We report the complete sequence of an extreme halophile, Halobacterium sp. NRC-1, harboring a dynamic 2,571,010-bp genome containing 91 insertion sequences representing 12 families and organized into a large chromosome and 2 related minichromosomes. The Halobacterium NRC-1 genome codes for 2,630 predicted proteins, 36% of which are unrelated to any previously reported. Analysis of the genome sequence shows the presence of pathways for uptake and utilization of amino acids, active sodiumproton antiporter and potassium uptake systems, sophisticated photosensory and signal transduction pathways, and DNA replication, transcription, and translation systems resembling more complex eukaryotic organisms. Whole proteome comparisons show the definite archaeal nature of this halophile with additional similarities to the Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis and other bacteria. The ease of culturing Halobacterium and the availability of methods for its genetic manipulation in the laboratory, including construction of gene knockouts and replacements, indicate this halophile can serve as an excellent model system among the archaea.

Mass spectrometry is the method of choice for deep and reliable exploration of the (human) proteome. Targeted mass spectrometry reliably detects and quantifies pre-determined sets of proteins in a complex biological matrix and is used in studies that rely on the quantitatively accurate and reproducible measurement of proteins across multiple samples. It requires the one-time, a priori generation of a specific measurement assay for each targeted protein. SWATH-MS is a mass spectrometric method that combines data-independent acquisition (DIA) and targeted data analysis and vastly extends the throughput of proteins that can be targeted in a sample compared to selected reaction monitoring (SRM). Here we present a compendium of highly specific assays covering more than 10,000 human proteins and enabling their targeted analysis in SWATH-MS datasets acquired from research or clinical specimens. This resource supports the confident detection and quantification of 50.9% of all human proteins annotated by UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot and is therefore expected to find wide application in basic and clinical research. Data are available via ProteomeXchange (PXD000953-954) and SWATHAtlas (SAL00016-35).

In eukaryotes, dozens of posttranscriptional modifications are directed to specific nucleotides in ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) by small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs). We identified homologs of snoRNA genes in both branches of the Archaea. Eighteen small sno-like RNAs (sRNAs) were cloned from the archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius by coimmunoprecipitation with archaeal fibrillarin and NOP56, the homologs of eukaryotic snoRNA-associated proteins. We trained a probabilistic model on these sRNAs to search for more sRNAs in archaeal genomic sequences. Over 200 additional sRNAs were identified in seven archaeal genomes representing both the Crenarchaeota and the Euryarchaeota. snoRNA-based rRNA processing was therefore probably present in the last common ancestor of Archaea and Eukarya, predating the evolution of a morphologically distinct nucleolus.

The diversity of microRNAs and small-interfering RNAs has been extensively explored within angiosperms by focusing on a few key organisms such as Oryza sativa and Arabidopsis thaliana. A deeper division of the plants is defined by the radiation of the angiosperms and gymnosperms, with the latter comprising the commercially important conifers. The conifers are expected to provide important information regarding the evolution of highly conserved small regulatory RNAs. Deep sequencing provides the means to characterize and quantitatively profile small RNAs in understudied organisms such as these. Pyrosequencing of small RNAs from O. sativa revealed, as expected, ∼21-and ∼24-nt RNAs. The former contained known microRNAs, and the latter largely comprised intergenic-derived sequences likely representing heterochromatin siRNAs. In contrast, sequences from Pinus contorta were dominated by 21-nt small RNAs. Using a novel sequence-based clustering algorithm, we identified sequences belonging to 18 highly conserved microRNA families in P. contorta as well as numerous clusters of conserved small RNAs of unknown function. Using multiple methods, including expressed sequence folding and machine learning algorithms, we found a further 53 candidate novel microRNA families, 51 appearing specific to the P. contorta library. In addition, alignment of small RNA sequences to the O. sativa genome revealed six perfectly conserved classes of small RNA that included chloroplast transcripts and specific types of genomic repeats. The conservation of microRNAs and other small RNAs between the conifers and the angiosperms indicates that important RNA silencing processes were highly developed in the earliest spermatophytes. Genomic mapping of all sequences to the O. sativa genome can be viewed at http://microrna.bcgsc.ca/cgi-bin/gbrowse/rice_build_3/.[Supplemental material is available online at www.genome.org.] . The heterochromatin siRNAs are a diverse set of 24-nt-long small RNAs that are processed by DCL3 from double-stranded RNA precursors produced by RDR2 (Xie et al. 2004). These RNAs are involved in heterochromatin formation and maintenance by directing sequencespecific DNA and histone methylation of transposable elements and some larger genomic loci (Pontier et al. 2005). Other 24-nt long siRNAs produced by DCL2 in A. thaliana can direct an initial cleavage of target transcripts, which are further cleaved into 21-nt siRNAs by DCL1 (Borsani et al. 2005). Finally, the trans-acting siRNAs (tasiRNAs), which are 21 nt long, are matured by a poorly understood mechanism involving DCL4. These tasiRNAs perform post-transcriptional gene silencing much like the miRNAs (Xie et al. 2004).Identification of functional small RNAs in other plant species has, until recently, been accomplished by searching for homologous sequences in expressed sequence data (Zhang et al. 2006a) and genomic sequences (Bonnet et al. 2004) and has been, with a few exceptions (Williams et al. 2005; TalmorNeiman et al. 2006), limited to the discovery of the more highly cons...

