Cytometric Approach for Detection of Encephalitozoon intestinalis, an Emergent Agent▿

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Barbosa, Joana; Rodrigues, Acácio Gonçalves; Pina-Vaz, Cidália

2009-01-01

Encephalitozoon intestinalis is responsible for intestinal disease in patients with AIDS and immunocompetent patients. The infectious form is a small spore that is resistant to water treatment procedures. Its detection is very important, but detection is very cumbersome and time-consuming. Our main objective was to develop and optimize a specific flow cytometric (FC) protocol for the detection of E. intestinalis in hospital tap water and human feces. To determine the optimal specific antibody (Microspor-FA) concentration, a known concentration of E. intestinalis spores (Waterborne, Inc.) was suspended in hospital tap water and stool specimens with different concentrations of Microspor-FA, and the tap water and stool specimens were incubated under different conditions. The sensitivity limit and specificity were also evaluated. To study spore infectivity, double staining with propidium iodide (PI) and Microspor-FA was undertaken. Distinct approaches for filtration and centrifugation of the stool specimens were used. E. intestinalis spores stained with 10 μg/ml of Microspor-FA at 25°C overnight provided the best results. The detection limit was 5 × 104 spores/ml, and good specificity was demonstrated. Simultaneous staining with Microspor-FA and PI ensured that the E. intestinalis spores were dead and therefore noninfectious. With the stool specimens, better spore recovery was observed with a saturated solution of NaCl and centrifugation at 1,500 × g for 15 min. A new approach for the detection of E. intestinalis from tap water or human feces that ensures that the spores are not viable is now available and represents an important step for the prevention of this threat to public health. PMID:19439525

Pneumatosis Cystoides Intestinalis: A Rare Benign Cause of Pneumoperitoneum

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Puneet Devgun

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis is a rare gastrointestinal complication in the course of connective tissue diseases, especially in scleroderma, that can lead to pneumoperitoneum or obstruction. Findings on plain radiography may reveal radiolucent linear or bubbly circular air bubbles in the bowel wall, with or without free gas accumulation in the peritoneal cavity. Treatment of pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis ranges from supportive care to laparotomy.

Two Cases of Pneumatosis Intestinalis during Cetuximab Therapy for Advanced Head and Neck Cancer

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James A. Miller

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Pneumatosis intestinalis is a rare but known potential complication of treatment with cetuximab. Here we present two cases of pneumatosis intestinalis occurring in patients who were receiving cetuximab as treatment for advanced head and neck cancer. In both cases, cetuximab was discontinued after discovery of the pneumatosis intestinalis.

Evolutionary conservation of vertebrate notochord genes in the ascidian Ciona intestinalis.

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Kugler, Jamie E; Passamaneck, Yale J; Feldman, Taya G; Beh, Jeni; Regnier, Todd W; Di Gregorio, Anna

2008-11-01

To reconstruct a minimum complement of notochord genes evolutionarily conserved across chordates, we scanned the Ciona intestinalis genome using the sequences of 182 genes reported to be expressed in the notochord of different vertebrates and identified 139 candidate notochord genes. For 66 of these Ciona genes expression data were already available, hence we analyzed the expression of the remaining 73 genes and found notochord expression for 20. The predicted products of the newly identified notochord genes range from the transcription factors Ci-XBPa and Ci-miER1 to extracellular matrix proteins. We examined the expression of the newly identified notochord genes in embryos ectopically expressing Ciona Brachyury (Ci-Bra) and in embryos expressing a repressor form of this transcription factor in the notochord, and we found that while a subset of the genes examined are clearly responsive to Ci-Bra, other genes are not affected by alterations in its levels. We provide a first description of notochord genes that are not evidently influenced by the ectopic expression of Ci-Bra and we propose alternative regulatory mechanisms that might control their transcription. Copyright 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Regulation of notochord-specific expression of Ci-Bra downstream genes in Ciona intestinalis embryos.

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Takahashi, Hiroki; Hotta, Kohji; Takagi, Chiyo; Ueno, Naoto; Satoh, Nori; Shoguchi, Eiichi

2010-02-01

Brachyury, a T-box transcription factor, is expressed in ascidian embryos exclusively in primordial notochord cells and plays a pivotal role in differentiation of notochord cells. Previously, we identified approximately 450 genes downstream of Ciona intestinalis Brachyury (Ci-Bra), and characterized the expression profiles of 45 of these in differentiating notochord cells. In this study, we looked for cisregulatory sequences in minimal enhancers of 20 Ci-Bra downstream genes by electroporating region within approximately 3 kb upstream of each gene fused with lacZ. Eight of the 20 reporters were expressed in notochord cells. The minimal enchancer for each of these eight genes was narrowed to a region approximately 0.5-1.0-kb long. We also explored the genome-wide and coordinate regulation of 43 Ci-Bra-downstream genes. When we determined their chromosomal localization, it became evident that they are not clustered in a given region of the genome, but rather distributed evenly over 13 of the 14 pairs of chromosomes, suggesting that gene clustering does not contribute to coordinate control of the Ci-Bra downstream gene expression. Our results might provide Insights Into the molecular mechanisms underlying notochord formation in chordates.

The presence of Giardia intestinalis in donkeys, Equus asinus, in China.

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Zhang, Xiao-Xuan; Zhang, Fu-Kai; Li, Fa-Cai; Hou, Jun-Ling; Zheng, Wen-Bin; Du, Shuai-Zhi; Zhao, Quan; Zhu, Xing-Quan

2017-01-03

Giardia intestinalis is one of the most important zoonotic enteric parasites. As no information regarding prevalence and genotype of G. intestinalis in donkeys (Equus asinus) in China is available, 181 faecal samples from 48 donkeys from Jilin Province, from 104 from Shandong Province and from 29 from Liaoning Province were examined between May and December 2015. Twenty-eight (15.47%) out of 181 donkey samples were tested G. intestinalis-positive by nested amplification of the triosephosphate isomerase (tpi) gene. The prevalence in different regional groups varied from 10.42 to 18.27%. The prevalence in adult and young donkeys was 14.29 and 22.92%, respectively. Otherwise, the prevalence was 11.69% in summer and 18.27% in winter. However, no statistically significant differences were found in relation to region or age group. Sequence analysis of the tpi, glutamate dehydrogenase (gdh) and beta giardin (bg) loci identified 4, 1 and 3 subtypes of assemblage B, respectively. Moreover, four novel multilocus genotypes (MLGs novel-1 to novel-4) were identified in assemblage B. This first report of G. intestinalis in donkeys in China indicates that further studies of nation-wide molecular epidemiology and geographical distribution of Giardia in donkeys are warranted. Effective strategies should be implemented to control G. intestinalis infection in donkeys, other animals and humans.

Common coinfections of Giardia intestinalis and Helicobacter pylori in non-symptomatic Ugandan children.

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Johan Ankarklev

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The protozoan parasite Giardia intestinalis and the pathogenic bacterium Helicobacter pylori are well known for their high prevalences in human hosts worldwide. The prevalence of both organisms is known to peak in densely populated, low resource settings and children are infected early in life. Different Giardia genotypes/assemblages have been associated with different symptoms and H. pylori with induction of cancer. Despite this, not much data are available from sub-Saharan Africa with regards to the prevalence of different G. intestinalis assemblages and their potential association with H. pylori infections. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Fecal samples from 427 apparently healthy children, 0-12 years of age, living in urban Kampala, Uganda were analyzed for the presence of H. pylori and G. intestinalis. G. intestinalis was found in 86 (20.1% out of the children and children age 1<5 years had the highest rates of colonization. H. pylori was found in 189 (44.3% out of the 427 children and there was a 3-fold higher risk of concomitant G. intestinalis and H. pylori infections compared to non-concomitant G. intestinalis infection, OR = 2.9 (1.7-4.8. No significant association was found in the studied population with regard to the presence of Giardia and gender, type of toilet, source of drinking water or type of housing. A panel of 45 G. intestinalis positive samples was further analyzed using multi-locus genotyping (MLG on three loci, combined with assemblage-specific analyses. Giardia MLG analysis yielded a total of five assemblage AII, 25 assemblage B, and four mixed assemblage infections. The assemblage B isolates were highly genetically variable but no significant association was found between Giardia assemblage type and H. pylori infection. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This study shows that Giardia assemblage B dominates in children in Kampala, Uganda and that the presence of H. pylori is an associated risk factor for G

Clinical and CT features of benign pneumatosis intestinalis in pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplant and oncology patients

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McCarville, M.B.; Goodin, Geoffrey S.; Whittle, Sarah B.; Li, Chin-Shang; Smeltzer, Matthew P.; Hale, Gregory A.; Kaufman, Robert A.

2008-01-01

Pneumatosis intestinalis in children is associated with a wide variety of underlying conditions and often has a benign course. The CT features of this condition have not been systematically investigated. Defining benign pneumatosis intestinalis as pneumatosis intestinalis that resolved with medical management alone, we sought to: (1) determine whether the incidence of benign pneumatosis intestinalis had increased at our pediatric cancer hospital; (2) characterize CT features of benign pneumatosis intestinalis; and (3) determine the relationship between imaging features and clinical course of benign pneumatosis intestinalis in this cohort. Radiology reports from November 1994 to December 2006 were searched for ''pneumatosis intestinalis,'' ''free intraperitoneal air,'' and ''portal venous air or gas.'' Corresponding imaging was reviewed by two radiologists who confirmed pneumatosis intestinalis and recorded the presence of extraluminal free air, degree of intramural gaseous distension, number of involved bowel segments, and time to pneumatosis resolution. The search revealed 12 boys and 4 girls with pneumatosis intestinalis; 11 were hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients. The annual incidences of benign pneumatosis have not changed at our institution. Increases in intramural distension marginally correlated with the number of bowel segments involved (P=0.08). Three patients had free air and longer times to resolution of pneumatosis (P=0.03). Male children may be at increased risk of benign pneumatosis intestinalis. The incidence of benign pneumatosis at our institution is proportional to the number of hematopoietic stem cell transplants. The degree of intramural distension may correlate with the number of bowel segments involved. Patients with free air have a longer time to resolution of benign pneumatosis. (orig.)

Transcriptional profiling of putative human epithelial stem cells

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Koçer Salih S

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Human interfollicular epidermis is sustained by the proliferation of stem cells and their progeny, transient amplifying cells. Molecular characterization of these two cell populations is essential for better understanding of self renewal, differentiation and mechanisms of skin pathogenesis. The purpose of this study was to obtain gene expression profiles of alpha 6+/MHCI+, transient amplifying cells and alpha 6+/MHCI-, putative stem cells, and to compare them with existing data bases of gene expression profiles of hair follicle stem cells. The expression of Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC class I, previously shown to be absent in stem cells in several tissues, and alpha 6 integrin were used to isolate MHCI positive basal cells, and MHCI low/negative basal cells. Results Transcriptional profiles of the two cell populations were determined and comparisons made with published data for hair follicle stem cell gene expression profiles. We demonstrate that presumptive interfollicular stem cells, alpha 6+/MHCI- cells, are enriched in messenger RNAs encoding surface receptors, cell adhesion molecules, extracellular matrix proteins, transcripts encoding members of IFN-alpha family proteins and components of IFN signaling, but contain lower levels of transcripts encoding proteins which take part in energy metabolism, cell cycle, ribosome biosynthesis, splicing, protein translation, degradation, DNA replication, repair, and chromosome remodeling. Furthermore, our data indicate that the cell signaling pathways Notch1 and NF-κB are downregulated/inhibited in MHC negative basal cells. Conclusion This study demonstrates that alpha 6+/MHCI- cells have additional characteristics attributed to stem cells. Moreover, the transcription profile of alpha 6+/MHCI- cells shows similarities to transcription profiles of mouse hair follicle bulge cells known to be enriched for stem cells. Collectively, our data suggests that alpha 6+/MHCI- cells

Pneumatosis Cystoides Intestinalis after Cetuximab Chemotherapy for Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Parotid Gland

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Christos Petrides

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Pneumatosis intestinalis, defined as gas in the bowel wall, is often first identified on abdominal radiographs or computed tomography (CT scans. It is a radiographic finding and not a diagnosis, as the etiology varies from benign conditions to fulminant gastrointestinal disease. We report here a case of pneumatosis intestinalis associated with cetuximab therapy for squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck. The patient underwent laparotomy based on the CT scan and the result was pneumatosis intestinalis without any signs of necrotizing enterocolitis.

Genetic and immunological characterization of the microsporidian Septata intestinalis Cali, Kotler and Orenstein, 1993: reclassification to Encephalitozoon intestinalis

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Hartskeerl, R. A.; van Gool, T.; Schuitema, A. R.; Didier, E. S.; Terpstra, W. J.

1995-01-01

The relationships between the Encephalitozoon-like Septata intestinalis and other microsporidia that occur in humans; notably Encephalitozoon cuniculi and Encephalitozoon hellem, is insufficiently documented using morphological descriptions alone. To assess mutual relationships, we have examined

Stable transfection of Eimeria intestinalis and investigation of its life cycle, reproduction and immunogenicity

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Tuanyuan eShi

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Rabbit coccidiosis, caused by infection of Eimeria spp. is one of the most severe parasitic diseases in rabbits. E. intestinalis is one of the most immunogenic species in rabbit coccidia. Due to the lack of genomic information and unsuccessful in vitro cultivation, genetic manipulation of rabbit coccidia lagged behind other apicomplexan parasites. Using regulatory sequences from E. tenella, we obtained a transgenic line of E. intestinalis expressing yellow fluorescent protein (YFP. YFP was continuously expressed throughout the whole life cycle. Morphological features of E. intestinalis in the different developmental stages were dynamically observed with the transgenic line. Some important features in the endogenous development stages were observed. Trophozoites were found as early as 4 h post inoculation. Two-types of schizonts and merozoites were observed in first three of the four schizogonies. Beside jejunum and ileum, gametogony stage and oocysts were also found in the duodenum and vermiform appendix. In addition, the transgenic strain was highly immunogenic but less pathogenic than the wild type. Considering the high immunogenicity of E. intestinalis and amenability to transfection with foreign genes, transgenic E. intestinalis could be a promising oral eukaryotic vaccine vector.

Detection of Giardia intestinalis infections in Polish soldiers deployed to Afghanistan.

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Korzeniewski, Krzysztof; Konior, Monika; Augustynowicz, Alina; Lass, Anna; Kowalska, Ewa

2016-01-01

Members of the Polish Military Contingent (PMC) have been stationed in Afghanistan since 2002. They typically serve in areas characterised by low standards of sanitation which often leads to the development of food- and waterborne diseases. The aim of the study was to evaluate the prevalence of Giardia intestinalis infections among Polish soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. The research study was conducted as part of a programme for prevention of parasitic diseases of the gastrointestinal tract run by the Polish Armed Forces. The study was carried out in August 2011; it involved 630 asymptomatic Polish soldiers serving in the Forward Operational Base (FOB) Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan. Stool specimens obtained from members of the PMC were first tested in FOB Ghazni (detection of Giardia intestinalis by Rida Quick Giardia immunochromatographic tests and Ridascreen Giardia immunoenzymatic tests - single samples). Next, the same biological material and two other faecal specimens fixed in 10% formalin were transported to the Military Institute of Medicine in Poland, where they were tested for Giardia intestinalis under light microscopy (direct smear, decantation in distilled water). Parasitological tests performed under light microscopy showed that 2.7% (17/630) of the study group were infected with Giardia intestinalis. Some of these results were confirmed by immunochromatographic tests (6/630). In contrast, immunoenzymatic tests (ELISA) demonstrated a significantly higher detection rate reaching 18.1% (114/630). Immunoenzymatic tests confirmed all the positive results given by light microscopy and by immunochromatographic tests. The prevalence rate of Giardia intestinalis infections in Polish soldiers deployed to Afghanistan was found to be high. Microscopic methods exhibit low sensitivity and therefore may result in the underestimation of the true parasite prevalence. Immunoenzymatic tests (ELISA) showing a much higher sensitivity in comparison to light microscopy

A genomic overview of short genetic variations in a basal chordate, Ciona intestinalis

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Satou Yutaka

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Although the Ciona intestinalis genome contains many allelic polymorphisms, there is only limited data analyzed systematically. Establishing a dense map of genetic variations in C. intestinalis is necessary not only for linkage analysis, but also for other experimental biology including molecular developmental and evolutionary studies, because animals from natural populations are typically used for experiments. Results Here, we identified over three million candidate short genomic variations within a 110 Mb euchromatin region among five C. intestinalis individuals. The average nucleotide diversity was approximately 1.1%. Genetic variations were found at a similar density in intergenic and gene regions. Non-synonymous and nonsense nucleotide substitutions were found in 12,493 and 1,214 genes accounting for 81.9% and 8.0% of the entire gene set, respectively, and over 60% of genes in the single animal encode non-identical proteins between maternal and paternal alleles. Conclusions Our results provide a framework for studying evolution of the animal genome, as well as a useful resource for a wide range of C. intestinalis researchers.

Natural variation of model mutant phenotypes in Ciona intestinalis.

