Genome sequencing of Aspergillus glaucus 'CCHA' provides insights into salt-stress adaptation

Wenmin Qiu; Jingen Li; Yi Wei; Feiyu Fan; Jing Jiang; Mingying Liu; Xiaojiao Han; Chaoguang Tian; Shihong Zhang; Renying Zhuo

doi:10.7717/peerj.8609

Genome sequencing of Aspergillus glaucus 'CCHA' provides insights into salt-stress adaptation

PeerJ. 2020 Feb 24:8:e8609. doi: 10.7717/peerj.8609. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Wenmin Qiu^#^{1

2}, Jingen Li^#³, Yi Wei⁴, Feiyu Fan³, Jing Jiang^{1

2}, Mingying Liu^{1

2}, Xiaojiao Han^{1

2}, Chaoguang Tian³, Shihong Zhang⁴, Renying Zhuo^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
² The Research Institute of Subtropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Systems Microbial Biotechnology, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin, China.
⁴ College of Plant Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Aspergillus, as a genus of filamentous fungi, has members that display a variety of different behavioural strategies, which are affected by various environmental factors. The decoded genomic sequences of many species vary greatly in their evolutionary similarities, encouraging studies on the functions and evolution of the Aspergillus genome in complex natural environments. Here, we present the 26 Mb de novo assembled high-quality reference genome of Aspergillus glaucus 'China Changchun halophilic Aspergillus' (CCHA), which was isolated from the surface of plants growing near a salt mine in Jilin, China, based on data from whole-genome shotgun sequencing using Illumina Solexa technology. The sequence, coupled with data from comprehensive transcriptomic survey analyses, indicated that the redox state and transmembrane transport might be critical molecular mechanisms for the adaptation of A. glaucus 'CCHA' to the high-salt environment of the saltern. The isolation of salt tolerance-related genes, such as CCHA-2114, and their overexpression in Escherichia coli demonstrated that A. glucus 'CCHA' is an excellent organism for the isolation and identification of salt tolerant-related genes. These data expand our understanding of the evolution and functions of fungal and microbial genomes, and offer multiple target genes for crop salt-tolerance improvement through genetic engineering.

Keywords: Aspergillus glaucus; Genome; Salt-stress-related genes; Transcriptome; Transgenic arabidopsis; ‘CCHA’.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31370600) and the Basic Scientific Research Project of Non-profit Central Research Institutions (No. RISF6155). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.