Rogério Margis

Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul | UFRGS · Center for Biotechnology - CBiot

Understanding the evolution and the effect of plasticity in plant responses to environmental changes is crucial to combat global climate change. It is particularly interesting in species that survive in distinct environments, such as Eugenia uniflora, which thrives in contrasting ecosystems within the Atlantic Forest (AF). In this study, we combine...

Chloroplast ascorbate peroxidases exert an important role in the maintenance of hydrogen peroxide levels in chloroplasts by using ascorbate as the specific electron donor. In this work, we performed a functional study of the stromal APX in rice (OsAPX7) and demonstrated that silencing of OsAPX7 did not impact plant growth, redox state, or photosynt...

Abiotic stresses such as nutritional imbalance, salt, light intensity, and high and low temperatures negatively affect plant growth and development. Through the course of evolution, plants developed multiple mechanisms to cope with environmental variations, such as physiological, morphological, and molecular adaptations. Epigenetic regulation, tran...

Abstract The diversity of diacylglycerol acyltransferases (DGATs) indicates alternative roles for these enzymes in plant metabolism besides triacylglycerol (TAG) biosynthesis. In this work, we functionally characterized castor bean (Ricinus communis L.) DGATs assessing their subcellular localization, expression in seeds, capacity to restore triacyl...

The co-evolution of plant pathosystems has generated a plethora of molecular mechanisms by which plants defend themselves from the attack of invading pathogens. One of the players involved in plant response to pathogen attack includes the double-stranded RNA Binding (DRB) proteins. The model plant Arabidopsis thaliana encodes DRB proteins by five g...

Objectives: Considering autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as a neurodevelopmental condition associated with immune system impairments, we aimed to evaluate the potential benefits, efficacy, tolerability, and safety of the anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and neuroprotective trans-resveratrol (RSV) in behavioral impairments and in a set of 8 microRNAs...

Complete submergence refers to the situation when floodwaters rise to levels where plants’ shoots and roots are entirely underwater. It can be viewed as a sequence of distinct stressors comprising submergence and de-submergence periods. A plant’s tolerance to this abiotic stress is determined by its ability to acclimate to both phases. Here we aime...

Despite the acknowledged relevance of renewable energy sources, biofuel production supported by food-related agriculture has faced severe criticism. One way to minimize the considered negative impacts is the use of sources of non-food biomass or wastes. Synthetic biology (SB) embraces a promising complex of technologies for biofuel production from...

The regulation of protease activity is a critical factor for the physiological balance during plant growth and development. Among the proteins involved in controlling protease activity are the cystatins, well-described inhibitors of cysteine proteases present in viruses, bacteria and most Eukaryotes. Plant cystatins, commonly called phytocystatins,...

Evolutionary diversity in species can arise in many ways, including local adaptation. Despite the global importance of tropical forest ecosystems, few studies have explored patterns of local adaptation in tropical tree species. We investigated population genetic structure and adaptive genetic diversity in Eugenia uniflora, a widely distributed tree...

Abstract Myrtaceae is a large and species-rich family of woody eudicots, with prevalent distribution in the Southern Hemisphere. Classification and taxonomy of species belonging to this family is quite challenging, sometimes with difficulty in species identification and producing phylogenies with low support for species relationships. Most of the c...

Despite the acknowledged relevance of renewable energy sources, biofuel production supported by food-related agriculture has faced severe criticism. One way to minimize the considered negative impacts is the use of sources of non-food biomass or wastes. Synthetic biology (SB) embraces a promising complex of technologies for biofuel production from...

Increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation has led to more frequent and extreme drought events in many regions throughout the world. In the western United States, multi‐year drought events have led to widespread plant mortality and extreme wildfires (Asner et al. 2016, Pickrell and Pennisi 2020). Communities of ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF)...

The resurgence of biofuels in the recent past has brought new perspectives for renewable energy sources. Gradually the optimistic scenarios were being challenged by the competition for raw materials dedicated to direct or indirect human food. Second-generation biorefineries have emerged as technological alternatives to produce biofuels from lignoce...

• Water stress affects plant performance at various organisational levels, from morphological to molecular, with a drastic drop in crop yield. Integrative studies involving transcriptomics and physiological data in recognized tolerant species are appropriate strategies to identify and understand molecular and functional processes related to water d...

Circular RNAs are molecules formed by 3'-5' ligation in a splicing reaction, the so-called backsplicing. Well described in other groups, especially in humans, circRNA studies that include prediction and validation in plants are recent. It has already been shown that circRNAs can interact with microRNAs, acting as sponges, and adding a new layer of...