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Paolo Sordino

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The study of ascidians (Chordata, Tunicata has made a considerable contribution to our understanding of the origin and evolution of basal chordates. To provide further information to support forward genetics in Ciona intestinalis, we used a combination of natural variation and neutral population genetics as an approach for the systematic identification of new mutations. In addition to the significance of developmental variation for phenotype-driven studies, this approach can encompass important implications in evolutionary and population biology. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here, we report a preliminary survey for naturally occurring mutations in three geographically interconnected populations of C. intestinalis. The influence of historical, geographical and environmental factors on the distribution of abnormal phenotypes was assessed by means of 12 microsatellites. We identified 37 possible mutant loci with stereotyped defects in embryonic development that segregate in a way typical of recessive alleles. Local populations were found to differ in genetic organization and frequency distribution of phenotypic classes. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Natural genetic polymorphism of C. intestinalis constitutes a valuable source of phenotypes for studying embryonic development in ascidians. Correlating genetic structure and the occurrence of abnormal phenotypes is a crucial focus for understanding the selective forces that shape natural finite populations, and may provide insights of great importance into the evolutionary mechanisms that generate animal diversity.

Natural Variation of Model Mutant Phenotypes in Ciona intestinalis

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Brown, Euan R.; Leccia, Nicola I.; Squarzoni, Paola; Tarallo, Raffaella; Alfano, Christian; Caputi, Luigi; D'Ambrosio, Palmira; Daniele, Paola; D'Aniello, Enrico; D'Aniello, Salvatore; Maiella, Sylvie; Miraglia, Valentina; Russo, Monia Teresa; Sorrenti, Gerarda; Branno, Margherita; Cariello, Lucio; Cirino, Paola; Locascio, Annamaria; Spagnuolo, Antonietta; Zanetti, Laura; Ristoratore, Filomena

2008-01-01

Background The study of ascidians (Chordata, Tunicata) has made a considerable contribution to our understanding of the origin and evolution of basal chordates. To provide further information to support forward genetics in Ciona intestinalis, we used a combination of natural variation and neutral population genetics as an approach for the systematic identification of new mutations. In addition to the significance of developmental variation for phenotype-driven studies, this approach can encompass important implications in evolutionary and population biology. Methodology/Principal Findings Here, we report a preliminary survey for naturally occurring mutations in three geographically interconnected populations of C. intestinalis. The influence of historical, geographical and environmental factors on the distribution of abnormal phenotypes was assessed by means of 12 microsatellites. We identified 37 possible mutant loci with stereotyped defects in embryonic development that segregate in a way typical of recessive alleles. Local populations were found to differ in genetic organization and frequency distribution of phenotypic classes. Conclusions/Significance Natural genetic polymorphism of C. intestinalis constitutes a valuable source of phenotypes for studying embryonic development in ascidians. Correlating genetic structure and the occurrence of abnormal phenotypes is a crucial focus for understanding the selective forces that shape natural finite populations, and may provide insights of great importance into the evolutionary mechanisms that generate animal diversity. PMID:18523552

LPS injection reprograms the expression and the 3' UTR of a CAP gene by alternative polyadenylation and the formation of a GAIT element in Ciona intestinalis.

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Vizzini, Aiti; Bonura, Angela; Longo, Valeria; Sanfratello, Maria Antonietta; Parrinello, Daniela; Cammarata, Matteo; Colombo, Paolo

2016-09-01

The diversification of cellular functions is one of the major characteristics of multicellular organisms which allow cells to modulate their gene expression, leading to the formation of transcripts and proteins with different functions and concentrations in response to different stimuli. CAP genes represent a widespread family of proteins belonging to the cysteine-rich secretory protein, antigen 5 and pathogenesis-related 1 superfamily which, it has been proposed, play key roles in the infection process and the modulation of immune responses in host animals. The ascidian Ciona intestinalis represents a group of proto-chordates with an exclusively innate immune system that has been widely studied in the field of comparative and developmental immunology. Using this biological system, we describe the identification of a novel APA mechanism by which an intronic polyadenylation signal is activated by LPS injection, leading to the formation of a shorter CAP mRNA capable of expressing the first CAP exon plus 19 amino acid residues whose sequence is contained within the first intron of the annotated gene. Furthermore, such an APA event causes the expression of a translational controlling cis-acting GAIT element which is not present in the previously isolated CAP isoform and identified in the 3'-UTR of other immune-related genes, suggesting an intriguing scenario in which both transcriptional and post-transcriptional control mechanisms are involved in the activation of the CAP gene during inflammatory response in C. intestinalis. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A PCR procedure for the detection of Giardia intestinalis cysts and Escherichia coli in lettuce.

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Ramirez-Martinez, M L; Olmos-Ortiz, L M; Barajas-Mendiola, M A; Giono Cerezo, S; Avila, E E; Cuellar-Mata, P

2015-06-01

Giardia intestinalis is a pathogen associated with foodborne outbreaks and Escherichia coli is commonly used as a marker of faecal contamination. Implementation of routine identification methods of G. intestinalis is difficult for the analysis of vegetables and the microbiological detection of E. coli requires several days. This study proposes a PCR-based assay for the detection of E. coli and G. intestinalis cysts using crude DNA isolated from artificially contaminated lettuce. The G. intestinalis and E. coli PCR assays targeted the β-giardin and uidA genes, respectively, and were 100% specific. Forty lettuces from local markets were analysed by both PCR and light microscopy and no cysts were detected, the calculated detection limit was 20 cysts per gram of lettuce; however, by PCR, E. coli was detected in eight of ten randomly selected samples of lettuce. These data highlight the need to validate procedures for routine quality assurance. These PCR-based assays can be employed as alternative methods for the detection of G. intestinalis and E. coli and have the potential to allow for the automation and simultaneous detection of protozoa and bacterial pathogens in multiple samples. Significance and impact of the study: There are few studies for Giardia intestinalis detection in food because methods for its identification are difficult for routine implementation. Here, we developed a PCR-based method as an alternative to the direct observation of cysts in lettuce by light microscopy. Additionally, Escherichia coli was detected by PCR and the sanitary quality of lettuce was evaluated using molecular and standard microbiological methods. Using PCR, the detection probability of Giardia cysts inoculated onto samples of lettuce was improved compared to light microscopy, with the advantage of easy automation. These methods may be employed to perform timely and affordable detection of foodborne pathogens. © 2015 The Society for Applied Microbiology.

Genome analysis and comparative genomics of a Giardia intestinalis assemblage E isolate

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Andersson Jan O

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Giardia intestinalis is a protozoan parasite that causes diarrhea in a wide range of mammalian species. To further understand the genetic diversity between the Giardia intestinalis species, we have performed genome sequencing and analysis of a wild-type Giardia intestinalis sample from the assemblage E group, isolated from a pig. Results We identified 5012 protein coding genes, the majority of which are conserved compared to the previously sequenced genomes of the WB and GS strains in terms of microsynteny and sequence identity. Despite this, there is an unexpectedly large number of chromosomal rearrangements and several smaller structural changes that are present in all chromosomes. Novel members of the VSP, NEK Kinase and HCMP gene families were identified, which may reveal possible mechanisms for host specificity and new avenues for antigenic variation. We used comparative genomics of the three diverse Giardia intestinalis isolates P15, GS and WB to define a core proteome for this species complex and to identify lineage-specific genes. Extensive analyses of polymorphisms in the core proteome of Giardia revealed differential rates of divergence among cellular processes. Conclusions Our results indicate that despite a well conserved core of genes there is significant genome variation between Giardia isolates, both in terms of gene content, gene polymorphisms, structural chromosomal variations and surface molecule repertoires. This study improves the annotation of the Giardia genomes and enables the identification of functionally important variation.

LPS challenge regulates gene expression and tissue localization of a Ciona intestinalis gene through an alternative polyadenylation mechanism.

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Aiti Vizzini

Full Text Available A subtractive hybridization strategy for the identification of differentially expressed genes was performed between LPS-challenged and naive Ciona intestinalis. This strategy allowed the characterization of two transcripts (Ci8short and Ci8long generated by the use of two Alternative Polyadenylation sites. The Ci8long transcript contains a protein domain with relevant homology to several components of the Receptor Transporting Protein (RTP family not present in the Ci8short mRNA. By means of Real Time PCR and Northern Blot, the Ci8short and Ci8long transcripts showed a different pattern of gene expression with the Ci8short mRNA being strongly activated after LPS injection in the pharynx. In situ hybridization analysis demonstrated that the activation of the APA site also influenced the tissue localization of the Ci8short transcript. This analysis showed that the Ci8long mRNA was expressed in hemocytes meanwhile the Ci8short mRNA was highly transcribed also in vessel endothelial cells and in the epithelium of pharynx. These findings demonstrated that regulation of gene expression based on different polyadenylation sites is an ancestral powerful strategy influencing both the level of expression and tissue distribution of alternative transcripts.

Survival-related profile, pathways, and transcription factors in ovarian cancer.

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Anne P G Crijns

2009-02-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Ovarian cancer has a poor prognosis due to advanced stage at presentation and either intrinsic or acquired resistance to classic cytotoxic drugs such as platinum and taxoids. Recent large clinical trials with different combinations and sequences of classic cytotoxic drugs indicate that further significant improvement in prognosis by this type of drugs is not to be expected. Currently a large number of drugs, targeting dysregulated molecular pathways in cancer cells have been developed and are introduced in the clinic. A major challenge is to identify those patients who will benefit from drugs targeting these specific dysregulated pathways.The aims of our study were (1 to develop a gene expression profile associated with overall survival in advanced stage serous ovarian cancer, (2 to assess the association of pathways and transcription factors with overall survival, and (3 to validate our identified profile and pathways/transcription factors in an independent set of ovarian cancers. METHODS AND FINDINGS: According to a randomized design, profiling of 157 advanced stage serous ovarian cancers was performed in duplicate using approximately 35,000 70-mer oligonucleotide microarrays. A continuous predictor of overall survival was built taking into account well-known issues in microarray analysis, such as multiple testing and overfitting. A functional class scoring analysis was utilized to assess pathways/transcription factors for their association with overall survival. The prognostic value of genes that constitute our overall survival profile was validated on a fully independent, publicly available dataset of 118 well-defined primary serous ovarian cancers. Furthermore, functional class scoring analysis was also performed on this independent dataset to assess the similarities with results from our own dataset. An 86-gene overall survival profile discriminated between patients with unfavorable and favorable prognosis (median survival, 19

Transcription profiles of mitochondrial genes correlate with mitochondrial DNA haplotypes in a natural population of Silene vulgaris

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Olson Matthew S

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Although rapid changes in copy number and gene order are common within plant mitochondrial genomes, associated patterns of gene transcription are underinvestigated. Previous studies have shown that the gynodioecious plant species Silene vulgaris exhibits high mitochondrial diversity and occasional paternal inheritance of mitochondrial markers. Here we address whether variation in DNA molecular markers is correlated with variation in transcription of mitochondrial genes in S. vulgaris collected from natural populations. Results We analyzed RFLP variation in two mitochondrial genes, cox1 and atp1, in offspring of ten plants from a natural population of S. vulgaris in Central Europe. We also investigated transcription profiles of the atp1 and cox1 genes. Most DNA haplotypes and transcription profiles were maternally inherited; for these, transcription profiles were associated with specific mitochondrial DNA haplotypes. One individual exhibited a pattern consistent with paternal inheritance of mitochondrial DNA; this individual exhibited a transcription profile suggestive of paternal but inconsistent with maternal inheritance. We found no associations between gender and transcript profiles. Conclusions Specific transcription profiles of mitochondrial genes were associated with specific mitochondrial DNA haplotypes in a natural population of a gynodioecious species S. vulgaris. Our findings suggest the potential for a causal association between rearrangements in the plant mt genome and transcription product variation.

Hippocampal CA1 transcriptional profile of sleep deprivation: relation to aging and stress.

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Nada M Porter

Full Text Available Many aging changes seem similar to those elicited by sleep-deprivation and psychosocial stress. Further, sleep architecture changes with age suggest an age-related loss of sleep. Here, we hypothesized that sleep deprivation in young subjects would elicit both stress and aging-like transcriptional responses.F344 rats were divided into control and sleep deprivation groups. Body weight, adrenal weight, corticosterone level and hippocampal CA1 transcriptional profiles were measured. A second group of animals was exposed to novel environment stress (NES, and their hippocampal transcriptional profiles measured. A third cohort exposed to control or SD was used to validate transcriptional results with Western blots. Microarray results were statistically contrasted with prior transcriptional studies. Microarray results pointed to sleep pressure signaling and macromolecular synthesis disruptions in the hippocampal CA1 region. Animals exposed to NES recapitulated nearly one third of the SD transcriptional profile. However, the SD-aging relationship was more complex. Compared to aging, SD profiles influenced a significant subset of genes. mRNA associated with neurogenesis and energy pathways showed agreement between aging and SD, while immune, glial, and macromolecular synthesis pathways showed SD profiles that opposed those seen in aging.We conclude that although NES and SD exert similar transcriptional changes, selective presynaptic release machinery and Homer1 expression changes are seen in SD. Among other changes, the marked decrease in Homer1 expression with age may represent an important divergence between young and aged brain response to SD. Based on this, it seems reasonable to conclude that therapeutic strategies designed to promote sleep in young subjects may have off-target effects in the aged. Finally, this work identifies presynaptic vesicular release and intercellular adhesion molecular signatures as novel therapeutic targets to counter

Atypical distribution of pneumatosis intestinalis in a patient with AIDS.

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Sivarajah, Vernon; Ramamurthy, Nitin Kumar; Rowe, Susan; Devalia, Kalpana

2013-03-27

An adult patient who had AIDS was admitted to hospital following a fall in which they sustained a T12 vertebral fracture. The patient incidentally was found to have pneumatosis intestinalis upon a thoracolumbar radiograph taken approximately 2 weeks after their admission to the hospital. At this point in time the patient reported having diarrhoea and a distended abdomen. The patient did not have any other medical history of note. Upon examination the patient appeared comfortable. The patient's abdomen was distended but soft and non-tender. Laboratory investigations revealed a chronic normocytic anaemia and neutropenia. It was likely that the pneumatosis intestinalis was AIDS related. A CT scan confirmed its presence but revealed an atypical distribution. Despite its dramatic appearance, the patient was successfully managed conservatively and remained well during admission.

Prevalence of Giardia intestinalis and Hymenolepis nana in Afghan ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Background: Present study aimed to investigate prevalence of Giardia intestinalis and Hymenolepis nana in Afghan refugees visiting Central Health Unit (CHU), Kot ... are common among Afghan refugees and serious preventive measures should be implemented to promote the safety and healthy lifestyle of these people.

Colo-colic intussusception associated with pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Navarro, O.; Daneman, A.; Alton, D.J. [Department of Diagnostic Imaging, Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1X8 (Canada); Thorner, P. [The Division of Pathology, Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto, Toronto (Canada)

1998-07-01

This paper describes pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis in association with colo-colic intussusception in a young teenager. The intussusception was easily reduced at barium enema. The recognition of the characteristic filling defects in the barium column facilitates a correct diagnosis. This association has only been reported previously in six adults. (orig.) With 2 figs., 9 refs.

Pneumatosis Intestinalis: A Case Report and Approach to Management

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Sean Donovan

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Pneumatosis intestinalis (PI, defined as gas within the bowel wall, is an uncommon radiographic sign which can represent a wide spectrum of diseases and a variety of underlying diagnoses. Because its etiology can vary greatly, management of PI ranges from surgical intervention to outpatient observation (see, Greenstein et al. (2007, Morris et al. (2008, and Peter et al. (2003. Since PI is infrequently encountered, clinicians may be unfamiliar with its diagnosis and management; this unfamiliarity, combined with the potential necessity for urgent intervention, may place the clinician confronted with PI in a precarious medical scenario. We present a case of pneumatosis intestinalis in a patient who posed a particularly challenging diagnostic dilemma for the primary team. Furthermore, we explore the differential diagnosis prior to revealing the intervention offered to our patient; our concise yet inclusive differential and thought process for rapid evaluation may be of benefit to clinicians presented with similar clinical scenarios.

Transcriptional profiling of the dose response: a more powerful approach for characterizing drug activities.

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Rui-Ru Ji

2009-09-01

Full Text Available The dose response curve is the gold standard for measuring the effect of a drug treatment, but is rarely used in genomic scale transcriptional profiling due to perceived obstacles of cost and analysis. One barrier to examining transcriptional dose responses is that existing methods for microarray data analysis can identify patterns, but provide no quantitative pharmacological information. We developed analytical methods that identify transcripts responsive to dose, calculate classical pharmacological parameters such as the EC50, and enable an in-depth analysis of coordinated dose-dependent treatment effects. The approach was applied to a transcriptional profiling study that evaluated four kinase inhibitors (imatinib, nilotinib, dasatinib and PD0325901 across a six-logarithm dose range, using 12 arrays per compound. The transcript responses proved a powerful means to characterize and compare the compounds: the distribution of EC50 values for the transcriptome was linked to specific targets, dose-dependent effects on cellular processes were identified using automated pathway analysis, and a connection was seen between EC50s in standard cellular assays and transcriptional EC50s. Our approach greatly enriches the information that can be obtained from standard transcriptional profiling technology. Moreover, these methods are automated, robust to non-optimized assays, and could be applied to other sources of quantitative data.

