the genome. This is the forth mitochondrial genome described for this highly diverse family of birds and may benefit further phylogenetic, phylogeographic, population genetic and species delimitation studies of hummingbirds.
Essential amino acids (EAA) consist of a group of nine amino acids that animals are unable to syn... more Essential amino acids (EAA) consist of a group of nine amino acids that animals are unable to synthesize via de novo pathways. Recently, it has been found that most metazoans lack the same set of enzymes responsible for the de novo EAA biosynthesis. Here we investigate the sequence conservation and evolution of all the metazoan remaining genes for EAA pathways. Initially, the set of all 49 enzymes responsible for the EAA de novo biosynthesis in yeast was retrieved. These enzymes were used as BLAST queries to search for similar sequences in a database containing 10 complete metazoan genomes. Eight enzymes typically attributed to EAA pathways were found to be ubiquitous in metazoan genomes, suggesting a conserved functional role. In this study, we address the question of how these genes evolved after losing their pathway partners. To do this, we compared metazoan genes with their fungal and plant orthologs. Using phylogenetic analysis with maximum likelihood, we found that acetolactate synthase (ALS) and betaine-homocysteine S-methyltransferase (BHMT) diverged from the expected Tree of Life (ToL) relationships. High sequence conservation in the paraphyletic group Plant-Fungi was identified for these two genes using a newly developed Python algorithm. Selective pressure analysis of ALS and BHMT protein sequences showed higher non-synonymous mutation ratios in comparisons between metazoans/fungi and metazoans/plants, supporting the hypothesis that these two genes have undergone non-ToL evolution in animals.
Workshop on Formal Biomedical Knowledge Representation, 2006
The Alzheimer disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder and it is the predominant caus... more The Alzheimer disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder and it is the predominant cause of dementia in people over 65 years of age (1). Genetic risk factors for AD have been identified in the last years in search of major factors related to neurodegenerative process. Searching for a susceptibility loci, Myers et al. (2000) performed a genetic linkage study
Mitochondrial DNA, 2015
A partial genome dataset was sequenced for the orchid Cattleya crispata using both Illumina and 4... more A partial genome dataset was sequenced for the orchid Cattleya crispata using both Illumina and 454 technologies. The chloroplast genome was assembled using iterative runs of MIRA software that yielded a circular molecule with 148,343 bp in length and deposited in GenBank database (Accession Number KP168671). The plastid genome conserved the quadripartite structure present in most Orchidaceae chloroplasts and was composed by 79 protein-coding genes, 39 tRNAs and 8 rRNAs. Genome structure, gene order and orientation were similar to previously described chloroplasts for Cymbidium orchids, differing in gene order for petN and psbM genes. Data described here contain the first report of a complete chloroplast for the Neotropical subtribe Laeliinae and may contribute to improve the phylogenetic resolution and allow the development of new molecular markers for population genetic studies of orchids.
Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, 2013
The Alzheimer disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder and it is the predominant caus... more The Alzheimer disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder and it is the predominant cause of dementia in people over 65 years of age [1]. Genetic risk factors for AD have been identified in the last years in search of major factors related to ...
The Proceedings of TDWG, 2008
The methodology for evolutionary comparative analysis has developed over several decades. The met... more The methodology for evolutionary comparative analysis has developed over several decades. The methodology now includes familiar and powerful software tools for inferring phylogenetic trees, reconstructing ancestral states and comparing models of evolution. Lagging far behind however, are the informatics resources to facilitate integrative, large-scale, or automated analyses, especially for data other than molecular sequences. Because the informatics challenges of evolutionary analysis are similar to the challenges of ...
KR-MED 2006, Nov 8, 2006
The Gene Ontology (GO) database annotates a large number of genes according to their functions (t... more The Gene Ontology (GO) database annotates a large number of genes according to their functions (the biological processes, molecular functions and cellular components in which they are involved). However, it is far from complete, and so there is a need for techniques that automatically assign GO functional categories to genes based on integration of available data. The present work describes one such technique, that uses a combination of sequence similarity and a similarity measure based on mutual information applied to cross ...
