Aug. 1 – The University of Parma is becoming increasingly international, at the forefront of research. The latest news comes from genomics, a branch of molecular biology that deals with the study of the genome of living organisms. “Genome Biology,” one of the leading international journals in the field, recently published the results of a study on the DNA genomic profiles of biological samples from three three different vital stages of the black truffle Tuber melanosporum. Methylation is a transmissible DNA modification (so-called “epigenetic”) that alters the chemical composition and functionality, but not the sequence. The study, supported in part by funding from the Cariparma Foundation and the Ministry of Education, was conducted via next-generation sequencing. First author of the article (entitled “Non-exhaustive DNA methylation mediated transposon silencing in the black truffle genome, a complex fungal genome with massive repeat element content”) is Barbara Montanini, researcher at the Department of Biosciences of the University of Parma, part of the research group under Prof. Simone Ottonello supervision. The study is a collaboration with the Department of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), directed by Prof. Matteo Pellegrini. The work provides a solid base for future studies to analyze and compare the genomes and epigenomes of black truffles, which are genetically identical, but in different geographic areas have distinct organoleptic characteristics. Given the high conservation of methylation processes, the bioanalytical platforms developed for this study may be transferred to other studies, including those on complex human diseases associated with altered genome epigenetics.