Direct activation of a notochord cis-regulatory module by Brachyury and FoxA in the ascidian Ciona intestinalis.

Science.gov (United States)

Passamaneck, Yale J; Katikala, Lavanya; Perrone, Lorena; Dunn, Matthew P; Oda-Ishii, Izumi; Di Gregorio, Anna

2009-11-01

The notochord is a defining feature of the chordate body plan. Experiments in ascidian, frog and mouse embryos have shown that co-expression of Brachyury and FoxA class transcription factors is required for notochord development. However, studies on the cis-regulatory sequences mediating the synergistic effects of these transcription factors are complicated by the limited knowledge of notochord genes and cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) that are directly targeted by both. We have identified an easily testable model for such investigations in a 155-bp notochord-specific CRM from the ascidian Ciona intestinalis. This CRM contains functional binding sites for both Ciona Brachyury (Ci-Bra) and FoxA (Ci-FoxA-a). By combining point mutation analysis and misexpression experiments, we demonstrate that binding of both transcription factors to this CRM is necessary and sufficient to activate transcription. To gain insights into the cis-regulatory criteria controlling its activity, we investigated the organization of the transcription factor binding sites within the 155-bp CRM. The 155-bp sequence contains two Ci-Bra binding sites with identical core sequences but opposite orientations, only one of which is required for enhancer activity. Changes in both orientation and spacing of these sites substantially affect the activity of the CRM, as clusters of identical sites found in the Ciona genome with different arrangements are unable to activate transcription in notochord cells. This work presents the first evidence of a synergistic interaction between Brachyury and FoxA in the activation of an individual notochord CRM, and highlights the importance of transcription factor binding site arrangement for its function.

Administration of kefir-fermented milk protects mice against Giardia intestinalis infection.

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Franco, Mariana Correa; Golowczyc, Marina A; De Antoni, Graciela L; Pérez, Pablo F; Humen, Martín; Serradell, María de los Angeles

2013-12-01

Giardiasis, caused by the protozoan Giardia intestinalis, is one of the most common intestinal diseases worldwide and constitutes an important problem for the public health systems of various countries. Kefir is a probiotic drink obtained by fermenting milk with 'kefir grains', which consist mainly of bacteria and yeasts that coexist in a complex symbiotic association. In this work, we studied the ability of kefir to protect mice from G. intestinalis infection, and characterized the host immune response to this probiotic in the context of the intestinal infection. Six- to 8-week-old C75BL/6 mice were separated into four groups: controls, kefir mice (receiving 1 : 100 dilution of kefir in drinking water for 14 days), Giardia mice (infected orally with 4×10(7) trophozoites of G. intestinalis at day 7) and Giardia-kefir mice (kefir-treated G. intestinalis-infected mice), and killed at 2 or 7 days post-infection. Kefir administration was able to significantly reduce the intensity of Giardia infection at 7 days post-infection. An increase in the percentage of CD4(+) T cells at 2 days post-infection was observed in the Peyer's patches (PP) of mice belonging to the Giardia group compared with the control and kefir groups, while the percentage of CD4(+) T cells in PP in the Giardia-kefir group was similar to that of controls. At 2 days post-infection, a reduction in the percentage of B220-positive major histocompatibility complex class II medium cells in PP was observed in infected mice compared with the other groups. At 7 days post-infection, Giardia-infected mice showed a reduction in RcFcε-positive cells compared with the control group, suggesting a downregulation of the inflammatory response. However, the percentages of RcFcε-positive cells did not differ from controls in the kefir and Giardia-kefir groups. An increase in IgA-positive cells was observed in the lamina propria of the kefir group compared with controls at 2 days post-infection. Interestingly, the

Screening and isolation of the algicidal compounds from marine green alga Ulva intestinalis

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Sun, Xue; Jin, Haoliang; Zhang, Lin; Hu, Wei; Li, Yahe; Xu, Nianjun

2016-07-01

Twenty species of seaweed were collected from the coast of Zhejiang, China, extracted with ethanol, and screened for algicidal activity against red tide microalgae Heterosigma akashiwo and Prorocentrum micans. Inhibitory effects of fresh and dried tißsues of green alga Ulva intestinalis were assessed and the main algicidal compounds were isolated, purified, and identified. Five seaweed species, U. intestinalis, U. fasciata, Grateloupia romosissima, Chondria crassicaulis, and Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis, were investigated for their algicidal activities. Fresh tissues of 8.0 and 16.0 mg/mL of U. intestinalis dissolved in media significantly inhibited growth of H. akashiwo and P. micans, respectively. Dried tissue and ethyl acetate (EtOAc) extracts of U. intestinalis at greater than 1.2 and 0.04 mg/mL, respectively, were fatal to H. akashiwo, while its water and EtOAc extracts in excess of 0.96 and 0.32 mg/mL, respectively, were lethal to P. micans. Three algicidal compounds in the EtOAc extracts were identified as 15-ethoxy-(6z,9z,12z)-hexadecatrienoic acid (I), (6E,9E,12E)-(2-acetoxy- β-D-glucose)-octadecatrienoic acid ester (II) and hexadecanoic acid (III). Of these, compound II displayed the most potent algicidal activity with IC50 values of 4.9 and 14.1 µg/mL for H. akashiwo and P. micans, respectively. Compound I showed moderate algicidal activity with IC50 values of 13.4 and 24.7 µg/mL for H. akashiwo and P. micans, respectively. These findings suggested that certain macroalgae or products therefrom could be used as effective biological control agents against red tide algae.

Whole Blood Transcriptional Profiling of Interferon-Inducible Genes Identifies Highly Upregulated IFI27 in Primary Myelofibrosis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skov, Vibe; Larsen, Thomas Stauffer; Thomassen, Mads

2011-01-01

focused upon the transcriptional profiling of interferon-associated genes in patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET) (n = 19), polycythemia vera (PV) (n = 41), and primary myelofibrosis (PMF) (n = 9). Using whole-blood transcriptional profiling and accordingly obtaining an integrated signature...

Whole-blood transcriptional profiling of interferon-inducible genes identifies highly upregulated IFI27 in primary myelofibrosis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skov, Vibe; Larsen, Thomas Stauffer; Thomassen, Mads

2011-01-01

focused upon the transcriptional profiling of interferon-associated genes in patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET) (n = 19), polycythemia vera (PV) (n = 41), and primary myelofibrosis (PMF) (n = 9). Using whole-blood transcriptional profiling and accordingly obtaining an integrated signature...

Pneumatosis Intestinalis in a Patient with Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia

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Abhishek Mangaonkar

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Pneumatosis Intestinalis is a rare condition characterized by the presence of gas within the intestinal wall. We describe a case of a 33-year-old woman with acute promyelocytic leukemia who developed nausea and nonbloody diarrhea. CT showed intramural air in transverse and descending colon. Patient clinically improved with conservative management.

Raman Spectroscopic Imaging of the Whole Ciona intestinalis Embryo during Development

Science.gov (United States)

Nakamura, Mitsuru J.; Hotta, Kohji; Oka, Kotaro

2013-01-01

Intracellular composition and the distribution of bio-molecules play central roles in the specification of cell fates and morphogenesis during embryogenesis. Consequently, investigation of changes in the expression and distribution of bio-molecules, especially mRNAs and proteins, is an important challenge in developmental biology. Raman spectroscopic imaging, a non-invasive and label-free technique, allows simultaneous imaging of the intracellular composition and distribution of multiple bio-molecules. In this study, we explored the application of Raman spectroscopic imaging in the whole Ciona intestinalis embryo during development. Analysis of Raman spectra scattered from C. intestinalis embryos revealed a number of localized patterns of high Raman intensity within the embryo. Based on the observed distribution of bio-molecules, we succeeded in identifying the location and structure of differentiated muscle and endoderm within the whole embryo, up to the tailbud stage, in a label-free manner. Furthermore, during cell differentiation, we detected significant differences in cell state between muscle/endoderm daughter cells and daughter cells with other fates that had divided from the same mother cells; this was achieved by focusing on the Raman intensity of single Raman bands at 1002 or 1526 cm−1, respectively. This study reports the first application of Raman spectroscopic imaging to the study of identifying and characterizing differentiating tissues in a whole chordate embryo. Our results suggest that Raman spectroscopic imaging is a feasible label-free technique for investigating the developmental process of the whole embryo of C. intestinalis. PMID:23977129

Enteromorpha intestinalis Derived Seaweed Liquid Fertilizers as Prospective Biostimulant for Glycine max

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Chetna Mathur

2015-12-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT In the present study, the potential of seaweed liquid fertilizer (SLF of marine algae Enteromorpha intestinalis was evaluated for its effect on seed germination, yield, biochemical parameters and pigment characteristics of Glycine maxE. intestinalis was collected form Mandapam coast of Gulf of Mannar, Tamil Nadu, and the dried seaweeds were used for the preparation of SLF. G. max seeds were germinated with four different concentrations (20, 40, 60, and 100% of SLF; its growth and yield parameters were evaluated and compared with chemical fertilizer and control. The morphological and bio-chemical parameters such as seed germination (100%, root (6.6cm and shoot length (5.4 cm, carbohydrates (0.098 mg/g, protein (0.56 mg/g, pigment (0.444 mg/g chl a; 1.073 mg/g chl b; 3.70 mg/g carotenoids of the plant was found maximum at a concentration of 60% SLF. The phenol content (3.25 mg/g was maximum in 40% SLF. The GC-MS analysis of SLF revealed the presence of notable benzoic compounds involved in plant growth promotion. Results showed thatE. intestinalis derived SLF was potential biostimulant forG. max. Thus, marine algae based fertilizer could be an effective and alternate to the chemical fertilizers emphasizing the need for systematic evaluation programme for SLF on various crops.

Transcriptional profiling uncovers a network of cholesterol-responsive atherosclerosis target genes.

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Josefin Skogsberg

2008-03-01

Full Text Available Despite the well-documented effects of plasma lipid lowering regimes halting atherosclerosis lesion development and reducing morbidity and mortality of coronary artery disease and stroke, the transcriptional response in the atherosclerotic lesion mediating these beneficial effects has not yet been carefully investigated. We performed transcriptional profiling at 10-week intervals in atherosclerosis-prone mice with human-like hypercholesterolemia and a genetic switch to lower plasma lipoproteins (Ldlr(-/-Apo(100/100Mttp(flox/flox Mx1-Cre. Atherosclerotic lesions progressed slowly at first, then expanded rapidly, and plateaued after advanced lesions formed. Analysis of lesion expression profiles indicated that accumulation of lipid-poor macrophages reached a point that led to the rapid expansion phase with accelerated foam-cell formation and inflammation, an interpretation supported by lesion histology. Genetic lowering of plasma cholesterol (e.g., lipoproteins at this point all together prevented the formation of advanced plaques and parallel transcriptional profiling of the atherosclerotic arterial wall identified 37 cholesterol-responsive genes mediating this effect. Validation by siRNA-inhibition in macrophages incubated with acetylated-LDL revealed a network of eight cholesterol-responsive atherosclerosis genes regulating cholesterol-ester accumulation. Taken together, we have identified a network of atherosclerosis genes that in response to plasma cholesterol-lowering prevents the formation of advanced plaques. This network should be of interest for the development of novel atherosclerosis therapies.

Transcriptional profiling: a potential anti-doping strategy.

Science.gov (United States)

Rupert, J L

2009-12-01

Evolving challenges require evolving responses. The use of illicit performance enhancing drugs by athletes permeates the reality and the perception of elite sports. New drugs with ergogenic or masking potential are quickly adopted, driven by a desire to win and the necessity of avoiding detection. To counter this trend, anti-doping authorities are continually refining existing assays and developing new testing strategies. In the post-genome era, genetic- and molecular-based tests are being evaluated as potential approaches to detect new and sophisticated forms of doping. Transcriptome analysis, in which a tissue's complement of mRNA transcripts is characterized, is one such method. The quantity and composition of a tissue's transcriptome is highly reflective of milieu and metabolic activity. There is much interest in transcriptional profiling in medical diagnostics and, as transcriptional information can be obtained from a variety of easily accessed tissues, similar approaches could be used in doping control. This article briefly reviews current understanding of the transcriptome, common methods of global analysis of gene expression and non-invasive sample sources. While the focus of this article is on anti-doping, the principles and methodology described could be applied to any research in which non-invasive, yet biologically informative sampling is desired.

Prevalence of Mytilicola intestinalis (Copepoda: Mytilicolidae) and Urastoma cyprinae (Turbellaria: Hypotrichinidae) in marketable mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis in Italy.

Science.gov (United States)

Canestri Trotti, G; Baccarani, E M; Giannetto, S; Giuffrida, A; Paesanti, F

1998-03-05

Marketable mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis traded with commercial certification from production sites in Italy and abroad (France, Spain) were examined for the presence of Mytilicola intestinalis (Copepoda: Mytilicolidae) and Urastoma cyprinae (Turbellaria: Hypotrichinidae) from October 1994 to February 1996. The prevalence of M. intestinalis was 4.1% and 4.7% respectively in mussels from Lerici (La Spezia) and S. Pietro in Volta (Venice), whereas it rose to 57.9% in the samples from Spain. M. intestinalis was absent in mussels from Chioggia (Venice), Ganzirri (Messina), Taranto, Trieste and France. The prevalence of U. cyprinae varied considerably, ranging from 0.3% in mussels from Trani (Bari) to 33.2% and 86.3% respectively in those from Chioggia and Trieste. It was 85.7% in samples from France and 63.7% in those from Spain.

RNAseq Transcriptional Profiling following Whip Development in Sugarcane Smut Disease.

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Patricia D C Schaker

Full Text Available Sugarcane smut disease is caused by the biotrophic fungus Sporisorium scitamineum. The disease is characterized by the development of a whip-like structure from the primary meristems, where billions of teliospores are produced. Sugarcane smut also causes tillering and low sucrose and high fiber contents, reducing cane productivity. We investigated the biological events contributing to disease symptoms in a smut intermediate-resistant sugarcane genotype by examining the transcriptional profiles (RNAseq shortly after inoculating the plants and immediately after whip emission. The overall picture of disease progression suggests that premature transcriptional reprogramming of the shoot meristem functions continues until the emergence of the whip. The guidance of this altered pattern is potentially primarily related to auxin mobilization in addition to the involvement of other hormonal imbalances. The consequences associated with whip emission are the modulation of typical meristematic functions toward reproductive organ differentiation, requiring strong changes in carbon partitioning and energy production. These changes include the overexpression of genes coding for invertases and trehalose-6P synthase, as well as other enzymes from key metabolic pathways, such as from lignin biosynthesis. This is the first report describing changes in the transcriptional profiles following whip development, providing a hypothetical model and candidate genes to further study sugarcane smut disease progression.

RNAseq Transcriptional Profiling following Whip Development in Sugarcane Smut Disease

Science.gov (United States)

Taniguti, Lucas M.; Peters, Leila P.; Creste, Silvana; Aitken, Karen S.; Van Sluys, Marie-Anne; Kitajima, João P.; Vieira, Maria L. C.; Monteiro-Vitorello, Claudia B.

2016-01-01

Sugarcane smut disease is caused by the biotrophic fungus Sporisorium scitamineum. The disease is characterized by the development of a whip-like structure from the primary meristems, where billions of teliospores are produced. Sugarcane smut also causes tillering and low sucrose and high fiber contents, reducing cane productivity. We investigated the biological events contributing to disease symptoms in a smut intermediate-resistant sugarcane genotype by examining the transcriptional profiles (RNAseq) shortly after inoculating the plants and immediately after whip emission. The overall picture of disease progression suggests that premature transcriptional reprogramming of the shoot meristem functions continues until the emergence of the whip. The guidance of this altered pattern is potentially primarily related to auxin mobilization in addition to the involvement of other hormonal imbalances. The consequences associated with whip emission are the modulation of typical meristematic functions toward reproductive organ differentiation, requiring strong changes in carbon partitioning and energy production. These changes include the overexpression of genes coding for invertases and trehalose-6P synthase, as well as other enzymes from key metabolic pathways, such as from lignin biosynthesis. This is the first report describing changes in the transcriptional profiles following whip development, providing a hypothetical model and candidate genes to further study sugarcane smut disease progression. PMID:27583836

Omic personality: implications of stable transcript and methylation profiles for personalized medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Tabassum, Rubina; Sivadas, Ambily; Agrawal, Vartika; Tian, Haozheng; Arafat, Dalia; Gibson, Greg

2015-08-13

Personalized medicine is predicated on the notion that individual biochemical and genomic profiles are relatively constant in times of good health and to some extent predictive of disease or therapeutic response. We report a pilot study quantifying gene expression and methylation profile consistency over time, addressing the reasons for individual uniqueness, and its relation to N = 1 phenotypes. Whole blood samples from four African American women, four Caucasian women, and four Caucasian men drawn from the Atlanta Center for Health Discovery and Well Being study at three successive 6-month intervals were profiled by RNA-Seq, miRNA-Seq, and Illumina Methylation 450 K arrays. Standard regression approaches were used to evaluate the proportion of variance for each type of omic measure among individuals, and to quantify correlations among measures and with clinical attributes related to wellness. Longitudinal omic profiles were in general highly consistent over time, with an average of 67 % variance in transcript abundance, 42 % in CpG methylation level (but 88 % for the most differentiated CpG per gene), and 50 % in miRNA abundance among individuals, which are all comparable to 74 % variance among individuals for 74 clinical traits. One third of the variance could be attributed to differential blood cell type abundance, which was also fairly stable over time, and a lesser amount to expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) effects. Seven conserved axes of covariance that capture diverse aspects of immune function explained over half of the variance. These axes also explained a considerable proportion of individually extreme transcript abundance, namely approximately 100 genes that were significantly up-regulated or down-regulated in each person and were in some cases enriched for relevant gene activities that plausibly associate with clinical attributes. A similar fraction of genes had individually divergent methylation levels, but these did not overlap with the

Giardia intestinalis and other zoonotic parasites: prevalence in adult dogs from the southern part of Mexico City.