Micro RNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding molecules that modulate gene expression through targeting mRNA by specific-sequence cleavage, translation inhibition, or transcriptional regulation. miRNAs are key molecules in regulatory networks in abiotic stresses such as salt stress and water deficit in plants. Throughout the world, soybean is a critical...

RNA editing is a posttranscriptional process that changes nucleotide sequences, among which cytosine-to-uracil by a deamination reaction can revert non-neutral codon mutations. Pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins comprise a family of RNA-binding proteins, with members acting as editing trans-factors that recognize specific RNA cis-elements and...

Psidium cattleyanum Sabine is an Atlantic Forest native species that presents some populations with red fruits and others with yellow fruits. This variation in fruit pigmentation in this species is an intriguing character that could be related to species evolution but still needs to be further explored. Our goal was to provide genomic information f...

Myrteae is the largest and most diverse tribe within Myrtaceae and represents the majority of its diversity in the Neotropics. Members of Myrteae hold ecological importance in tropical biomes for the provision of food sources for many animal species. Thus, due to its several roles, a growing interest has been addressed to this group. In this study,...

Soybean is an economically important plant, and its production is affected in soils with high salinity levels. It is important to understand the adaptive mechanisms through which plants overcome this kind of stress and to identify potential genes for improving abiotic stress tolerance. RNA-Seq data of two Glycine max cultivars, a drought-sensitive...

Gene stacking refers to the introduction of two or more transgenes of agronomic interest in the same plant. The main methods for genetically engineering plants with gene stacking involve (i) the simultaneous introduction, by the co-transformation process, and (ii) the sequential introduction of genes using the re-transformation processes or the sex...

Eugenia uniflora is an Atlantic Forest native species, occurring in contrasting edaphoclimatic environments. The identification of genes involved in response to abiotic factors is very relevant to help in understanding the processes of local adaptation. 1-Pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase (P5CS) is one interesting gene to study in this species sin...

Key message The transcriptional profile of roots is highly affected by shoot illumination. Transcriptogram analysis allows the identification of cellular processes that are not detected by DESeq. Abstract Light is a key environmental factor regulating plant growth and development. Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings grown under light display a photomor...

Competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) are natural transcripts that can act as endogenous sponges of microRNAs (miRNAs), modulating miRNA action upon target mRNAs. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are one among the various classes of ceRNAs. They are produced from a process called back-splicing and have been identified in many eukaryotes. In plants, their effe...

The aim of this work was to analyze and compare the bacterial communities of 663 samples from a Brazilian hospital by using high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. To increase taxonomic profiling and specificity of 16S-based identification, a strict sequence quality filtering process was applied for the accurate identification of clinicall...

Araucaria angustifolia is endemic from southern Brazil. Known as Brazilian pine, A. angustifolia is the only native conifer species with economic/social relevance in this country. Due to massive exploitation, this species suffered significant population decline and currently is classified as critically endangered. It encouraged the scientific commu...

Vriesea carinata is an endemic bromeliad from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. It has trichome and tank system in their leaves which allows to absorb water and nutrients. It belongs to Bromeliaceae family, which includes several species highly enriched of cysteine-proteases (CysPs). These proteolytic enzymes regulate processes as senescence, cell dif...

The knowledge about plant miRNAs has increased exponentially, with thousands of miRNAs been reported in different plant taxa using high throughput sequencing technologies and bioinformatic tools. Nevertheless, several groups of plants remain unexplored, and the gap of knowledge about conifer miRNAs is considerable. There is no sequence or functiona...

Triacylglycerols (TAG) are the major form of energy storage in plants. TAG are primarily stored in seeds and fruits, but vegetative tissues also possess a high capacity for their synthesis and storage. These storage lipids are essential to plant development, being used in seedling growth during germination, pollen development, and sexual reproducti...

In embryonic development, microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate the complex gene expression associated with the complexity of embryogenesis. Today, few studies have been conducted on the identification of miRNAs and components of miRNA biogenesis on embryonic development in crustaceans, especially in prawns. In this context, the aim of this study was to iden...

Strawberry (Fragaria ananassa Duch.) is an economically important fruit with a high demand owing to its good taste and medicinal properties. However, its cultivation is affected by various biotic and abiotic stresses. Plants exhibit several intrinsic mechanisms to deal with stresses. In the case of strawberry, the mechanisms highlighting the respon...

