ABSTRACT. The microbial community of the reproductive apparatus, when known, can provide information about the health of the host. Metagenomics has been used to characterize and obtain genetic information about microbial communities in various environments and can relate certain diseases with changes in this community composition. In this study, samples of vaginal surface mucosal secretions were collected from five healthy cows and five cows that showed symptoms of reproductive disorders. Following high-throughput sequencing of the isolated microbial DNA, data were processed using the Mothur software to remove low-quality sequences and chimeras, and released to the Ribosomal Database Project for classification of operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Local BLASTn was performed and results were 6519 Vaginal microbiota diversity of healthy and diseased cattle ©FUNPEC-RP www.funpecrp.com.br Genetics and Molecular Research 14 (2): 6518-6528 (2015) loaded into the MEGAN program for viewing profiles and taxonomic microbial attributes. The control profile comprised a total of 15 taxa, with Bacteroides, Enterobacteriaceae, and Victivallis comprising the highest representation of OTUs; the reproductive disorder-positive profile comprised 68 taxa, with Bacteroides, Enterobacteriaceae, Histophilus, Victivallis, Alistipes, and Coriobacteriaceae being the taxa with the most OTU representation. A change was observed in both the community composition as well as in the microbial attributes of the profiles, suggesting that a relationship might exist between the pathogen and representative taxa, reflecting the production of metabolites to disease progression.

A mainstream procedure to analyze the wealth of genomic data available nowadays is the detection of homologous regions shared across genomes, followed by the extraction of biological information from the patterns of conservation and variation observed in such regions. Although of pivotal importance, comparative genomic procedures that rely on homology inference are obviously not applicable if no homologous regions are detectable. This fact excludes a considerable portion of “genomic dark matter” with no significant similarity — and, consequently, no inferred homology to any other known sequence — from several downstream comparative genomic methods. In this review we compile several sequence metrics that do not rely on homology inference and can be used to compare nucleotide sequences and extract biologically meaningful information from them. These metrics comprise several compositional parameters calculated from sequence data alone, such as GC content, dinucleotide odds ratio, and several codon bias metrics. They also share other interesting properties, such as pervasiveness (patterns persist on smaller scales) and phylogenetic signal. We also cite examples where these homology-independent metrics have been successfully applied to support several bioinformatics challenges, such as taxonomic classification of biological sequences without homology inference. They where also used to detect higher-order patterns of interactions in biological systems, ranging from detecting coevolutionary trends between the genomes of viruses and their hosts to characterization of gene pools of entire microbial communities. We argue that, if correctly understood and applied, homology-independent metrics can add important layers of biological information in comparative genomic studies without prior homology inference.

ABSTRACT. Substrate-binding subunits are important components of the solute importation system, known as the osmoprotectant system, which consists of a membrane protein belonging to the ABC superfamily. These molecules recognize specific substrates that have different physiological roles in prokaryotes, i.e., roles that contribute to the survival of these organisms in environments with high concentrations of salt. Using the MEGA software, this study performed a phylogenetic analysis of 431 nucleotide sequences of these subunits, orthologous to each other, collected from the http://www.genome. jp/kegg/ database. This analysis allowed phylogenetic trees to be generated, clearly demonstrating that there was horizontal transfer of some genes through sharing by different organisms. Furthermore, two probable ancestral sequences were generated that showed homology with permeases that transport choline, glycine betaine, and carnitine, which are trimethylamines currently present in various prokaryotes. Therefore, this system probably arose in prokaryotic organisms with the basic function of capturing nutrients, and by performing this basal function and being shared with other organisms, it was fixed in the genome. However, because of prokaryote habitat diversification, this system contributed decisively to the adaptation of these organisms to different environments, especially environments that had a high salt concentration, thus acting as an osmoprotection system, which is how they are currently categorized.

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A genética é uma área da biologia considerada complexa, por apresentar conteúdos muito abstratos. Tendo em vista essa característica, este trabalho teve por objetivo, a produção do jogo didático intitulado “Heredogame”, que poderá ser usado como forma de revisão em aulas referentes ao conteúdo Herança Mendeliana no ensino médio. Constituído por um tabuleiro e 60 cartas, requer no mínimo dois e no máximo cinco participantes. Como resultados da aplicação do jogo em sala de aula espera-se que possibilite aos discentes uma melhor compreensão sobre o conteúdo abordado e, que auxilie em um melhor entendimento do conteúdo de herança mendeliana na relação entre teoria e prática, aumentando a interação e melhorando a relação entre os alunos por se tratar de uma dinâmica de grupo.