The genomes of hyperthermophilic Archaea encode dozens of methylation guide, C͞D box small RNAs that guide 2 -O-methylation of ribose to specific sites in rRNA and various tRNAs. The genes encoding the Sulfolobus homologues of eukaryotic proteins that are known to be present in C͞D box small nucleolar ribonucleoprotein (snoRNP) complexes were cloned, and the proteins (aFIB, aNOP56, and aL7a) were expressed and purified. The purified proteins along with an in vitro transcript of the Sulfolobus sR1 small RNA were reconstituted in vitro, into an RNP complex. The order of assembly of the three proteins onto the RNA was aL7a, aNOP56, and aFIB. The complex was active in targeting S-adenosyl methionine (SAM)-dependent, site-specific 2 -O-methylation of ribose to a short fragment of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) that was complementary to the D box guide region of the sR1 small RNA. The presence of aFIB was essential for methylation; mutant proteins having amino acid replacements in the SAM-binding motif of aFIB were able to assemble into an RNP complex, but the resulting complexes were defective in methylation activity. These experiments define the minimal number of components and the conditions required to achieve in vitro RNA guide-directed 2 -O-methylation of ribose in a target RNA.T he eukaryotic nucleolus is a highly specialized organelle where rRNA is transcribed, processed, folded, and assembled along with ribosomal proteins into small and large ribosomal subunits (1-5). During this process, up to a hundred or more nucleotide modifications are introduced into the ribosomal RNA (rRNA) by two distinct families of small nucleolar ribonucleoprotein (snoRNP) complexes. The snoRNAs in these RNP complexes contain short antisense guide elements that are used to target modifications to specific locations within the rRNAs. One guide family, the C͞D box snoRNPs, targets site-specific 2Ј-O-methylation of ribose (6-9), and the other guide family, the H͞ACA snoRNPs, targets site-specific conversion of uridine to pseudouridine (10).The C͞D box snoRNAs are characterized by a bipartite structure with conserved C box (RUGAUGA) and D box (CUGA) motifs near their respective 5Ј and 3Ј ends and related CЈ (UGAUGA) and DЈ (CUGA) motifs near the center of the molecule. The antisense elements are located upstream of the D or DЈ motifs and are generally 10 or more nucleotides (nt) in length. Methylation is directed to the rRNA nucleotide that participates in a Watson-Crick base pair five nucleotides upstream from the start of the D or DЈ box; this is the N plus five rule (10-12). Although the general mechanism used by these RNP complexes in mediating modification has been deduced from in vivo biochemical and genetic observations, isolation and characterization of the structure and the in vitro activity of these guide complexes have not been described.The human C͞D box snoRNAs associate with several essential proteins, including fibrillarin, NOP56, and NOP58 (paralogous proteins derived from a gene duplication event), and a 15.5-kDa protein (8,(12)...