Among the four lineages described for Listeria monocytogenes (I, II, III, and IV), lineages I and II harbor the serotypes most closely related to listeriosis in humans. Serotypes 1/2b and 4b are associated with the majority of listeriosis outbreaks, and serotype 1/2a is frequently involved in food and processing plant contamination. As such, the pr...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Expressed sequence tag–simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) markers were isolated for Vriesea carinata, an endemic bromeliad from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. These SSR loci may be used to investigate the genetic diversity and population structure of this species and related bromeliads. METHODS AND RESULTS: Based on the transcri...

This article contains data of Social Transmission of Food Preference in an animal model of autism and the evaluation of a set of microRNA analyzed in autistic patients and animal model of autism. The analyses of the absolute consumption of two flavored food by male rats prenatally exposed to valproic acid (VPA) and treated with resveratrol (RSV), s...

sn-Glycerol-3-phosphate 1-O-acyltransferase (GPAT) is an important enzyme that catalyzes the transfer of an acyl group from acyl-CoA or acyl-ACP to the sn-1 or sn-2 position of sn-glycerol-3-phosphate (G3P) to generate lysophosphatidic acids (LPAs). The functional studies of GPAT in plants demonstrated its importance in controlling storage and memb...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in social interaction, communication and language, and restricted repertoire of activities and interests. The etiology of ASD remains unknown and no clinical markers for diagnosis were identified. Environmental factors, including prenatal exposure to valproic acid (VPA), may contribute...

In rice (Oryza sativa L.) there are two chloroplast ascorbate peroxidases isoforms, OsAPX7 (stromal) and OsAPX8 (thylakoidal). Previous works demonstrated that double silencing of OsAPX7 and OsAPX8 led to differences in photosynthetic parameters in stress conditions. Nevertheless, both APX encoding genes present contrasting expression patterns in r...

The posterodorsal medial amygdala (MePD) is a sex steroid-sensitive and sexually dimorphic subcortical area that dynamically modulates social behaviors in rats. As different microRNA (miRNA) can act as post-transcriptional regulators of synaptic processing, we addressed changes that occur in miRNA expression in the MePD of males and females along t...

Aim Life history traits and range size are key correlates of genetic diversity in trees. We used a standardized sampling protocol to explore how life history traits and range size relate to the magnitude, variance and structuring (both between‐ and within‐population) of genetic diversity in Neotropical tree species. Location The Neotropics Method...

- Information on the GPAT sequences retrieved in this study.

- Microarray data analysis of GPATs in developmental stages of Arabidopsis thaliana.

- Information about similarity with the respective Arabidopsis gene

- Microarray data analysis GPATs in anatomical parts of Glycine max.

- Microarray data analysis of GPATs in developmental stages of Zea mays.

- Predictions of transmembrane domains of plant GPAT proteins.

- Properties of GPAT protein sequences of representative species.

- Microarray data analysis of GPATs in anatomical parts of Arabidopsis thaliana.

- Microarray data analysis from of GPATs in developmental stages of Glycine max.

- Microarray data analysis of GPATs in anatomical parts of Oryza sativa.

- Microarray data analysis of GPATs in developmental stages of Oryza sativa.

- Microarray data analysis of GPATs in anatomical parts of Zea mays.

Plinia trunciflora is a Brazilian native fruit tree from the Myrtaceae family, also known as jaboticaba. This species has great potential by its fruit production. Due to the high content of essential oils in their leaves and of anthocyanins in the fruits, there is also an increasing interest by the pharmaceutical industry. Nevertheless, there are f...

Eugenia uniflora is a plant native to tropical America that holds great ecological and economic importance. The complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence of Eugenia uniflora, a member of the Neotropical Myrtaceae family, is reported here. The genome is 158,445 bp in length and exhibits a typical quadripartite structure of the large (LSC, 87,459 bp)...

Organellar RNA editing involves the modification of nucleotide sequences to maintain conserved protein functions, mainly by reverting non-neutral codon mutations. The loss of plastid editing events, resulting from mutations in RNA editing factors or through stress interference, leads to developmental, physiological and photosynthetic alterations. R...

RNA editing site numbers identified by the PREP and SNP approaches in Arabidopsis, soybean and rice. Black bars correspond to sites confirmed only by PREP prediction (>0.5 in prediction score); white bars indicate sites confirmed using the SNP approach; and gray bars show sites confirmed using both approaches.

sRNA length distribution. The histograms represent the percentage of length distribution of each individual class. In black, gray and white bars, Arabidopsis, soybean, and rice read data, respectively.

Number of plastid genomic sites (Y-axis) and their respective sRNA reads coverage (X-axis). In black, gray and white bars, Arabidopsis, soybean and rice read data, respectively.