Weihong Qi


Last Name

Qi

First Name

Weihong

ORCID

0000-0001-8581-908X

Organisational unit

06216 - Bioinformatics (FGCZ) / Bioinformatics (FGCZ)

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Publications 1 - 2 of 2
  • Host–virome associations in the weathering crust of a rapidly retreating temperate Alpine glacier
    Item type: Journal Article
    Varliero, Gilda; Bauder, Andreas; Stierli, Beat; et al. (2025)
    Microbial Genomics
    Glaciers are retreating rapidly, altering ecosystem dynamics and increasing meltwater outflow into populated areas. Understanding microbial-virome interactions is crucial for predicting the consequences of this release. We sampled ice from four shallow pits in the weathering crust of the Rhonegletscher, Swiss Alps, and found a microbiome dominated by bacteria and microeukaryotes, alongside a metavirome infecting both groups. Viruses exhibited variable host specificity, with some targeting particular taxa and others showing a broader infectivity range. Variable genomic regions, including metagenomic and metaviromic islands, were enriched in genes related to replication, recombination, repair and transposable elements. Detected auxiliary metabolic genes were primarily involved in host coenzyme biosynthesis, uptake or utilization and in altering bacterial methylation patterns to evade detection. These findings underscore the major role of viruses in regulating microbial dynamics in glaciers and their potential downstream environmental impacts.
  • Evolution of Repetitive Genomic Content and Gene Families Over Geo-Climatic Gradients in Brassicaceae
    Item type: Journal Article
    Flury, Jana M.; Qi, Weihong; Bachmann, Olivier; et al. (2025)
    Ecology and Evolution
    On temperature gradients such as elevation or latitude, species turnover is common, and specialists can persist in extreme environments. This is likely paralleled by adaptive and possibly also non-adaptive changes on a molecular level, from genes to the structure of genomes. Here, we investigated associations between elevation and latitude, partly represented by climate variables, with features of the genome, including genome size, transposable element (TE) content, and gene family expansion and contraction in the plant family Brassicaceae. Together, the geo-climatic variables were good predictors of genome size and TE content, explaining 40%-60% of the variation among species. The relationship of TE content with mean annual temperature was U-shaped, with species of cooler and hotter climates generally having more TEs, and those with elevation and mean annual precipitation (both corrected for temperature) were positive. Patterns were most prevalent for the most abundant TE class, long terminal repeat elements (LTR). Gene family expansions and contractions in species of high elevations highlighted a restructured genomic architecture of cell wall modeling, response to temperature stimulus, and processes involved in posttranslational protein modifications. Results point to abiotically extreme environments either promoting high TE content or constraining TE elimination at the level of species. Furthermore, establishing in distinct geo-climatic regions seems associated with considerable parallel evolution with overlapping gene families changing copy numbers.
Publications 1 - 2 of 2