International Journal of Astrobiology, 2016
Gene, 2016
Here we describe the mitochondrial genome of the golden mussel Limnoperna fortunei, an Asian biva... more Here we describe the mitochondrial genome of the golden mussel Limnoperna fortunei, an Asian bivalve which has become one of the most aggressive invasive species in Japan and South America. The mitochondrial genome of L. fortunei does not present conserved gene arrangement when compared to the other Mytilidae species suggesting a high degree of gene recombination in the mitochondria of this clade. In addition, the golden mussel mitogenome encodes two copies of tRNA(Lys) and presents a putative pseudogene for the atp8 gene sequence that encodes a 27 amino acid peptide containing an in-frame stop codon. The presence of this pseudogene raises the question as to whether atp8 is encoded in some bivalve mitochondrial genomes or not. The phylogenetic analysis of all complete mitochondrial genomes available from Mytilidae mussels confirmed the close evolutionary relationships among bivalves from the genus Mytilys and placed L. fortunei coming from a more ancestral branch on the family. The supermatrix phylogeny described used the concatenation of all 12 genes from the mitochondria and disputed the monophyly of the genus Perna, as Perna perna was shown to be more closely related to Brachidontes exustus than to Perna viridis. The comparative analysis of mitogenome synteny also confirmed the polyphyly of the genus Perna. The complete and annotated mitogenome has been published in GenBank under the accession number KP756905.
Mitochondrial DNA, 2015
Among known bird species, oscines are one of the few groups that produce complex vocalizations du... more Among known bird species, oscines are one of the few groups that produce complex vocalizations due to vocal learning. One of the most conspicuous oscine passerines in southeastern South America is the Rufous-bellied Thrush, Turdus rufiventris. The complete mitochondrial genome of this species was sequenced with the Illumina HiSeq platform (Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA), assembled using MITObim software and annotated by MITOS web server and Artemis software. This mitogenome contained 16 669 bases, organized as 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNAs, two ribosomal RNAs, and a control region (d-loop). The sequencing of the Rufous-bellied Thrush mitochondrial genome is of particular interest for better understanding of population genetics and phylogeography of the Turdidae family.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015
Rhodnius prolixus not only has served as a model organism for the study of insect physiology, but... more Rhodnius prolixus not only has served as a model organism for the study of insect physiology, but also is a major vector of Chagas disease, an illness that affects approximately seven million people worldwide. We sequenced the genome of R. prolixus, generated assembled sequences covering 95% of the genome (∼702 Mb), including 15,456 putative protein-coding genes, and completed comprehensive genomic analyses of this obligate blood-feeding insect. Although immune-deficiency (IMD)-mediated immune responses were observed, R. prolixus putatively lacks key components of the IMD pathway, suggesting a reorganization of the canonical immune signaling network. Although both Toll and IMD effectors controlled intestinal microbiota, neither affected Trypanosoma cruzi, the causal agent of Chagas disease, implying the existence of evasion or tolerance mechanisms. R. prolixus has experienced an extensive loss of selenoprotein genes, with its repertoire reduced to only two proteins, one of which is a selenocysteine-based glutathione peroxidase, the first found in insects. The genome contained actively transcribed, horizontally transferred genes from Wolbachia sp., which showed evidence of codon use evolution toward the insect use pattern. Comparative protein analyses revealed many lineage-specific expansions and putative gene absences in R. prolixus, including tandem expansions of genes related to chemoreception, feeding, and digestion that possibly contributed to the evolution of a blood-feeding lifestyle. The genome assembly and these associated analyses provide critical information on the physiology and evolution of this important vector species and should be instrumental for the development of innovative disease control methods.
Spiders possess distinctive evolutionary adaptations, such as venom and silk production, providin... more Spiders possess distinctive evolutionary adaptations, such as venom and silk production, providing an ample system for evolutionary and developmental studies of anatomical adaptation. Here we compare transcripts from 2 suborders of the Araneae order: ...
Mitochondrial DNA, Nov 28, 2015
The complete sequence of the brown mussel Perna perna mitochondrial genome is described in this a... more The complete sequence of the brown mussel Perna perna mitochondrial genome is described in this article. It was sequenced in 1/11 of an Illumina HiSeq lane using Nextera multiplexing kit. The mitogenome was assembled using both (i) de novo assembly and (ii) referenced-based strategies with mitoMaker software. Perna perna mitogenome is a circular molecule of 18,415 bp in size, containing 12 protein-coding genes, 23 transfer RNAs, 2 ribossomal RNAs and several non-coding regions. As shown in the previous studies, Perna perna does not present the doubly uniparental inheritance system (DUI) of mitochondria and does not encode the ATPase8 gene, in accordance with other Mytilidae data.