Science.gov (United States)

Ponce-Macotela, Martha; Peralta-Abarca, Gustavo E; Martínez-Gordillo, Mario N

2005-07-15

The protozoan Giardia intestinalis is a mammalian-infecting parasite. It produces diarrhoea and malabsorption in its hosts. There is growing evidence that dogs could be reservoirs and play an important role in transmission. In Mexico, there are few data on the frequency of G. intestinalis. Therefore, we studied the small intestine of stray dogs, euthanazed at the "Culhuacan" Control Canine Centre, towards the end of 1997 and during the summer of 1998. We microscopically analysed intestinal contents and mucus samples taken every 3cm. During the cold season (winter), parasites were not found in 38/100 dogs, in contrast to 8/100 through the warm season. We found that 42/100 in winter and 51/100 in summer harboured G. intestinalis. To our knowledge, these G. intestinalis frequencies are the highest found in adult dogs worldwide. The results showed a rise in Ancylostoma spp. from 23/100 to 67/100 during the cold and warm seasons. Toxocara canis frequencies varied between 12/100 and 18/100, respectively. The data suggest that the probability of infection is higher during the hottest months compared to the coldest months of the year. Both puppies and adult dogs are highly infected. Dogs are reservoirs for zoonotic parasites; for this reason, it is imperative for humans to avoid fecal contamination in streets, public gardens and parks.

Water and salinity stress in grapevines: early and late changes in transcript and metabolite profiles.

Science.gov (United States)

Cramer, Grant R; Ergül, Ali; Grimplet, Jerome; Tillett, Richard L; Tattersall, Elizabeth A R; Bohlman, Marlene C; Vincent, Delphine; Sonderegger, Justin; Evans, Jason; Osborne, Craig; Quilici, David; Schlauch, Karen A; Schooley, David A; Cushman, John C

2007-04-01

Grapes are grown in semiarid environments, where drought and salinity are common problems. Microarray transcript profiling, quantitative reverse transcription-PCR, and metabolite profiling were used to define genes and metabolic pathways in Vitis vinifera cv. Cabernet Sauvignon with shared and divergent responses to a gradually applied and long-term (16 days) water-deficit stress and equivalent salinity stress. In this first-of-a-kind study, distinct differences between water deficit and salinity were revealed. Water deficit caused more rapid and greater inhibition of shoot growth than did salinity at equivalent stem water potentials. One of the earliest responses to water deficit was an increase in the transcript abundance of RuBisCo activase (day 4), but this increase occurred much later in salt-stressed plants (day 12). As water deficit progressed, a greater number of affected transcripts were involved in metabolism, transport, and the biogenesis of cellular components than did salinity. Salinity affected a higher percentage of transcripts involved in transcription, protein synthesis, and protein fate than did water deficit. Metabolite profiling revealed that there were higher concentrations of glucose, malate, and proline in water-deficit-treated plants as compared to salinized plants. The metabolite differences were linked to differences in transcript abundance of many genes involved in energy metabolism and nitrogen assimilation, particularly photosynthesis, gluconeogenesis, and photorespiration. Water-deficit-treated plants appear to have a higher demand than salinized plants to adjust osmotically, detoxify free radicals (reactive oxygen species), and cope with photoinhibition.

Effect of Piper betle on Giardia intestinalis infection in vivo

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Pecková, R.; Doležal, Karel; Sak, Bohumil; Květoňová, Dana; Kváč, Martin; Nurcahyo, W.; Foitová, I.

2018-01-01

Roč. 184, JAN (2018), s. 39-45 ISSN 0014-4894 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GAP505/11/1163 Institutional support: RVO:61389030 ; RVO:60077344 Keywords : Antigiardial activity * Drug of choice * Giardia intestinalis * Natural antiparasitics * Parasites * Piper betle Subject RIV: EF - Botanics OBOR OECD: Plant sciences, botany Impact factor: 1.724, year: 2016

Estudio de los patrones de ubiquitinación y la actividad de proteólisis específica del proteosoma en Giardia Intestinalis / Study of the ubiquitination patterns and the specific activity of the proteasome in Giardia Intestinalis

OpenAIRE

Chaparro Gutiérrez, Jenny Jovana

2011-01-01

El parásito protozoario Giardia intestinalis es un agente causante de diarrea en humanos alrededor del mundo. Además de su importancia como patógeno es un eucariota que divergió tempranamente y constituye un importante modelo de estudio de procesos celulares básicos. Durante su ciclo de vida, G. intestinalis, presenta dos procesos de diferenciación, la enquistación y la exquistación, los cuales involucran modificaciones intracelulares, transcripción de nuevos genes, síntesis y probablemente ...

Subgroup-specific intrinsic disorder profiles of arabidopsis NAC transcription factors

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stender, Emil G.; O'Shea, Charlotte; Skriver, Karen

2015-01-01

disordered but contain short, functionally important regions with structure propensities known as molecular recognition features. Here, we analyze for NAC subgroup-specific ID patterns. Some subgroups, such as the VND subgroup implicated in secondary cell wall biosynthesis, and the NAP/SHYG subgroup have...... highly conserved ID profiles. For the stress-associated ATAF1 subgroup and the CUC/ORE1 subgroup involved in development, only sub clades have similar ID patterns. For similar ID profiles, conserved molecular recognition features and sequence motifs represent likely functional determinants of e.......g. transcriptional activation and interactions. Based on our analysis, we suggest that ID profiling of regulatory proteins in general can be used to guide identification of interaction partners of network proteins....

Focusing on Ciona intestinalis (Tunicata) innate immune system. Evolutionary implications

OpenAIRE

N Parrinello

2009-01-01

Phylogenetic analyses based on molecular data provide compelling evidence that ascidians are of critical importance for studying chordate immune system evolution. The Ciona intestinalis draft genome sequence allows searches for phylogenetic relationships, gene cloning and expression of immunorelevant molecules. Acidians lack of the pivotal components of the vertebrate recombinatory adaptive immunity, i.e., MHC, TCRs and dimeric immunoglobulins. However, bioinformatic sequence analyses recogni...

Breeding response of transcript profiling in developing seeds of Brassica napus

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Li Xiaodan

2009-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The upgrading of rapeseed cultivars has resulted in a substantial improvement in yield and quality in China over the past 30 years. With the selective pressure against fatty acid composition and oil content, high erucic acid- and low oil-content cultivars have been replaced by low erucic acid- and high oil-content cultivars. The high erucic acid cultivar Zhongyou 821 and its descendent, low erucic acid cultivar Zhongshuang 9, are representatives of two generations of the most outstanding Chinese rapeseed cultivars (B. napus developed the past 2 decades. This paper compares the transcriptional profiles of Zhongshuang 9 and Zhongyou 821 for 32 genes that are principally involved in lipid biosynthesis during seed development in order to elucidate how the transcriptional profiles of these genes responded to quality improvement over the past 20 years. Results Comparison of the cultivar Zhongyou 821 with its descendent, Zhongshuang 9, shows that the transcriptional levels of seven of the 32 genes were upregulated by 30% to 109%, including FAD3, ACCase, FAE1, GKTP, Caleosin, GAPDH, and PEPC. Of the 32 genes, 10 (KAS3, β-CT, BcRK6, P450, FatA, Oleosin, FAD6, FatB, α-CT and SUC1 were downregulated by at least 20% and most by 50%. The Napin gene alone accounted for over 75% of total transcription from all 32 genes assessed in both cultivars. Most of the genes showed significant correlation with fatty acid accumulation, but the correlation in ZS9 was significantly different from that in ZY821. Higher KCR2 activity is associated with higher C16:0, C18:0, and C18:2 in both cultivars, lower C22:1 and total fatty acid content in ZY821, and lower 18:1 in ZS9. Conclusion This paper illustrates the response of the transcription levels of 32 genes to breeding in developing rapeseed seeds. Both cultivars showed similar transcription profiles, with the Napin gene predominantly transcribed. Selective pressure for zero erucic acid, low

Perforation with and without vinegar injection as a mitigation strategy against two invasive tunicates, Ciona intestinalis and Styela clava

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Marianne PARENT

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Ciona intestinalis and Styela clava, two nuisance species for Prince Edward Island’s blue mussel industry, were treated with individual perforations using nails or hypodermic needles. Other treatments using the same species included simultaneous perforations using perforation devices with low, medium and high needle density, either with or without vinegar injections. Mortality levels estimated for all ranges of individual perforations were significantly higher than mortality levels estimated in control groups during treatments conducted at laboratory facilities. Mortality of C. intestinalis reached 100% for 60 individual perforations or injection of 0.05 mL of vinegar. In S. clava, 100 individual perforations resulted in 100% mortality. Two applications of the high-density perforation device resulted in 80% mortality of C. intestinalis. During field testing, two applications of the same high-density needle device did not significantly decrease C. intestinalis wet weight, regardless of the addition of vinegar. The field applicability of perforation upon tunicates fouling mussel socks was at least in part limited by the uneven surface created by the mussels and the possible inhibition of bacterial growth caused by low water temperatures. Perforation and vinegar injection showed to be successful in laboratory trials and should be further studied with different perforation devices under field conditions.

Transcription profiling suggests that mitochondrial topoisomerase IB acts as a topological barrier and regulator of mitochondrial DNA transcription.

Science.gov (United States)

Dalla Rosa, Ilaria; Zhang, Hongliang; Khiati, Salim; Wu, Xiaolin; Pommier, Yves

2017-12-08

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is essential for cell viability because it encodes subunits of the respiratory chain complexes. Mitochondrial topoisomerase IB (TOP1MT) facilitates mtDNA replication by removing DNA topological tensions produced during mtDNA transcription, but it appears to be dispensable. To test whether cells lacking TOP1MT have aberrant mtDNA transcription, we performed mitochondrial transcriptome profiling. To that end, we designed and implemented a customized tiling array, which enabled genome-wide, strand-specific, and simultaneous detection of all mitochondrial transcripts. Our technique revealed that Top1mt KO mouse cells process the mitochondrial transcripts normally but that protein-coding mitochondrial transcripts are elevated. Moreover, we found discrete long noncoding RNAs produced by H-strand transcription and encompassing the noncoding regulatory region of mtDNA in human and murine cells and tissues. Of note, these noncoding RNAs were strongly up-regulated in the absence of TOP1MT. In contrast, 7S DNA, produced by mtDNA replication, was reduced in the Top1mt KO cells. We propose that the long noncoding RNA species in the D-loop region are generated by the extension of H-strand transcripts beyond their canonical stop site and that TOP1MT acts as a topological barrier and regulator for mtDNA transcription and D-loop formation.

Transcription profile data of phorbol esters biosynthetic genes during developmental stages in Jatropha curcas.

Science.gov (United States)

Jadid, Nurul; Mardika, Rizal Kharisma; Purwani, Kristanti Indah; Permatasari, Erlyta Vivi; Prasetyowati, Indah; Irawan, Mohammad Isa

2018-06-01

Jatropha curcas is currently known as an alternative source for biodiesel production. Beside its high free fatty acid content, J. curcas also contains typical diterpenoid-toxic compounds of Euphorbiaceae plant namely phorbol esters. This article present the transcription profile data of genes involved in the biosynthesis of phorbol esters at different developmental stages of leaves, fruit, and seed in Jatropha curcas . Transcriptional profiles were analyzed using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). We used two genes including GGPPS (Geranylgeranyl diphospate synthase), which is responsible for the formation of common diterpenoid precursor (GGPP) and CS (Casbene Synthase), which functions in the synthesis of casbene. Meanwhile, J. curcas Actin ( ACT ) was used as internal standard. We demonstrated dynamic of GGPPS and CS expression among different stage of development of leaves, fruit and seed in Jatropha .

Proteomic responses to elevated ocean temperature in ovaries of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis

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Chelsea E. Lopez

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Ciona intestinalis, a common sea squirt, exhibits lower reproductive success at the upper extreme of the water temperatures it experiences in coastal New England. In order to understand the changes in protein expression associated with elevated temperatures, and possible response to global temperature change, we reared C. intestinalis from embryos to adults at 18°C (a temperature at which they reproduce normally at our collection site in Rhode Island and 22°C (the upper end of the local temperature range. We then dissected ovaries from animals at each temperature, extracted protein, and measured proteomic levels using shotgun mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS. 1532 proteins were detected at a 1% false discovery rate present in both temperature groups by our LC-MS/MS method. 62 of those proteins are considered up- or down-regulated according to our statistical criteria. Principal component analysis shows a clear distinction in protein expression pattern between the control (18°C group and high temperature (22°C group. Similar to previous studies, cytoskeletal and chaperone proteins are upregulated in the high temperature group. Unexpectedly, we find evidence that proteolysis is downregulated at the higher temperature. We propose a working model for the high temperature response in C. intestinalis ovaries whereby increased temperature induces upregulation of signal transduction pathways involving PTPN11 and CrkL, and activating coordinated changes in the proteome especially in large lipid transport proteins, cellular stress responses, cytoskeleton, and downregulation of energy metabolism.

Immune responsiveness associated with experimental Encephalitozoon intestinalis infection in immunocompetent rats

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Omalu ICJ

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Microsporidial infections have been recognized as an increasingly important infection in immuncompromised patients, particularly those infected with HIV/AIDS. This study was designed to study immune responses associated with experimental Encephalitozoon intestinalis infection in immunocompetent rats. Materials and Methods: Thirty-four Rats in 3 groups, A (Control, B (Intraperitoneal and C (Oral were given injections of 0.5 ml of 2 x 10 6 of purified spores of Encephalitotozoon intestinalis spores and were observed for serum specific IgG for 21 days using both direct and indirect ELISA. Results: In indirect ELISA, specific lgG were detected on days 7, 14 and 21 for the group B rats and on day 21 for group C and in direct ELISA method, specific lgG were detected in-group B rats on days 7 and 21, for group C rats on day 21 only, while in the control rats, specific lgG were not detected. There was no significant difference between the direct and indirect methods (df=1, X 2 , P>0.05. E. intestinalis was observed in stool samples of rats in 1/12 (08.33% on days 14 and 21 in group B, and in 4/10 (33.33%, 3/10 (25.00% and 2/10 (16.67% on days 7, 14 and 21 respectively in group C. In group A, which is the control rats, no microsporidia were observed on days 0, 7, 14 and 21. Conclusions: There were no changes in the T-lymphocyte counts of rats prior to and after inoculation with spores. Extensive lesions were observed along the intestinal walls especially on the middle and lower sections of group C rats only.

Sputum is a surrogate for bronchoalveolar lavage for monitoring Mycobacterium tuberculosis transcriptional profiles in TB patients.

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Garcia, Benjamin J; Loxton, Andre G; Dolganov, Gregory M; Van, Tran T; Davis, J Lucian; de Jong, Bouke C; Voskuil, Martin I; Leach, Sonia M; Schoolnik, Gary K; Walzl, Gerhard; Strong, Michael; Walter, Nicholas D

2016-09-01

Pathogen-targeted transcriptional profiling in human sputum may elucidate the physiologic state of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) during infection and treatment. However, whether M. tuberculosis transcription in sputum recapitulates transcription in the lung is uncertain. We therefore compared M. tuberculosis transcription in human sputum and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) samples from 11 HIV-negative South African patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. We additionally compared these clinical samples with in vitro log phase aerobic growth and hypoxic non-replicating persistence (NRP-2). Of 2179 M. tuberculosis transcripts assayed in sputum and BAL via multiplex RT-PCR, 194 (8.9%) had a p-value <0.05, but none were significant after correction for multiple testing. Categorical enrichment analysis indicated that expression of the hypoxia-responsive DosR regulon was higher in BAL than in sputum. M. tuberculosis transcription in BAL and sputum was distinct from both aerobic growth and NRP-2, with a range of 396-1020 transcripts significantly differentially expressed after multiple testing correction. Collectively, our results indicate that M. tuberculosis transcription in sputum approximates M. tuberculosis transcription in the lung. Minor differences between M. tuberculosis transcription in BAL and sputum suggested lower oxygen concentrations or higher nitric oxide concentrations in BAL. M. tuberculosis-targeted transcriptional profiling of sputa may be a powerful tool for understanding M. tuberculosis pathogenesis and monitoring treatment responses in vivo. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

In vitro susceptibilities of the AIDS-associated microsporidian Encephalitozoon intestinalis to albendazole, its sulfoxide metabolite, and 12 additional benzimidazole derivatives.

