@article{hu_merchante_stepanova_alonso_heber_2016, title={Genome-wide search for translated upstream open reading frames in Arabidopsis thaliana}, volume={15}, number={2}, journal={IEEE Transactions on Nanobioscience}, author={Hu, Q. W. and Merchante, C. and Stepanova, A. N. and Alonso, J. M. and Heber, S.}, year={2016}, pages={150–159} } @article{villarino_hu_manrique_flores-vergara_sehra_robles_brumos_stepanova_colombo_sundberg_et al._2016, title={Transcriptomic Signature of the SHATTERPROOF2 Expression Domain Reveals the Meristematic Nature of Arabidopsis Gynoecial Medial Domain}, volume={171}, ISSN={["1532-2548"]}, url={http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/26983993}, DOI={10.1104/pp.15.01845}, abstractNote={Transcriptional profiles of spatially and temporally restricted cell populations from the Arabidopsis gynoecium reveals the meristematic nature of the gynoecial medial domain. Plant meristems, like animal stem cell niches, maintain a pool of multipotent, undifferentiated cells that divide and differentiate to give rise to organs. In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), the carpel margin meristem is a vital meristematic structure that generates ovules from the medial domain of the gynoecium, the female floral reproductive structure. The molecular mechanisms that specify this meristematic region and regulate its organogenic potential are poorly understood. Here, we present a novel approach to analyze the transcriptional signature of the medial domain of the Arabidopsis gynoecium, highlighting the developmental stages that immediately proceed ovule initiation, the earliest stages of seed development. Using a floral synchronization system and a SHATTERPROOF2 (SHP2) domain-specific reporter, paired with FACS and RNA sequencing, we assayed the transcriptome of the gynoecial medial domain with temporal and spatial precision. This analysis reveals a set of genes that are differentially expressed within the SHP2 expression domain, including genes that have been shown previously to function during the development of medial domain-derived structures, including the ovules, thus validating our approach. Global analyses of the transcriptomic data set indicate a similarity of the pSHP2-expressing cell population to previously characterized meristematic domains, further supporting the meristematic nature of this gynoecial tissue. Our method identifies additional genes including novel isoforms, cis-natural antisense transcripts, and a previously unrecognized member of the REPRODUCTIVE MERISTEM family of transcriptional regulators that are potential novel regulators of medial domain development. This data set provides genome-wide transcriptional insight into the development of the carpel margin meristem in Arabidopsis.}, number={1}, journal={PLANT PHYSIOLOGY}, author={Villarino, Gonzalo H. and Hu, Qiwen and Manrique, Silvia and Flores-Vergara, Miguel and Sehra, Bhupinder and Robles, Linda and Brumos, Javier and Stepanova, Anna N. and Colombo, Lucia and Sundberg, Eva and et al.}, year={2016}, month={May}, pages={42–61} } @inproceedings{hu_merchante_stepanova_alonso_heber_2015, title={A stacking-based approach to identify translated upstream open reading frames in Arabidopsis thaliana}, volume={9096}, booktitle={Bioinformatics research and applications (isbra 2015)}, author={Hu, Q. W. and Merchante, C. and Stepanova, A. N. and Alonso, J. M. and Heber, S.}, year={2015}, pages={138–149} } @article{merchante_brumos_yun_hu_spencer_enriquez_binder_heber_stepanova_alonso_2015, title={Gene-Specific Translation Regulation Mediated by the Hormone-Signaling Molecule EIN2}, volume={163}, ISSN={["1097-4172"]}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84948814371&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1016/j.cell.2015.09.036}, abstractNote={The central role of translation in modulating gene activity has long been recognized, yet the systematic exploration of quantitative changes in translation at a genome-wide scale in response to a specific stimulus has only recently become technically feasible. Using the well-characterized signaling pathway of the phytohormone ethylene and plant-optimized genome-wide ribosome footprinting, we have uncovered a molecular mechanism linking this hormone’s perception to the activation of a gene-specific translational control mechanism. Characterization of one of the targets of this translation regulatory machinery, the ethylene signaling component EBF2, indicates that the signaling molecule EIN2 and the nonsense-mediated decay proteins UPFs play a central role in this ethylene-induced translational response. Furthermore, the 3′UTR of EBF2 is sufficient to confer translational regulation and required for the proper activation of ethylene responses. These findings represent a mechanistic paradigm of gene-specific regulation of translation in response to a key growth regulator.}, number={3}, journal={CELL}, author={Merchante, Catharina and Brumos, Javier and Yun, Jeonga and Hu, Qiwen and Spencer, Kristina R. and Enriquez, Paul and Binder, Brad M. and Heber, Steffen and Stepanova, Anna N. and Alonso, Jose M.}, year={2015}, month={Oct}, pages={684–697} } @inproceedings{hu_merchante_stepanova_alonso_heber_2015, title={Mining transcript features related to translation in Arabidopsis using LASSO and random forest}, url={http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84960900444&partnerID=MN8TOARS}, DOI={10.1109/iccabs.2015.7344713}, abstractNote={Translation is an important process for all living organisms. During translation, messenger RNA is rewritten into protein. Multiple control mechanisms determine how much protein is generated during translation. In particular, several regulatory elements located on mRNA transcripts are known to affect translation. In this study, a genome-wide analysis was performed to mine features related to translation in the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana. We used ribosome footprinting data to measure translation and constructed a predictive model using LASSO and random forest to select features that likely affect translation. We identified multiple transcript features and measured their influence on translation in different transcript regions. We found that features related to different translation stages may have a different impact on translation; often, features relevant to the elongation step were playing a stronger role. Interestingly, we found that the contribution of features may be different for transcripts belonging to different functional groups, suggesting that transcripts might employ different mechanisms for the regulation of translation.}, booktitle={International conference on computational advances in bio and medical}, author={Hu, Q. W. and Merchante, C. and Stepanova, A. N. and Alonso, Jose and Heber, S.}, year={2015} }