Min Guo

University of Macau

Coronavirus (CoV) spillover originating from game animals, particularly pangolins, is currently a significant concern. Meanwhile, vigilance is urgently needed for coronaviruses carried by bats, which are known as natural reservoirs of many coronaviruses. In this study, we collected 729 anal swabs of 20 different bat species from nine locations in Y...

Bats have a very long evolutionary history and are highly differentiated in their physiological functions. Results of recent studies suggest effects of some host factors (e.g., phylogeny and dietary habit) on their gut microbiota. In this study, we examined the gut microbial compositions of 18 different species of bats. Results showed that Firmicut...

Species of the family Planctomycetes have a complex intracellular structure, which is distinct from that of the majority of non-Planctomycetes bacteria. At present, genomic evidence of the evolution of intracellular complexity is lacking, cognitions of Planctomycetes’s intracellular structure mainly rely on electron microscope observation. As the p...

Filtration of reads with low sequencing quality, reads polluted by adapter sequences and reads from giant panda or bamboo genome.

Statistics of genes in non-redundant gene sets and samples.

Enzymatic transitions in gut microbiota of giant pandas with age. (A) Significant (Wilcoxon test, adjusted P < 0.05 by Holm method) gut microbial ECs between age groups of giant pandas. All 603 ECs were clustered by the six enzymatic classifications and colored accordingly. The circle size of the node indicates the sum of significant ECs between th...

Abundance of gut microbial genera at the birth (~1 day) of giant panda cubs.

Gut microbial transitions of giant panda cubs and parents. The figure demonstrates the gut microbial family compositions of giant pandas. The phylogenetic tree on the left shows the evolutionary relationships of these families, and the colors on the heatmap indicate the relative abundance of the assigned genes. The microbial profiles of each cub we...

Daily weight of the two cubs from birth to 300 days old. The flag (at 48 days old) shows the diet transition time. Green and purple dots indicate the daily weights of elder cub (P3) and younger cub, respectively. P3: elder cub; P4: younger cub.

Gut microbial biomarkers during the development of giant panda cubs and parents. Microbial taxa with an LDA score higher than 4.0 were thought to be the representative communities of significantly changed (in abundance) microbial communities between the two microbiota groups. Circular phylogenetic trees show the relationships among biomarker taxa....

Assembly of high-quality microbial reads of samples.

Significantly changed ECs with age (C0: 0 ~ 1.5-month-old cubs; C1: 1.5 ~ 6-month-old cubs; C2: 6 ~ 9-month-old cubs; F, father; M, mother).

Adult giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) express transitional characteristics in that they consume bamboos, despite their carnivore-like digestive tracts. Their genome contains no cellulolytic enzymes; therefore, understanding the development of the giant panda gut microbiome, especially in early life, is important for decoding the rules underly...

A Gram-negative, aerobic, motile and short-rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain 5T4P-12-1T, was isolated from a piece of surface-sterilized bark of Aegiceras corniculatum collected from Cotai Ecological Zones in Macao, China and tested by a polyphasic approach to clarify its taxonomic position. Strain 5T4P-12-1T grew optimally with 0-1 % (w/v) N...

Background Siamese fighting fish Betta splendens (NCBI Taxonomy ID: 158456) are notorious for their aggressiveness and accordingly have been widely used to study aggression. However, the lack of a reference genome has so far limited the understanding of the genetic basis of aggression in this species. Here we present the first reference genome asse...

Background: Panax notoginseng is a traditional Chinese herb with high medicinal and economic value. There has been considerable research on the pharmacological activities of ginsenosides contained in Panax spp.; however, very little is known about the ginsenoside biosynthetic pathway. Results: We reported the first de novo genome of 2.36 Gb of sequ...

Siamese fighting fish Betta splendens are notorious for their aggressiveness and accordingly have been widely used to study aggression. However, the lack of a reference genome has so far limited the understanding of the genetic basis of aggression in this species. Here we present the first reference genome assembly of the Siamese fighting fish. We...

Siamese fighting fish Betta splendens are notorious for their aggressiveness and accordingly have been widely used to study aggression. However, the lack of a reference genome has so far limited the understanding of the genetic basis of aggression in this species. Here we present the first reference genome assembly of the Siamese fighting fish. We...

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to play regulatory roles in a diverse range of biological processes and are associated with the outcomes of various diseases. The majority of studies about lncRNAs focus on model organisms, with lessened investigation in non-model organisms to date. Herein, we have undertaken an investigation on lncRNA...

A Gram-negative, motile, aerobic and coccoid rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain 2T4P-2-4T, was isolated from a piece of surface-sterilized bark of Aegiceras corniculatum collected from Cotai Ecological Zones in Macao, China, and tested by a polyphasic approach to clarify its taxonomic position. Strain 2T4P-2-4T grew optimally without NaCl at 2...

Background The nuclear envelope is considered a key classification marker that distinguishes prokaryotes from eukaryotes. However, this marker does not apply to the family Planctomycetaceae, which has intracellular spaces divided by lipidic intracytoplasmic membranes (ICMs). Nuclear localization signal (NLS), a short stretch of amino acid sequence,...

A coccus-shaped, non-spore-forming actinobacterium, designated strain 4Q3S-3T, was isolated from surface-sterilized bark of the mangrove plant Kandelia candel collected from Cotai Ecological Zones in Macao, China, and tested by a polyphasic approach to clarify its taxonomic position. This actinobacterium was Gram-stain-positive and aerobic. Neither...

A coccus-shaped, non-spore-forming actinobacterium, designated strain 4Q3S-3T, was isolated from a surface-sterilized bark of the mangrove plant Kandelia candel collected from Cotai Ecological Zones in Macao, China and tested by polyphasic approach to clarify its taxonomic position. This actinobacterium was Gram-stain-positive and aerobic. Neither...

Microbial secondary metabolites are valuable resources for novel drug discovery. In particular, actinomycetes expressed a range of antibiotics against a spectrum of bacteria. In genus level, strain Allosalinactinospora lopnorensis CA15-2T is the first new actinomycete isolated from the Lop Nor region, China. Antimicrobial assays revealed that the s...

A Gram-positive, aerobic, coccus-shaped, non-spore-forming actinobacterium, designated strain 2Q3S-4-2T, was isolated from a surface-sterilized bark of Kandelia candel collected from Cotai Ecological Zones in Macao, China and tested by a polyphasic approach to determine its taxonomic position. Strain 2Q3S-4-2T grew optimally without NaCl at 28-30 °...

The species in family Planctomycetaceae are ideal groups for investigating the origin of eukaryotes. Their cells are divided by a lipidic intracytoplasmic membrane and they share a number of eukaryote-like molecular characteristics. However, their genomic structures, potential abilities, and evolutionary status are still unknown. In this study, we...

Lactobacillus shenzhenensis strain LY-73(T) is a novel species which was first isolated from fermented goods. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of Lactobacillus shenzhenensis LY-73(T).

Campylobacter species.are phenotypically diverse in many aspects including host habitats and pathogenicities, which demands comprehensive characterization of the entire Campylobacter genus to study their underlying genetic diversification. Up to now, 34 Campylobacter strains have been sequenced and published in public databases, providing good oppo...

Most of the species in the family Planctomycetaceae are of interest for their eukaryotic-like cell structures and characteristics of resistance to extreme environments. Here, we report draft genome sequences of three aquatic parasitic species of this family, Singulisphaera acidiphila (DSM 18658T), Schlesneria paludicola (DSM 18645T), and Zavarzinel...