OpenAIRE

Katiyar, S K; Edlind, T D

1997-01-01

Recent reports have described the successful treatment of Encephalitozoon intestinalis infection in AIDS patients with albendazole. However, this compound is rapidly metabolized in vivo to albendazole sulfoxide, and furthermore it is only 1 of about 15 commercially developed benzimidazole derivatives. To compare the activities of albendazole, albendazole sulfoxide, and other benzimidazoles, an in vitro system involving infection of green monkey kidney cell (E6) monolayers with E. intestinalis...

Transcriptional Profiling of Egg Allergy and Relationship to Disease Phenotype.

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Roman Kosoy

Full Text Available Egg allergy is one of the most common food allergies of childhood. There is a lack of information on the immunologic basis of egg allergy beyond the role of IgE.To use transcriptional profiling as a novel approach to uncover immunologic processes associated with different phenotypes of egg allergy.Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs were obtained from egg-allergic children who were defined as reactive (BER or tolerant (BET to baked egg, and from food allergic controls (AC who were egg non-allergic. PBMCs were stimulated with egg white protein. Gene transcription was measured by microarray after 24 h, and cytokine secretion by multiplex assay after 5 days.The transcriptional response of PBMCs to egg protein differed between BER and BET versus AC subjects. Compared to the AC group, the BER group displayed increased expression of genes associated with allergic inflammation as well as corresponding increased secretion of IL-5, IL-9 and TNF-α. A similar pattern was observed for the BET group. Further similarities in gene expression patterns between BER and BET groups, as well as some important differences, were revealed using a novel Immune Annotation resource developed for this project. This approach identified several novel processes not previously associated with egg allergy, including positive associations with TLR4-stimulated myeloid cells and activated NK cells, and negative associations with an induced Treg signature. Further pathway analysis of differentially expressed genes comparing BER to BET subjects showed significant enrichment of IFN-α and IFN-γ response genes, as well as genes associated with virally-infected DCs.Transcriptional profiling identified several novel pathways and processes that differed when comparing the response to egg allergen in BET, BER, and AC groups. We conclude that this approach is a useful hypothesis-generating mechanism to identify novel immune processes associated with allergy and tolerance to forms

Single molecule transcription profiling with AFM

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reed, Jason; Mishra, Bud; Pittenger, Bede; Magonov, Sergei; Troke, Joshua; Teitell, Michael A; Gimzewski, James K

2007-01-01

Established techniques for global gene expression profiling, such as microarrays, face fundamental sensitivity constraints. Due to greatly increasing interest in examining minute samples from micro-dissected tissues, including single cells, unorthodox approaches, including molecular nanotechnologies, are being explored in this application. Here, we examine the use of single molecule, ordered restriction mapping, combined with AFM, to measure gene transcription levels from very low abundance samples. We frame the problem mathematically, using coding theory, and present an analysis of the critical error sources that may serve as a guide to designing future studies. We follow with experiments detailing the construction of high density, single molecule, ordered restriction maps from plasmids and from cDNA molecules, using two different enzymes, a result not previously reported. We discuss these results in the context of our calculations

A transcriptional profile of aging in the human kidney.

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Graham E J Rodwell

2004-12-01

Full Text Available In this study, we found 985 genes that change expression in the cortex and the medulla of the kidney with age. Some of the genes whose transcripts increase in abundance with age are known to be specifically expressed in immune cells, suggesting that immune surveillance or inflammation increases with age. The age-regulated genes show a similar aging profile in the cortex and the medulla, suggesting a common underlying mechanism for aging. Expression profiles of these age-regulated genes mark not only age, but also the relative health and physiology of the kidney in older individuals. Finally, the set of aging-regulated kidney genes suggests specific mechanisms and pathways that may play a role in kidney degeneration with age.

Occurrence of Giardia intestinalis and Cryptosporidium sp. in wastewater samples from São Paulo State, Brazil, and Lima, Peru.

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Ulloa-Stanojlović, Francisco Miroslav; Aguiar, Bruna; Jara, Luis M; Sato, Maria Inês Zanoli; Guerrero, Juana Arzola; Hachich, Elayse; Matté, Glavur Rogério; Dropa, Milena; Matté, Maria Helena; de Araújo, Ronalda Silva

2016-11-01

The objectives of the study were to detect and genotype Cryptosporidium spp. and Giardia intestinalis in wastewater samples obtained from five cities with high transit of people in the State of São Paulo, Brazil, and at the entrance of a Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in Lima, Peru. Samples were collected and concentrated by centrifugation. The genomic DNA was extracted for molecular characterization by nested PCR for Cryptosporidium and double nested PCR for Giardia, followed by sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. G. intestinalis was found in 63.6 % of the samples, and the human assemblages A and B were identified. Cryptosporidium sp. was found in 36.4 % of the samples, and the species were corresponding to Cryptosporidium hominis, Cryptosporidium cuniculus, and Cryptosporidium muris. Results revealed the presence of human pathogenic Cryptosporidium species and G. intestinalis human pathogenic assemblages. Molecular tools highlight the importance to map the genetic diversity of these parasites, as well as to detect their epidemiological circulation pathway in the environment.

A novel high-resolution multilocus sequence typing of Giardia intestinalis Assemblage A isolates reveals zoonotic transmission, clonal outbreaks and recombination.

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Ankarklev, Johan; Lebbad, Marianne; Einarsson, Elin; Franzén, Oscar; Ahola, Harri; Troell, Karin; Svärd, Staffan G

2018-06-01

Molecular epidemiology and genotyping studies of the parasitic protozoan Giardia intestinalis have proven difficult due to multiple factors, such as low discriminatory power in the commonly used genotyping loci, which has hampered molecular analyses of outbreak sources, zoonotic transmission and virulence types. Here we have focused on assemblage A Giardia and developed a high-resolution assemblage-specific multilocus sequence typing (MLST) method. Analyses of sequenced G. intestinalis assemblage A genomes from different sub-assemblages identified a set of six genetic loci with high genetic variability. DNA samples from both humans (n = 44) and animals (n = 18) that harbored Giardia assemblage A infections, were PCR amplified (557-700 bp products) and sequenced at the six novel genetic loci. Bioinformatic analyses showed five to ten-fold higher levels of polymorphic sites than what was previously found among assemblage A samples using the classic genotyping loci. Phylogenetically, a division of two major clusters in assemblage A became apparent, separating samples of human and animal origin. A subset of human samples (n = 9) from a documented Giardia outbreak in a Swedish day-care center, showed full complementarity at nine genetic loci (the six new and the standard BG, TPI and GDH loci), strongly suggesting one source of infection. Furthermore, three samples of human origin displayed MLST profiles that were phylogenetically more closely related to MLST profiles from animal derived samples, suggesting zoonotic transmission. These new genotyping loci enabled us to detect events of recombination between different assemblage A isolates but also between assemblage A and E isolates. In summary, we present a novel and expanded MLST strategy with significantly improved sensitivity for molecular analyses of virulence types, zoonotic potential and source tracking for assemblage A Giardia. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

The Ciona intestinalis immune-related galectin genes (CiLgals-a and CiLgals-b) are expressed by the gastric epithelium.

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Parrinello, Daniela; Sanfratello, Maria Antonietta; Vizzini, Aiti; Testasecca, Lelia; Parrinello, Nicolò; Cammarata, Matteo

2017-03-01

The transcription of two Ciona intestinalis galectin genes (CiLgals-a and CiLgals-b) is uparegulated by LPS in the pharynxis (hemocytes, vessel epithelium, endostilar zones) which is retained the main organ of the immunity. In this ascidian, for the first time we show, by immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization methods, that these two immune-related genes are expressed in the gastric epithelium of naïve ascidians, whereas the galectins appear to be only contained in the intestine columnar epithelium. In addition, according to previous results on the pharynx, the genes are also expressed and galectins produced by hemocytes scattered in the connective tissue surrounding the gut. The genes expression and galectin localization in several tissues, including the previous findings on the transcription upregulation, the constitutive expression of these genes by endostylar zones and by the gastric epithelium suggest a potential multifunctional role of these galectins. In this respect, it is of interest to define where the CiLgals are normally found as related to the tissue functions. Such an approach should be a starting point for further investigations. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A spore counting method and cell culture model for chlorine disinfection studies of Encephalitozoon syn. Septata intestinalis.

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Wolk, D M; Johnson, C H; Rice, E W; Marshall, M M; Grahn, K F; Plummer, C B; Sterling, C R

2000-04-01

The microsporidia have recently been recognized as a group of pathogens that have potential for waterborne transmission; however, little is known about the effects of routine disinfection on microsporidian spore viability. In this study, in vitro growth of Encephalitozoon syn. Septata intestinalis, a microsporidium found in the human gut, was used as a model to assess the effect of chlorine on the infectivity and viability of microsporidian spores. Spore inoculum concentrations were determined by using spectrophotometric measurements (percent transmittance at 625 nm) and by traditional hemacytometer counting. To determine quantitative dose-response data for spore infectivity, we optimized a rabbit kidney cell culture system in 24-well plates, which facilitated calculation of a 50% tissue culture infective dose (TCID(50)) and a minimal infective dose (MID) for E. intestinalis. The TCID(50) is a quantitative measure of infectivity and growth and is the number of organisms that must be present to infect 50% of the cell culture wells tested. The MID is as a measure of a system's permissiveness to infection and a measure of spore infectivity. A standardized MID and a standardized TCID(50) have not been reported previously for any microsporidian species. Both types of doses are reported in this paper, and the values were used to evaluate the effects of chlorine disinfection on the in vitro growth of microsporidia. Spores were treated with chlorine at concentrations of 0, 1, 2, 5, and 10 mg/liter. The exposure times ranged from 0 to 80 min at 25 degrees C and pH 7. MID data for E. intestinalis were compared before and after chlorine disinfection. A 3-log reduction (99.9% inhibition) in the E. intestinalis MID was observed at a chlorine concentration of 2 mg/liter after a minimum exposure time of 16 min. The log(10) reduction results based on percent transmittance-derived spore counts were equivalent to the results based on hemacytometer-derived spore counts. Our data

Confirmed detection of Cyclospora cayetanesis, Encephalitozoon intestinalis and Cryptosporidium parvum in water used for drinking.

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Dowd, Scot E; John, David; Eliopolus, James; Gerba, Charles P; Naranjo, Jaime; Klein, Robert; López, Beatriz; de Mejía, Maricruz; Mendoza, Carlos E; Pepper, Ian L

2003-09-01

Human enteropathogenic microsporidia (HEM), Cryptosporidium parvum, Cyclospora cayetanesis, and Giardia lamblia are associated with gastrointestinal disease in humans. To date, the mode of transmission and environmental occurrence of HEM (Encephalitozoon intestinalis and Enterocytozoon bieneusi) and Cyclospora cayetanesis have not been fully elucidated due to lack of sensitive and specific environmental screening methods. The present study was undertaken with recently developed methods, to screen various water sources used for public consumption in rural areas around the city of Guatemala. Water concentrates collected in these areas were subjected to community DNA extraction followed by PCR amplification, PCR sequencing and computer database homology comparison (CDHC). All water samples screened in this study had been previously confirmed positive for Giardia spp. by immunofluorescent assay (IFA). Of the 12 water concentrates screened, 6 showed amplification of microsporidial SSU-rDNA and were subsequently confirmed to be Encephalitozoon intestinalis. Five of the samples allowed for amplification of Cyclospora 18S-rDNA; three of these were confirmed to be Cyclospora cayetanesis while two could not be identified because of inadequate sequence information. Thus, this study represents the first confirmed identification of Cyclospora cayetanesis and Encephalitozoon intestinalis in source water used for consumption. The fact that the waters tested may be used for human consumption indicates that these emerging protozoa may be transmitted by ingestion of contaminated water.

Comparison of the levels of intra-specific genetic variation within Giardia muris and Giardia intestinalis.

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Andrews, R H; Monis, P T; Ey, P L; Mayrhofer, G

1998-08-01

The extent of intra-specific genetic variation between isolates of Giardia muris was assessed by allozyme electrophoresis. Additionally, the levels of allozymic variation detected within G. muris were compared with those observed between members of the two major assemblages of the morphologically distinct species Giardia intestinalis. Four isolates of G. muris were analysed. Three (Ad-120, -150, -151) were isolated from mice in Australia, while the fourth (R-T) was isolated from a golden hamster in North America. The 11 isolates of G. intestinalis (Ad-1, -12, -2, -62, representing genetic Groups I and II of Assemblage A and BAH-12, BRIS/87/HEPU/694, Ad-19, -22, -28, -45, -52, representing genetic Groups III and IV of Assemblage B) were from humans in Australia. Intra-specific genetic variation was detected between G. muris isolates at four of the 23 enzyme loci examined. Similar levels of variation were found within the genetic groups that comprise Assemblages A and B of G. intestinalis. These levels of intra-specific variation are similar to those observed within other morphologically-distinct species of protozoan parasites. We suggest that the magnitude of the genetic differences detected within G. muris provides an indication of the range of genetic variation within other species of Giardia and that this can be used as a model to delineate morphologically similar but genetically distinct (cryptic) species within this genus.

Host switch and infestation by Ligula intestinalis L. in a silver bream (Blicca bjoerkna L.) population.

Science.gov (United States)

Vanacker, M; Masson, G; Beisel, J-N

2012-03-01

Sampling of the fish community was carried out for 20 years in the Mirgenbach reservoir, in North-Eastern France. The prevalence and the mean intensity of Ligula intestinalis (Cestoda) were analysed in roach (Rutilus rutilus) and silver bream (Blicca bjoerkna) populations, the main two infected species. The aim of this study was to investigate the host switch from roach to silver bream and the consequences of L. intestinalis infestation in silver bream, which is an unusual host for this parasite as Ligula parasitism in silver bream appears to be rare. We analysed in detail the relationships between parasitism index (PI), gonadosomatic index (GSI), perivisceral fat abundance (PFA) and condition index (CI) in the silver bream population. In 1998, prevalence of L. intestinalis highlighted a clear host switch from roach to silver bream. In the silver bream population, young fish were the most severely infected and the impact of plerocercoids appeared to be different depending on the host sex. In male silver bream, plerocercoids drew energy from fat reserves even if GSI was also slightly impacted. On the contrary, in females energy was diverted from gonad maturation rather than from perivisceral fat reserves. No significant difference was observed in terms of CI in either sex.

Bacteria-induced morphogenesis of Ulva intestinalis and Ulva mutabilis (Chlorophyta): a contribution to the lottery theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Ghaderiardakani, Fatemeh; Coates, Juliet C; Wichard, Thomas

2017-08-01

The green marine macroalgae of the class Ulvophyceae (Ulvophytes) are common algae distributed worldwide particularly in intertidal areas, which play a key role in aquatic ecosystems. They are potentially valuable resources for food, animal feed and fuel but can also cause massive nuisance blooms. Members of Ulvaceae, like many other seaweeds, harbour a rich diversity of epiphytic bacteria with functions related to host growth and morphological development. In the absence of appropriate bacterially derived signals, germ cells of the genus Ulva develop into 'atypical' colonies consisting of undifferentiated cells with abnormal cell walls. This paper examines the specificity of bacteria-induced morphogenesis in Ulva, by cross-testing bacteria isolated from several Ulva species on two Ulva species, the emerging model system Ulva mutabilis and the prominent biofouler species Ulva intestinalis. We show that pairs of bacterial strains isolated from species other than U. mutabilis and U. intestinalis can fully rescue axenic plantlets generated either from U. mutabilis or U. intestinalis gametes. This laboratory-based study demonstrates that different compositions of microbial communities with similar functional characteristics can enable complete algal morphogenesis and thus supports the 'competitive lottery' theory for how symbiotic bacteria drive algal development. © FEMS 2017. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Characteristics and antioxidant of Ulva intestinalis sulphated polysaccharides extracted with different solvents.

Science.gov (United States)

Peasura, Napassorn; Laohakunjit, Natta; Kerdchoechuen, Orapin; Wanlapa, Sorada

2015-11-01

Ulva intestinalis, a tubular green seaweed, is a rich source of nutrient, especially sulphated polysaccharides. Sulphated polysaccharides from U. intestinalis were extracted with distilled water, 0.1N HCl, and 0.1N NaOH at 80°C for 1, 3, 6, 12, and 24h to study the effect of the extraction solvent and time on their chemical composition and antioxidant activity. Different types of solvents and extraction time had a significant influence on the chemical characteristics and antioxidant activity (pMonosaccharide composition and FT-IR spectra analyses revealed that sulphated polysaccharides from all solvent extractions have a typical sugar backbone (glucose, rhamnose, and sulphate attached at C-2 or C-3 of rhamnose). Sulphated polysaccharides extracted with acid exhibited greater antioxidant activity than did those extracted with distilled water and alkali. The results indicated that solvent extraction could be an efficacious method for enhancing antioxidant activity by distinct molecular weight and chemical characteristic of sulphated polysaccharides. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Efecto de la ciclosporina A en ratones C57BL/6 infectados con Encephalitozoon intestinalis.