Mitochondrial DNA, 2015
The genome of the versicoloured emerald hummingbird (Amazilia versicolor) was partially sequenced... more The genome of the versicoloured emerald hummingbird (Amazilia versicolor) was partially sequenced in one-sixth of an Illumina HiSeq lane. The mitochondrial genome was assembled using MIRA and MITObim software, yielding a circular molecule of 16,861 bp in length and deposited in GenBank under the accession number KF624601. The mitogenome contained 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer tRNAs, 2 ribosomal RNAs and 1 non-coding control region. The molecule was assembled using 21,927 sequencing reads of 100 bp each, resulting in $130 Â coverage of uniformly distributed reads along the genome. This is the forth mitochondrial genome described for this highly diverse family of birds and may benefit further phylogenetic, phylogeographic, population genetic and species delimitation studies of hummingbirds.
Essential amino acids (EAA) consist of a group of nine amino acids that animals are unable to syn... more Essential amino acids (EAA) consist of a group of nine amino acids that animals are unable to synthesize via de novo pathways. Recently, it has been found that most metazoans lack the same set of enzymes responsible for the de novo EAA biosynthesis. Here we investigate the sequence conservation and evolution of all the metazoan remaining genes for EAA pathways. Initially, the set of all 49 enzymes responsible for the EAA de novo biosynthesis in yeast was retrieved. These enzymes were used as BLAST queries to search for similar sequences in a database containing 10 complete metazoan genomes. Eight enzymes typically attributed to EAA pathways were found to be ubiquitous in metazoan genomes, suggesting a conserved functional role. In this study, we address the question of how these genes evolved after losing their pathway partners. To do this, we compared metazoan genes with their fungal and plant orthologs. Using phylogenetic analysis with maximum likelihood, we found that acetolactate synthase (ALS) and betaine-homocysteine S-methyltransferase (BHMT) diverged from the expected Tree of Life (ToL) relationships. High sequence conservation in the paraphyletic group Plant-Fungi was identified for these two genes using a newly developed Python algorithm. Selective pressure analysis of ALS and BHMT protein sequences showed higher non-synonymous mutation ratios in comparisons between metazoans/fungi and metazoans/plants, supporting the hypothesis that these two genes have undergone non-ToL evolution in animals.
Workshop on Formal Biomedical Knowledge Representation, 2006
The Alzheimer disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder and it is the predominant caus... more The Alzheimer disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder and it is the predominant cause of dementia in people over 65 years of age (1). Genetic risk factors for AD have been identified in the last years in search of major factors related to neurodegenerative process. Searching for a susceptibility loci, Myers et al. (2000) performed a genetic linkage study
Mitochondrial DNA, 2015
A partial genome dataset was sequenced for the orchid Cattleya crispata using both Illumina and 4... more A partial genome dataset was sequenced for the orchid Cattleya crispata using both Illumina and 454 technologies. The chloroplast genome was assembled using iterative runs of MIRA software that yielded a circular molecule with 148,343 bp in length and deposited in GenBank database (Accession Number KP168671). The plastid genome conserved the quadripartite structure present in most Orchidaceae chloroplasts and was composed by 79 protein-coding genes, 39 tRNAs and 8 rRNAs. Genome structure, gene order and orientation were similar to previously described chloroplasts for Cymbidium orchids, differing in gene order for petN and psbM genes. Data described here contain the first report of a complete chloroplast for the Neotropical subtribe Laeliinae and may contribute to improve the phylogenetic resolution and allow the development of new molecular markers for population genetic studies of orchids.
Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, 2013
The Alzheimer disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder and it is the predominant caus... more The Alzheimer disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder and it is the predominant cause of dementia in people over 65 years of age [1]. Genetic risk factors for AD have been identified in the last years in search of major factors related to ...
The Proceedings of TDWG, 2008
The methodology for evolutionary comparative analysis has developed over several decades. The met... more The methodology for evolutionary comparative analysis has developed over several decades. The methodology now includes familiar and powerful software tools for inferring phylogenetic trees, reconstructing ancestral states and comparing models of evolution. Lagging far behind however, are the informatics resources to facilitate integrative, large-scale, or automated analyses, especially for data other than molecular sequences. Because the informatics challenges of evolutionary analysis are similar to the challenges of ...
KR-MED 2006, Nov 8, 2006
The Gene Ontology (GO) database annotates a large number of genes according to their functions (t... more The Gene Ontology (GO) database annotates a large number of genes according to their functions (the biological processes, molecular functions and cellular components in which they are involved). However, it is far from complete, and so there is a need for techniques that automatically assign GO functional categories to genes based on integration of available data. The present work describes one such technique, that uses a combination of sequence similarity and a similarity measure based on mutual information applied to cross ...