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Ana Luz Galván

2006-03-01

Full Text Available Introducción. Encephalitozoon intestinalis es un microsporidio parásito del intestino, que puede diseminarse en pacientes inmunocomprometidos. Existen referencias de modelos animales inmunosuprimidos para el estudio de la microsporidiosis utilizando fármacos que producen supresión total de la respuesta inmune; sin embargo, no se han estudiado los efectos de inmunosupresores con acción selectiva sobre los componentes de esta respuesta. Objetivo. Evaluar el efecto de la inmunosupresión con ciclosporina A (CsA en ratones C57BL/6 infectados con E. intestinalis. Materiales y métodos. Se utilizaron 80 ratones C57BL/6 distribuidos en cuatro grupos: infectados, inmunosuprimidos e infectados, inmunosuprimidos no infectados y controles. La inmunosupresión con CsA (50 mg/kg se realizó vía intraperitoneal durante todo el estudio. En la semanas 2, 3, 4 y 6 posteriores a la infección se obtuvo sangre para determinar los anticuerpos, y materia fecal para evaluar la cinética de excreción de esporas. Además, se extrajeron varios órganos para estudiar la histopatología y observar la posible diseminación del parásito. Resultados. La producción de anticuerpos IgG fue mayor en los ratones inmunocompetentes infectados que en los inmunosuprimidos infectados con E. intestinalis. No se encontró el parásito en órganos diferentes al intestino delgado en los dos grupos infectados. Sin embargo, la excreción de esporas, tanto en heces como en líquido duodenal, fue mayor en el grupo inmunosuprimido infectado. Conclusión. La CsA en el modelo en ratón no indujo la diseminación de E. intestinalis ni la exacerbación de la enfermedad, pero contribuyó al aumento en la cinética de excreción de esporas y la disminución de la producción de anticuerpos IgG en los ratones inmunosuprimidos infectados.

Transcription profile of Escherichia coli: genomic SELEX search for regulatory targets of transcription factors.

Science.gov (United States)

Ishihama, Akira; Shimada, Tomohiro; Yamazaki, Yukiko

2016-03-18

Bacterial genomes are transcribed by DNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RNAP), which achieves gene selectivity through interaction with sigma factors that recognize promoters, and transcription factors (TFs) that control the activity and specificity of RNAP holoenzyme. To understand the molecular mechanisms of transcriptional regulation, the identification of regulatory targets is needed for all these factors. We then performed genomic SELEX screenings of targets under the control of each sigma factor and each TF. Here we describe the assembly of 156 SELEX patterns of a total of 116 TFs performed in the presence and absence of effector ligands. The results reveal several novel concepts: (i) each TF regulates more targets than hitherto recognized; (ii) each promoter is regulated by more TFs than hitherto recognized; and (iii) the binding sites of some TFs are located within operons and even inside open reading frames. The binding sites of a set of global regulators, including cAMP receptor protein, LeuO and Lrp, overlap with those of the silencer H-NS, suggesting that certain global regulators play an anti-silencing role. To facilitate sharing of these accumulated SELEX datasets with the research community, we compiled a database, 'Transcription Profile of Escherichia coli' (www.shigen.nig.ac.jp/ecoli/tec/). © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Transcriptional profiling of the bovine hepatic response to experimentally induced E. coli mastitis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Hanne Birgitte Hede; Buitenhuis, Bart; Røntved, Christine Maria

2012-01-01

The mammalian liver works to keep the body in a state of homeostasis and plays an important role in systemic acute phase response to infections. In this study we investigated the bovine hepatic acute phase response at the gene transcription level in dairy cows with experimentally E. coli-induced ......The mammalian liver works to keep the body in a state of homeostasis and plays an important role in systemic acute phase response to infections. In this study we investigated the bovine hepatic acute phase response at the gene transcription level in dairy cows with experimentally E. coli......-induced mastitis. At time = 0, each of 16 periparturient dairy cows received 20-40 CFU of live E. coli in one front quarter of the udder. A time series of liver biopsies was collected at -144, 12, 24 and 192 hours relative to time of inoculation. Changes in transcription levels in response to E. coli inoculation...... were analyzed using the Bovine Genome Array and tested significant for 408 transcripts over the time series (adjusted p0.05; abs(fold-change)>2). After 2-D clustering, transcripts represented three distinct transcription profiles: 1) regulation of gene transcription and apoptosis, 2) responses...

JASPAR 2016: a major expansion and update of the open-access database of transcription factor binding profiles.

Science.gov (United States)

Mathelier, Anthony; Fornes, Oriol; Arenillas, David J; Chen, Chih-Yu; Denay, Grégoire; Lee, Jessica; Shi, Wenqiang; Shyr, Casper; Tan, Ge; Worsley-Hunt, Rebecca; Zhang, Allen W; Parcy, François; Lenhard, Boris; Sandelin, Albin; Wasserman, Wyeth W

2016-01-04

JASPAR (http://jaspar.genereg.net) is an open-access database storing curated, non-redundant transcription factor (TF) binding profiles representing transcription factor binding preferences as position frequency matrices for multiple species in six taxonomic groups. For this 2016 release, we expanded the JASPAR CORE collection with 494 new TF binding profiles (315 in vertebrates, 11 in nematodes, 3 in insects, 1 in fungi and 164 in plants) and updated 59 profiles (58 in vertebrates and 1 in fungi). The introduced profiles represent an 83% expansion and 10% update when compared to the previous release. We updated the structural annotation of the TF DNA binding domains (DBDs) following a published hierarchical structural classification. In addition, we introduced 130 transcription factor flexible models trained on ChIP-seq data for vertebrates, which capture dinucleotide dependencies within TF binding sites. This new JASPAR release is accompanied by a new web tool to infer JASPAR TF binding profiles recognized by a given TF protein sequence. Moreover, we provide the users with a Ruby module complementing the JASPAR API to ease programmatic access and use of the JASPAR collection of profiles. Finally, we provide the JASPAR2016 R/Bioconductor data package with the data of this release. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Comprehensive analysis of the transcriptional profile of the Mediator complex across human cancer types.

Science.gov (United States)

Syring, Isabella; Klümper, Niklas; Offermann, Anne; Braun, Martin; Deng, Mario; Boehm, Diana; Queisser, Angela; von Mässenhausen, Anne; Brägelmann, Johannes; Vogel, Wenzel; Schmidt, Doris; Majores, Michael; Schindler, Anne; Kristiansen, Glen; Müller, Stefan C; Ellinger, Jörg; Shaikhibrahim, Zaki; Perner, Sven

2016-04-26

The Mediator complex is a key regulator of gene transcription and several studies demonstrated altered expressions of particular subunits in diverse human diseases, especially cancer. However a systematic study deciphering the transcriptional expression of the Mediator across different cancer entities is still lacking.We therefore performed a comprehensive in silico cancer vs. benign analysis of the Mediator complex subunits (MEDs) for 20 tumor entities using Oncomine datasets. The transcriptional expression profiles across almost all cancer entities showed differentially expressed MEDs as compared to benign tissue. Differential expression of MED8 in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and MED12 in lung cancer (LCa) were validated and further investigated by immunohistochemical staining on tissue microarrays containing large numbers of specimen. MED8 in clear cell RCC (ccRCC) associated with shorter survival and advanced TNM stage and showed higher expression in metastatic than primary tumors. In vitro, siRNA mediated MED8 knockdown significantly impaired proliferation and motility in ccRCC cell lines, hinting at a role for MED8 to serve as a novel therapeutic target in ccRCC. Taken together, our Mediator complex transcriptome proved to be a valid tool for identifying cancer-related shifts in Mediator complex composition, revealing that MEDs do exhibit cancer specific transcriptional expression profiles.

Transcriptional profiling of endocrine cerebro-osteodysplasia using microarray and next-generation sequencing.

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Piya Lahiry

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Transcriptome profiling of patterns of RNA expression is a powerful approach to identify networks of genes that play a role in disease. To date, most mRNA profiling of tissues has been accomplished using microarrays, but next-generation sequencing can offer a richer and more comprehensive picture. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: ECO is a rare multi-system developmental disorder caused by a homozygous mutation in ICK encoding intestinal cell kinase. We performed gene expression profiling using both cDNA microarrays and next-generation mRNA sequencing (mRNA-seq of skin fibroblasts from ECO-affected subjects. We then validated a subset of differentially expressed transcripts identified by each method using quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR. Finally, we used gene ontology (GO to identify critical pathways and processes that were abnormal according to each technical platform. Methodologically, mRNA-seq identifies a much larger number of differentially expressed genes with much better correlation to qRT-PCR results than the microarray (r² = 0.794 and 0.137, respectively. Biologically, cDNA microarray identified functional pathways focused on anatomical structure and development, while the mRNA-seq platform identified a higher proportion of genes involved in cell division and DNA replication pathways. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Transcriptome profiling with mRNA-seq had greater sensitivity, range and accuracy than the microarray. The two platforms generated different but complementary hypotheses for further evaluation.

Evidence from bioinformatics, expression and inhibition studies of phosphoinositide-3 kinase signalling in Giardia intestinalis

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Crompton Mark R

2006-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Giardia intestinalis is a parasitic protozoan and major cause of diarrhoeal disease. Disease transmission is dependent on the ability of the parasite to differentiate back and forth between an intestine-colonising trophozoite and an environmentally-resistant infective cyst. Our current understanding of the intracellular signalling mechanisms that regulate parasite replication and differentiation is limited, yet such information could suggest new methods of disease control. Phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K signalling pathways have a central involvement in many vital eukaryotic processes, such as regulation of cell growth, intracellular membrane trafficking and cell motility. Here we present evidence for the existence of functional PI3K intracellular signalling pathways in G. intestinalis. Results We have identified and characterised two genes, Gipi3k1 and Gipi3k2, which encode putative PI3Ks. Both genes are expressed in trophozoites and encysting cells, suggesting a possible role of GiPI3K1 and GiPI3K2 in regulating giardial growth and differentiation. Extensive nucleotide and amino acid sequence characterisation predicts that both encoded PI3Ks are functional as indicated by the presence of highly conserved structural domains and essential catalytic residues. The inhibitory effect of the PI3K inhibitor LY294002 on trophozoite proliferation also supports their functionality. Phylogenetic analysis supports the identity of GiPI3K1 as a Class I isoform and GiPI3K2 as a Class III isoform. In addition, giardial genes encoding putative homologues of phosphoinositide-metabolising enzymes such as PTEN, MTM, PIPkin and PI 5-phosphatase as well as downstream effectors with phosphoinositide-binding domains have been identified, placing GiPI3K1 and GiPI3K2 in a broader signalling context. Compared with twenty-six PI3Ks from other organisms, GiPI3K1 and GiPI3K2 are unique in that they contain large insertions within their highly conserved

Transcriptional Profiling of Biofilm Regulators Identified by an Overexpression Screen in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

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Cromie, Gareth A.; Tan, Zhihao; Hays, Michelle; Sirr, Amy; Jeffery, Eric W.; Dudley, Aimée M.

2017-01-01

Biofilm formation by microorganisms is a major cause of recurring infections and removal of biofilms has proven to be extremely difficult given their inherent drug resistance . Understanding the biological processes that underlie biofilm formation is thus extremely important and could lead to the development of more effective drug therapies, resulting in better infection outcomes. Using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a biofilm model, overexpression screens identified DIG1, SFL1, HEK2, TOS8, SAN1, and ROF1/YHR177W as regulators of biofilm formation. Subsequent RNA-seq analysis of biofilm and nonbiofilm-forming strains revealed that all of the overexpression strains, other than DIG1 and TOS8, were adopting a single differential expression profile, although induced to varying degrees. TOS8 adopted a separate profile, while the expression profile of DIG1 reflected the common pattern seen in most of the strains, plus substantial DIG1-specific expression changes. We interpret the existence of the common transcriptional pattern seen across multiple, unrelated overexpression strains as reflecting a transcriptional state, that the yeast cell can access through regulatory signaling mechanisms, allowing an adaptive morphological change between biofilm-forming and nonbiofilm states. PMID:28673928

In vivo transcriptional profile analysis reveals RNA splicing and chromatin remodeling as prominent processes for adult neurogenesis.

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Lim, Daniel A; Suárez-Fariñas, Mayte; Naef, Felix; Hacker, Coleen R; Menn, Benedicte; Takebayashi, Hirohide; Magnasco, Marcelo; Patil, Nila; Alvarez-Buylla, Arturo

2006-01-01

Neural stem cells and neurogenesis persist in the adult mammalian brain subventricular zone (SVZ). Cells born in the rodent SVZ migrate to the olfactory bulb (Ob) where they differentiate into interneurons. To determine the gene expression and functional profile of SVZ neurogenesis, we performed three complementary sets of transcriptional analysis experiments using Affymetrix GeneChips: (1) comparison of adult mouse SVZ and Ob gene expression profiles with those of the striatum, cerebral cortex, and hippocampus; (2) profiling of SVZ stem cells and ependyma isolated by fluorescent-activated cell sorting (FACS); and (3) analysis of gene expression changes during in vivo SVZ regeneration after anti-mitotic treatment. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of data from these three separate approaches showed that in adult SVZ neurogenesis, RNA splicing and chromatin remodeling are biological processes as statistically significant as cell proliferation, transcription, and neurogenesis. In non-neurogenic brain regions, RNA splicing and chromatin remodeling were not prominent processes. Fourteen mRNA splicing factors including Sf3b1, Sfrs2, Lsm4, and Khdrbs1/Sam68 were detected along with 9 chromatin remodeling genes including Mll, Bmi1, Smarcad1, Baf53a, and Hat1. We validated the transcriptional profile data with Northern blot analysis and in situ hybridization. The data greatly expand the catalogue of cell cycle components, transcription factors, and migration genes for adult SVZ neurogenesis and reveal RNA splicing and chromatin remodeling as prominent biological processes for these germinal cells.

Transcriptional profiling reveals gland-specific differential expression in the three major salivary glands of the adult mouse.

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Gao, Xin; Oei, Maria S; Ovitt, Catherine E; Sincan, Murat; Melvin, James E

2018-04-01

RNA-Seq was used to better understand the molecular nature of the biological differences among the three major exocrine salivary glands in mammals. Transcriptional profiling found that the adult murine parotid, submandibular, and sublingual salivary glands express greater than 14,300 protein-coding genes, and nearly 2,000 of these genes were differentially expressed. Principle component analysis of the differentially expressed genes revealed three distinct clusters according to gland type. The three salivary gland transcriptomes were dominated by a relatively few number of highly expressed genes (6.3%) that accounted for more than 90% of transcriptional output. Of the 912 transcription factors expressed in the major salivary glands, greater than 90% of them were detected in all three glands, while expression for ~2% of them was enriched in an individual gland. Expression of these unique transcription factors correlated with sublingual and parotid specific subsets of both highly expressed and differentially expressed genes. Gene ontology analyses revealed that the highly expressed genes common to all glands were associated with global functions, while many of the genes expressed in a single gland play a major role in the function of that gland. In summary, transcriptional profiling of the three murine major salivary glands identified a limited number of highly expressed genes, differentially expressed genes, and unique transcription factors that represent the transcriptional signatures underlying gland-specific biological properties.

Bacteroides intestinalis DSM 17393, a member of the human colonic microbiome, upregulates multiple endoxylanases during growth on xylan.

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Wang, Kui; Pereira, Gabriel V; Cavalcante, Janaina J V; Zhang, Meiling; Mackie, Roderick; Cann, Isaac

2016-09-29

Many human diets contain arabinoxylan, and the ease of genome sequencing coupled with reduced cost have led to unraveling the arsenal of genes utilized by the colonic Bacteroidetes to depolymerize this polysaccharide. The colonic Bacteroidetes with potential to ferment arabinoxylans include Bacteroides intestinalis. In this study, we analyzed the hydrolytic activities of members of a xylan degradation cluster encoded on the genome of Bacteroides intestinalis DSM 17393. Here, it is demonstrated that a cocktail of the xylanolytic enzymes completely hydrolyze arabinoxylans found in human diets. We show that this bacterium and relatives have evolved and secrete a unique bifunctional endoxylanase/arabinofuranosidase in the same polypeptide. The bifunctional enzyme and other secreted enzymes attack the polysaccharides extracellularly to remove the side-chains, exposing the xylan backbone for cleavage to xylo-oligosaccharides and xylose. These end products are transported into the cell where a β-xylosidase cleaves the oligosaccharides to fermentable sugars. While our experiments focused on B. intestinalis, it is likely that the extracellular enzymes also release nutrients to members of the colonic microbial community that practice cross-feeding. The presence of the genes characterized in this study in other colonic Bacteroidetes suggests a conserved strategy for energy acquisition from arabinoxylan, a component of human diets.

Spatial and Single-Cell Transcriptional Profiling Identifies Functionally Distinct Human Dermal Fibroblast Subpopulations.

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Philippeos, Christina; Telerman, Stephanie B; Oulès, Bénédicte; Pisco, Angela O; Shaw, Tanya J; Elgueta, Raul; Lombardi, Giovanna; Driskell, Ryan R; Soldin, Mark; Lynch, Magnus D; Watt, Fiona M

2018-04-01

Previous studies have shown that mouse dermis is composed of functionally distinct fibroblast lineages. To explore the extent of fibroblast heterogeneity in human skin, we used a combination of comparative spatial transcriptional profiling of human and mouse dermis and single-cell transcriptional profiling of human dermal fibroblasts. We show that there are at least four distinct fibroblast populations in adult human skin, not all of which are spatially segregated. We define markers permitting their isolation and show that although marker expression is lost in culture, different fibroblast subpopulations retain distinct functionality in terms of Wnt signaling, responsiveness to IFN-γ, and ability to support human epidermal reconstitution when introduced into decellularized dermis. These findings suggest that ex vivo expansion or in vivo ablation of specific fibroblast subpopulations may have therapeutic applications in wound healing and diseases characterized by excessive fibrosis. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis associated with massive free air mimicking perforated diffuse peritonitis

OpenAIRE

Sakurai, Yoichi; Hikichi, Masahiro; Isogaki, Jun; Furuta, Shinpei; Sunagawa, Risaburo; Inaba, Kazuki; Komori, Yoshiyuki; Uyama, Ichiro

2008-01-01

While pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis (PCI) is a rare disease entity associated with a wide variety of gastrointestinal and non-gastrointestinal disorders, PCI associated with massive intra- and retroperitoneal free air is extremely uncommon, and is difficult to diagnose differentially from perforated peritonitis. We present two cases of PCI associated with massive peritoneal free air and/or retroperitoneal air that mimicked perforated peritonitis. These cases highlight the clinical import...

Berry flesh and skin ripening features in Vitis vinifera as assessed by transcriptional profiling.

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Diego Lijavetzky

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Ripening of fleshy fruit is a complex developmental process involving the differentiation of tissues with separate functions. During grapevine berry ripening important processes contributing to table and wine grape quality take place, some of them flesh- or skin-specific. In this study, transcriptional profiles throughout flesh and skin ripening were followed during two different seasons in a table grape cultivar 'Muscat Hamburg' to determine tissue-specific as well as common developmental programs. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using an updated GrapeGen Affymetrix GeneChip® annotation based on grapevine 12×v1 gene predictions, 2188 differentially accumulated transcripts between flesh and skin and 2839 transcripts differentially accumulated throughout ripening in the same manner in both tissues were identified. Transcriptional profiles were dominated by changes at the beginning of veraison which affect both pericarp tissues, although frequently delayed or with lower intensity in the skin than in the flesh. Functional enrichment analysis identified the decay on biosynthetic processes, photosynthesis and transport as a major part of the program delayed in the skin. In addition, a higher number of functional categories, including several related to macromolecule transport and phenylpropanoid and lipid biosynthesis, were over-represented in transcripts accumulated to higher levels in the skin. Functional enrichment also indicated auxin, gibberellins and bHLH transcription factors to take part in the regulation of pre-veraison processes in the pericarp, whereas WRKY and C2H2 family transcription factors seems to more specifically participate in the regulation of skin and flesh ripening, respectively. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: A transcriptomic analysis indicates that a large part of the ripening program is shared by both pericarp tissues despite some components are delayed in the skin. In addition, important tissue differences are

RNA-Seq for gene identification and transcript profiling of three Stevia rebaudiana genotypes.

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Chen, Junwen; Hou, Kai; Qin, Peng; Liu, Hongchang; Yi, Bin; Yang, Wenting; Wu, Wei

2014-07-07

Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) is an important medicinal plant that yields diterpenoid steviol glycosides (SGs). SGs are currently used in the preparation of medicines, food products and neutraceuticals because of its sweetening property (zero calories and about 300 times sweeter than sugar). Recently, some progress has been made in understanding the biosynthesis of SGs in Stevia, but little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying this process. Additionally, the genomics of Stevia, a non-model species, remains uncharacterized. The recent advent of RNA-Seq, a next generation sequencing technology, provides an opportunity to expand the identification of Stevia genes through in-depth transcript profiling. We present a comprehensive landscape of the transcriptome profiles of three genotypes of Stevia with divergent SG compositions characterized using RNA-seq. 191,590,282 high-quality reads were generated and then assembled into 171,837 transcripts with an average sequence length of 969 base pairs. A total of 80,160 unigenes were annotated, and 14,211 of the unique sequences were assigned to specific metabolic pathways by the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes. Gene sequences of all enzymes known to be involved in SG synthesis were examined. A total of 143 UDP-glucosyltransferase (UGT) unigenes were identified, some of which might be involved in SG biosynthesis. The expression patterns of eight of these genes were further confirmed by RT-QPCR. RNA-seq analysis identified candidate genes encoding enzymes responsible for the biosynthesis of SGs in Stevia, a non-model plant without a reference genome. The transcriptome data from this study yielded new insights into the process of SG accumulation in Stevia. Our results demonstrate that RNA-Seq can be successfully used for gene identification and transcript profiling in a non-model species.

A linear programming approach for estimating the structure of a sparse linear genetic network from transcript profiling data

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Chandra Nagasuma R

2009-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background A genetic network can be represented as a directed graph in which a node corresponds to a gene and a directed edge specifies the direction of influence of one gene on another. The reconstruction of such networks from transcript profiling data remains an important yet challenging endeavor. A transcript profile specifies the abundances of many genes in a biological sample of interest. Prevailing strategies for learning the structure of a genetic network from high-dimensional transcript profiling data assume sparsity and linearity. Many methods consider relatively small directed graphs, inferring graphs with up to a few hundred nodes. This work examines large undirected graphs representations of genetic networks, graphs with many thousands of nodes where an undirected edge between two nodes does not indicate the direction of influence, and the problem of estimating the structure of such a sparse linear genetic network (SLGN from transcript profiling data. Results The structure learning task is cast as a sparse linear regression problem which is then posed as a LASSO (l1-constrained fitting problem and solved finally by formulating a Linear Program (LP. A bound on the Generalization Error of this approach is given in terms of the Leave-One-Out Error. The accuracy and utility of LP-SLGNs is assessed quantitatively and qualitatively using simulated and real data. The Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessments and Methods (DREAM initiative provides gold standard data sets and evaluation metrics that enable and facilitate the comparison of algorithms for deducing the structure of networks. The structures of LP-SLGNs estimated from the INSILICO1, INSILICO2 and INSILICO3 simulated DREAM2 data sets are comparable to those proposed by the first and/or second ranked teams in the DREAM2 competition. The structures of LP-SLGNs estimated from two published Saccharomyces cerevisae cell cycle transcript profiling data sets capture known

First report of [i]Enterocytozoon[/i] bieneusi and [i]Encephalitozoon intestinalis[/i] infection of wild mice in Slovakia

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Oľga Danišová

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Increased risk of zoonotic transmission of the potential human pathogenic species [i]Enterocytozoon bieneusi[/i], [i]Encephalitozoon intestinalis[/i] and [i]Encephalitozoon cuniculi [/i]was detected in wild immunocompetent mice (Mus musculus musculus; n=280. Analysis was conducted with the use of PMP1/PMP2 primers and SYBR Green RT-PCR. Using Real Time PCR and comparing the sequences with sequences in the GenBank, [i]E. bieneusi[/i] was detected in 3 samples (1.07 %, [i]E. cuniculi [/i]in 1 sample (0.35 % and [i]E. intestinalis[/i] in 1 sample (0.35 %. The results of this report document the low host specificity of detected microsporidia species, and imply the importance of synanthropic rodents as a potential source of human microsporidial infection.

Genome and transcriptome studies of the protozoan parasites Trypanosoma cruzi and Giardia intestinalis

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Franzén, Oscar

2012-01-01

Trypanosoma cruzi and Giardia intestinalis are two human pathogens and protozoan parasites responsible for the diseases Chagas disease and giardiasis, respectively. Both diseases cause su ering and illness in several million individuals. The former disease occurs primarily in South America and Central America, and the latter disease occurs worldwide. Current therapeutics are toxic and lack e cacy, and potential vaccines are far from the market. Increased knowledge about the bio...

Adverse Effect of Antifouling Compounds on the Reproductive Mechanisms of the Ascidian Ciona intestinalis

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Alessandra Gallo

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Fertilization and embryo development that occur in sea water are sensitive to xenobiotics from anthropogenic sources. In this work, we evaluated the influence of two antifouling biocides, tributyltin (TBT and diuron, on the reproductive mechanisms of the marine invertebrate Ciona intestinalis. By using electrophysiological techniques, we examined the impact of these compounds on the electrical properties of the mature oocytes and of events occurring at fertilization. With different toxicity assays, we studied the effect of the two biocides on the gametes by evaluating fertilization rate and embryo development. Results show that sodium (Na+ currents were significantly reduced by either of the two biocides, whereas conductance was significantly increased. The fertilization current frequency and amplitude, fertilization rate and larval development were affected only by TBT. This study suggests that: (i the two biocides affect either the electrical properties of the oocyte plasma membrane and the reproductive success representing a risk factor for the survival of the species exposed to environmental pollution; (ii the ascidian Ciona intestinalis may represent a good model organism to test toxicity of marine pollutants. Possible mechanisms of action of the two biocides are discussed.

Adverse Effect of Antifouling Compounds on the Reproductive Mechanisms of the Ascidian Ciona intestinalis

Science.gov (United States)

Gallo, Alessandra; Tosti, Elisabetta

2013-01-01

Fertilization and embryo development that occur in sea water are sensitive to xenobiotics from anthropogenic sources. In this work, we evaluated the influence of two antifouling biocides, tributyltin (TBT) and diuron, on the reproductive mechanisms of the marine invertebrate Ciona intestinalis. By using electrophysiological techniques, we examined the impact of these compounds on the electrical properties of the mature oocytes and of events occurring at fertilization. With different toxicity assays, we studied the effect of the two biocides on the gametes by evaluating fertilization rate and embryo development. Results show that sodium (Na+) currents were significantly reduced by either of the two biocides, whereas conductance was significantly increased. The fertilization current frequency and amplitude, fertilization rate and larval development were affected only by TBT. This study suggests that: (i) the two biocides affect either the electrical properties of the oocyte plasma membrane and the reproductive success representing a risk factor for the survival of the species exposed to environmental pollution; (ii) the ascidian Ciona intestinalis may represent a good model organism to test toxicity of marine pollutants. Possible mechanisms of action of the two biocides are discussed. PMID:24065165

Adverse effect of antifouling compounds on the reproductive mechanisms of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis.

Science.gov (United States)

Gallo, Alessandra; Tosti, Elisabetta

2013-09-20

Fertilization and embryo development that occur in sea water are sensitive to xenobiotics from anthropogenic sources. In this work, we evaluated the influence of two antifouling biocides, tributyltin (TBT) and diuron, on the reproductive mechanisms of the marine invertebrate Ciona intestinalis. By using electrophysiological techniques, we examined the impact of these compounds on the electrical properties of the mature oocytes and of events occurring at fertilization. With different toxicity assays, we studied the effect of the two biocides on the gametes by evaluating fertilization rate and embryo development. Results show that sodium (Na⁺) currents were significantly reduced by either of the two biocides, whereas conductance was significantly increased. The fertilization current frequency and amplitude, fertilization rate and larval development were affected only by TBT. This study suggests that: (i) the two biocides affect either the electrical properties of the oocyte plasma membrane and the reproductive success representing a risk factor for the survival of the species exposed to environmental pollution; (ii) the ascidian Ciona intestinalis may represent a good model organism to test toxicity of marine pollutants. Possible mechanisms of action of the two biocides are discussed.

Variations of transcript profiles between sea otters Enhydra lutris from Prince William Sound, Alaska, and clinically normal reference otters

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Miles, A. Keith; Bowen, Lizabeth; Ballachey, Brenda E.; Bodkin, James L.; Murray, M.; Estes, J.L.; Keister, Robin A.; Stott, J.L.

2012-01-01

Development of blood leukocyte gene transcript profiles has the potential to expand condition assessments beyond those currently available to evaluate wildlife health, including sea otters Enhydra lutris, both individually and as populations. The 10 genes targeted in our study represent multiple physiological systems that play a role in immuno-modulation, inflammation, cell protection, tumor suppression, cellular stress-response, xenobiotic metabolizing enzymes, and antioxidant enzymes. These genes can be modified by biological, physical, or anthropogenic impacts and consequently provide information on the general type of stressors present in a given environment. We compared gene transcript profiles of sea otters sampled in 2008 among areas within Prince William Sound impacted to varying degrees by the 1989 ‘Exxon Valdez’ oil spill with those of captive and wild reference sea otters. Profiles of sea otters from Prince William Sound showed elevated transcription in genes associated with tumor formation, cell death, organic exposure, inflammation, and viral exposure when compared to the reference sea otter group, indicating possible recent and chronic exposure to organic contaminants. Sea otters from historically designated oiled areas within Prince William Sound 19 yr after the oil spill had higher transcription of genes associated with tumor formation, cell death, heat shock, and inflammation than those from areas designated as less impacted by the spill.

Transcriptional profiling in human HaCaT keratinocytes in response to kaempferol and identification of potential transcription factors for regulating differential gene expression

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Kang, Byung Young; Lee, Ki-Hwan; Lee, Yong Sung; Hong, Il; Lee, Mi-Ock; Min, Daejin; Chang, Ihseop; Hwang, Jae Sung; Park, Jun Seong; Kim, Duck Hee

2008-01-01

Kaempferol is the major flavonol in green tea and exhibits many biomedically useful properties such as antioxidative, cytoprotective and anti-apoptotic activities. To elucidate its effects on the skin, we investigated the transcriptional profiles of kaempferol-treated HaCaT cells using cDNA microarray analysis and identified 147 transcripts that exhibited significant changes in expression. Of these, 18 were up-regulated and 129 were down-regulated. These transcripts were then classified into 12 categories according to their functional roles: cell adhesion/cytoskeleton, cell cycle, redox homeostasis, immune/defense responses, metabolism, protein biosynthesis/modification, intracellular transport, RNA processing, DNA modification/ replication, regulation of transcription, signal transduction and transport. We then analyzed the promoter sequences of differentially-regulated genes and identified over-represented regulatory sites and candidate transcription factors (TFs) for gene regulation by kaempferol. These included c-REL, SAP-1, Ahr-ARNT, Nrf-2, Elk-1, SPI-B, NF-κB and p65. In addition, we validated the microarray results and promoter analyses using conventional methods such as real-time PCR and ELISA-based transcription factor assay. Our microarray analysis has provided useful information for determining the genetic regulatory network affected by kaempferol, and this approach will be useful for elucidating gene-phytochemical interactions. PMID:18446059

Whole genome transcription profiling of Anaplasma phagocytophilum in human and tick host cells by tiling array analysis

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Chavez Adela

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Anaplasma phagocytophilum (Ap is an obligate intracellular bacterium and the agent of human granulocytic anaplasmosis, an emerging tick-borne disease. Ap alternately infects ticks and mammals and a variety of cell types within each. Understanding the biology behind such versatile cellular parasitism may be derived through the use of tiling microarrays to establish high resolution, genome-wide transcription profiles of the organism as it infects cell lines representative of its life cycle (tick; ISE6 and pathogenesis (human; HL-60 and HMEC-1. Results Detailed, host cell specific transcriptional behavior was revealed. There was extensive differential Ap gene transcription between the tick (ISE6 and the human (HL-60 and HMEC-1 cell lines, with far fewer differentially transcribed genes between the human cell lines, and all disproportionately represented by membrane or surface proteins. There were Ap genes exclusively transcribed in each cell line, apparent human- and tick-specific operons and paralogs, and anti-sense transcripts that suggest novel expression regulation processes. Seven virB2 paralogs (of the bacterial type IV secretion system showed human or tick cell dependent transcription. Previously unrecognized genes and coding sequences were identified, as were the expressed p44/msp2 (major surface proteins paralogs (of 114 total, through elevated signal produced to the unique hypervariable region of each – 2/114 in HL-60, 3/114 in HMEC-1, and none in ISE6. Conclusion Using these methods, whole genome transcription profiles can likely be generated for Ap, as well as other obligate intracellular organisms, in any host cells and for all stages of the cell infection process. Visual representation of comprehensive transcription data alongside an annotated map of the genome renders complex transcription into discernable patterns.

Comparison of microscopy, ELISA, and real-time PCR for detection of Giardia intestinalis in human stool specimens

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Beyhan, Yunus Emre; Taş Cengiz, Zeynep

2017-08-23

Background/aim: This study included patients who had digestive system complaints between August 2015 and October 2015. The research was designed to compare conventional microscopy with an antigen detection ELISA kit and the TaqMan-based real-time PCR (RT-PCR) technique for detection of Giardia intestinalis in human stool specimens. Materials and methods: Samples were concentrated by formalin-ether sedimentation technique and microscopic examinations were carried out on wet mount slides. A commercially available ELISA kit (Giardia CELISA, Cellabs, Brookvale, Australia) was used for immunoassay. DNA was extracted from fecal samples of about 200 mg using the QIAamp Fast DNA Stool Mini Kit (QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany) and the LightCycler Nano system (Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany) was used for the TaqMan-based RT-PCR assay. Results: A total of 94 stool samples, 38 of them diagnosed positive (40.4%) and 56 of them diagnosed negative by microscopy, were selected for evaluation by antigen detection and molecular assays. The prevalence of G. intestinalis infection was found as 46.8% (n: 44) and 79.8% (n: 75) by ELISA and RT-PCR, respectively. RT-PCR revealed by far the highest positivity rate compared to the other two methods. The difference between these methods was found to be statistically significant (P PCR, the sensitivity and specificity of microscopy and ELISA were 50.7% and 100% and 53.3% and 79%, respectively. Conclusion: RT-PCR seems to be much more sensitive and beneficial for rapid and accurate diagnosis of G. intestinalis in human stools.

ESTIMACIÓN DE LA FRECUENCIA DE INFECCIÓN POR GIARDIA INTESTINALIS EN COMUNIDADES INDÍGENAS Y AFROS DE COLOMBIA: ESTUDIO DE CORTE TRASVERSAL

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María Carolina Merchán Garzón

2016-04-01

Full Text Available

Introducción: Las infecciones parasitarias intestinales son un importante problema de salud púbica. Las parasitosis como la giardiasis, son de particular relevancia para el estudio de la salud en comunidades aisladas en Colombia.

Objetivo: describir la frecuencia de infección por G. intestinalis en 21 comunidades aisladas colombianas (18 comunidades indígenas y 3 comunidades negras.

Materiales y Métodos: análisis microscópico en campo de muestras de materia fecal de 671 muestras de voluntarios de 21 comunidades aisladas colombianas. Cálculo de prevalencia por comunidad y descripción de las condiciones nutricionales y de manejo de agua y excretas en las comunidades.

Resultados: la prevalencia global de infección por G. intestinalis en las comunidades aisladas estudiadas fue del 11% en comunidades indígenas y del 9% en comunidades negras. Las prevalencias por comunidad varían entre 0% hasta el 63%. El 100% de los individuos evaluados presentó algún tipo de parasitismo intestinal.

Discusión: el parasitismo intestinal por G. intestinalis tiene prevalencias similares a otros grupos indígenas de Sur América. La causa del parasitismo intestinal debe ser considerada según comunidad y de acuerdo a factores de riesgo conocidos, como manejo de excretas y acceso a agua potable.

GIARDIA INTESTINALIS INFECTION FREQUENCY ESTIMATE AMONG ABORIGINAL AND BLACK COMMUNITIES IN COLOMBIA: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Intestinal parasitic infections are a major problem of public health. Parasitic diseases such as giardiasis, are relevant for the study of health in isolated communities in Colombia.

Objective: To describe the frequency of G. intestinalis infection in 21 isolated communities in Colombia (18 indigenous communities and 3

Large-scale infection of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis by the gregarine Lankesteria ascidiae in an inland culture system.

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Mita, Kaoru; Kawai, Narudo; Rueckert, Sonja; Sasakura, Yasunori

2012-11-19

An important way to keep transgenic and mutant lines of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis, a model system for e.g. genetic functions, in laboratories is via culturing systems. Here we report a disease of C. intestinalis observed in an inland culturing system. The disease, called 'long feces syndrome,' is expressed in affected animals by the following characteristic symptoms of the digestive system: (1) excretion of long and thin feces, (2) pale color of the stomach, and (3) congestion of the digestive tube by digested material. Severely diseased animals usually die within a week after the first symptoms occur, implying a high risk of this disease for ascidian culturing systems. The digestive tubes of the diseased animals are occupied by the gregarine apicomplexan parasite Lankesteria ascidiae, suggesting that large-scale infection by this parasite is the cause of long feces syndrome.

Characterization of the transcriptional profile in primary astrocytes after oxidative stress induced by Paraquat

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Olesen, Birgitte S. M. Thuesen; Clausen, Jørgen; Vang, Ole

2008-01-01

the antioxidative enzymes Mn- and CuZn superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase as well as the transcription factor component AP-1. Paraquat induced the expression of Mn- and CuZn SOD, catalase and decreases the expression of c-jun (a part of AP-1). Furthermore, the gene expression profiles were investigated after...

First detection and genotyping of Giardia intestinalis in stool samples collected from children in Ghazni Province, eastern Afghanistan and evaluation of the PCR assay in formalin-fixed specimens.

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Lass, Anna; Karanis, Panagiotis; Korzeniewski, Krzysztof

2017-08-01

It is estimated that faecal-orally transmitted diseases are common in Afghanistan, as a consequence of poor hygienic standards of life and widespread contamination of water and food with both human and animal faeces. However, there is little information in the literature concerning infections caused by intestinal parasites in the Afghan population. In this study, we report the occurrence of Giardia intestinalis assemblages (A and B) in formalin-fixed stool samples collected from 245 Afghan schoolchildren living in Ghazni Province in eastern Afghanistan. Detection of the parasite's DNA and genotyping was performed using real-time PCR, specific to the β-giardin gene of G. intestinalis. Positive results were recorded in 52 (21.2%) samples. Genotyping was successful in 39 faecal samples and showed the predominance of assemblage B of G. intestinalis in this population (15 assemblage A and 24 assemblage B). Co-infection with both genotypes A and B was detected in four samples. Additionally, we evaluated the effect of 10% buffered formalin fixative on the detection of G. intestinalis DNA using real-time PCR and nested PCR characterised by different lengths of PCR products (74 and 479 bp, respectively). The human faeces containing the Giardia cysts were tested for 16 weeks. Amplification of G. intestinalis DNA with real-time PCR was possible up to 6 weeks of preservation of stool sample in formalin, compared to only 2 weeks with nested PCR. This suggests that real-time PCR is a more suitable tool in cases where stool samples have to be kept in formalin for longer periods of time.

Bisphenol A and Bisphenol S Induce Distinct Transcriptional Profiles in Differentiating Human Primary Preadipocytes.

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Jonathan G Boucher

Full Text Available Bisphenol S (BPS is increasingly used as a replacement plasticizer for bisphenol A (BPA but its effects on human health have not been thoroughly examined. Recent evidence indicates that both BPA and BPS induce adipogenesis, although the mechanisms leading to this effect are unclear. In an effort to identify common and distinct mechanisms of action in inducing adipogenesis, transcriptional profiles of differentiating human preadipocytes exposed to BPA or BPS were compared. Human subcutaneous primary preadipocytes were differentiated in the presence of either 25 μM BPA or BPS for 2 and 4 days. Poly-A RNA-sequencing was used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs. Functional analysis of DEGs was undertaken in Ingenuity Pathway Analysis. BPA-treatment resulted in 472 and 176 DEGs on days 2 and 4, respectively, affecting pathways such as liver X receptor (LXR/retinoid X receptor (RXR activation, hepatic fibrosis and cholestasis. BPS-treatment resulted in 195 and 51 DEGs on days 2 and 4, respectively, revealing enrichment of genes associated with adipogenesis and lipid metabolism including the adipogenesis pathway and cholesterol biosynthesis. Interestingly, the transcription repressor N-CoR was identified as a negative upstream regulator in both BPA- and BPS-treated cells. This study presents the first comparison of BPA- and BPS-induced transcriptional profiles in human differentiating preadipocytes. While we previously showed that BPA and BPS both induce adipogenesis, the results from this study show that BPS affects adipose specific transcriptional changes earlier than BPA, and alters the expression of genes specifically related to adipogenesis and lipid metabolism. The findings provide insight into potential BPS and BPA-mediated mechanisms of action in inducing adipogenesis in human primary preadipocytes.

Statistical modelling of transcript profiles of differentially regulated genes

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Sergeant Martin J

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The vast quantities of gene expression profiling data produced in microarray studies, and the more precise quantitative PCR, are often not statistically analysed to their full potential. Previous studies have summarised gene expression profiles using simple descriptive statistics, basic analysis of variance (ANOVA and the clustering of genes based on simple models fitted to their expression profiles over time. We report the novel application of statistical non-linear regression modelling techniques to describe the shapes of expression profiles for the fungus Agaricus bisporus, quantified by PCR, and for E. coli and Rattus norvegicus, using microarray technology. The use of parametric non-linear regression models provides a more precise description of expression profiles, reducing the "noise" of the raw data to produce a clear "signal" given by the fitted curve, and describing each profile with a small number of biologically interpretable parameters. This approach then allows the direct comparison and clustering of the shapes of response patterns between genes and potentially enables a greater exploration and interpretation of the biological processes driving gene expression. Results Quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR-derived time-course data of genes were modelled. "Split-line" or "broken-stick" regression identified the initial time of gene up-regulation, enabling the classification of genes into those with primary and secondary responses. Five-day profiles were modelled using the biologically-oriented, critical exponential curve, y(t = A + (B + CtRt + ε. This non-linear regression approach allowed the expression patterns for different genes to be compared in terms of curve shape, time of maximal transcript level and the decline and asymptotic response levels. Three distinct regulatory patterns were identified for the five genes studied. Applying the regression modelling approach to microarray-derived time course data

Characterization and Improvement of RNA-Seq Precision in Quantitative Transcript Expression Profiling

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Labaj, Pawel P.; Leparc, German G.; Linggi, Bryan E.; Markillie, Lye Meng; Wiley, H. S.; Kreil, David P.

2011-07-01

Measurement precision determines the power of any analysis to reliably identify significant signals, such as in screens for differential expression, independent of whether the experimental design incorporates replicates or not. With the compilation of large scale RNA-Seq data sets with technical replicate samples, however, we can now, for the first time, perform a systematic analysis of the precision of expression level estimates from massively parallel sequencing technology. This then allows considerations for its improvement by computational or experimental means. Results: We report on a comprehensive study of target coverage and measurement precision, including their dependence on transcript expression levels, read depth and other parameters. In particular, an impressive target coverage of 84% of the estimated true transcript population could be achieved with 331 million 50 bp reads, with diminishing returns from longer read lengths and even less gains from increased sequencing depths. Most of the measurement power (75%) is spent on only 7% of the known transcriptome, however, making less strongly expressed transcripts harder to measure. Consequently, less than 30% of all transcripts could be quantified reliably with a relative error < 20%. Based on established tools, we then introduce a new approach for mapping and analyzing sequencing reads that yields substantially improved performance in gene expression profiling, increasing the number of transcripts that can reliably be quantified to over 40%. Extrapolations to higher sequencing depths highlight the need for efficient complementary steps. In discussion we outline possible experimental and computational strategies for further improvements in quantification precision.

Protection against diarrhea associated with Giardia intestinalis is lost with Multi-Nutrient Supplementation: A Study in Tanzanian Children

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Veenemans, J.; Mank, T.; Ottenhof, M.; Baidjoe, A.Y.; Mbugi, E.V.; Demir, A.Y.; Wielders, J.P.M.; Savelkoul, H.F.J.; Verhoef, J.C.M.

2011-01-01

Background - Asymptomatic carriage of Giardia intestinalis is highly prevalent among children in developing countries, and evidence regarding its role as a diarrhea-causing agent in these settings is controversial. Impaired linear growth and cognition have been associated with giardiasis, presumably

Comparative transcriptional profiling of tildipirosin-resistant and sensitive Haemophilus parasuis.

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Lei, Zhixin; Fu, Shulin; Yang, Bing; Liu, Qianying; Ahmed, Saeed; Xu, Lei; Xiong, Jincheng; Cao, Jiyue; Qiu, Yinsheng

2017-08-08

Numerous studies have been conducted to examine the molecular mechanism of Haemophilus parasuis resistance to antibiotic, but rarely to tildipirosin. In the current study, transcriptional profiling was applied to analyse the variation in gene expression of JS0135 and tildipirosin-resistant JS32. The growth curves showed that JS32 had a higher growth rate but fewer bacteria than JS0135. The cell membranes of JS32 and a resistant clinical isolate (HB32) were observed to be smoother than those of JS0135. From the comparative gene expression profile 349 up- and 113 downregulated genes were observed, covering 37 GO and 63 KEGG pathways which are involved in biological processes (11), cellular components (17), molecular function (9), cellular processes (1), environmental information processing (4), genetic information processing (9) and metabolism (49) affected in JS32. In addition, the relative overexpression of genes of the metabolism pathway (HAPS_RS09315, HAPS_RS09320), ribosomes (HAPS_RS07815) and ABC transporters (HAPS_RS10945) was detected, particularly the metabolism pathway, and verified with RT-qPCR. Collectively, the gene expression profile in connection with tildipirosin resistance factors revealed unique and highly resistant determinants of H. parasuis to macrolides that warrant further attention due to the significant threat of bacterial resistance.

Genome-wide RNA polymerase II profiles and RNA accumulation reveal kinetics of transcription and associated epigenetic changes during diurnal cycles.

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Gwendal Le Martelot

Full Text Available Interactions of cell-autonomous circadian oscillators with diurnal cycles govern the temporal compartmentalization of cell physiology in mammals. To understand the transcriptional and epigenetic basis of diurnal rhythms in mouse liver genome-wide, we generated temporal DNA occupancy profiles by RNA polymerase II (Pol II as well as profiles of the histone modifications H3K4me3 and H3K36me3. We used these data to quantify the relationships of phases and amplitudes between different marks. We found that rhythmic Pol II recruitment at promoters rather than rhythmic transition from paused to productive elongation underlies diurnal gene transcription, a conclusion further supported by modeling. Moreover, Pol II occupancy preceded mRNA accumulation by 3 hours, consistent with mRNA half-lives. Both methylation marks showed that the epigenetic landscape is highly dynamic and globally remodeled during the 24-hour cycle. While promoters of transcribed genes had tri-methylated H3K4 even at their trough activity times, tri-methylation levels reached their peak, on average, 1 hour after Pol II. Meanwhile, rhythms in tri-methylation of H3K36 lagged transcription by 3 hours. Finally, modeling profiles of Pol II occupancy and mRNA accumulation identified three classes of genes: one showing rhythmicity both in transcriptional and mRNA accumulation, a second class with rhythmic transcription but flat mRNA levels, and a third with constant transcription but rhythmic mRNAs. The latter class emphasizes widespread temporally gated posttranscriptional regulation in the mouse liver.

Genome-wide profiling of H3K56 acetylation and transcription factor binding sites in human adipocytes.

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Kinyui Alice Lo

Full Text Available The growing epidemic of obesity and metabolic diseases calls for a better understanding of adipocyte biology. The regulation of transcription in adipocytes is particularly important, as it is a target for several therapeutic approaches. Transcriptional outcomes are influenced by both histone modifications and transcription factor binding. Although the epigenetic states and binding sites of several important transcription factors have been profiled in the mouse 3T3-L1 cell line, such data are lacking in human adipocytes. In this study, we identified H3K56 acetylation sites in human adipocytes derived from mesenchymal stem cells. H3K56 is acetylated by CBP and p300, and deacetylated by SIRT1, all are proteins with important roles in diabetes and insulin signaling. We found that while almost half of the genome shows signs of H3K56 acetylation, the highest level of H3K56 acetylation is associated with transcription factors and proteins in the adipokine signaling and Type II Diabetes pathways. In order to discover the transcription factors that recruit acetyltransferases and deacetylases to sites of H3K56 acetylation, we analyzed DNA sequences near H3K56 acetylated regions and found that the E2F recognition sequence was enriched. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by high-throughput sequencing, we confirmed that genes bound by E2F4, as well as those by HSF-1 and C/EBPα, have higher than expected levels of H3K56 acetylation, and that the transcription factor binding sites and acetylation sites are often adjacent but rarely overlap. We also discovered a significant difference between bound targets of C/EBPα in 3T3-L1 and human adipocytes, highlighting the need to construct species-specific epigenetic and transcription factor binding site maps. This is the first genome-wide profile of H3K56 acetylation, E2F4, C/EBPα and HSF-1 binding in human adipocytes, and will serve as an important resource for better understanding adipocyte

Immune response to rabbit coccidiosis: a comparison between infections with Eimeria flavescens and E. intestinalis

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Pakandl, Michal; Hlásková, Lenka; Poplštein, M.; Nevečeřalová, M.; Vodička, T.; Salát, Jiří; Mucksová, J.

2008-01-01

Roč. 55, č. 1 (2008), s. 1-6 ISSN 0015-5683 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA524/05/2328 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z60220518 Keywords : rabbit coccidiosis * Eimeria intestinalis * Eimeria flavescens * immune response * ELISA * lymph ocyte proliferation * intraepithelial lymph ocytes Subject RIV: GJ - Animal Vermins ; Diseases, Veterinary Medicine Impact factor: 1.307, year: 2008

Integrated pathway-based transcription regulation network mining and visualization based on gene expression profiles.

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Kibinge, Nelson; Ono, Naoaki; Horie, Masafumi; Sato, Tetsuo; Sugiura, Tadao; Altaf-Ul-Amin, Md; Saito, Akira; Kanaya, Shigehiko

2016-06-01

Conventionally, workflows examining transcription regulation networks from gene expression data involve distinct analytical steps. There is a need for pipelines that unify data mining and inference deduction into a singular framework to enhance interpretation and hypotheses generation. We propose a workflow that merges network construction with gene expression data mining focusing on regulation processes in the context of transcription factor driven gene regulation. The pipeline implements pathway-based modularization of expression profiles into functional units to improve biological interpretation. The integrated workflow was implemented as a web application software (TransReguloNet) with functions that enable pathway visualization and comparison of transcription factor activity between sample conditions defined in the experimental design. The pipeline merges differential expression, network construction, pathway-based abstraction, clustering and visualization. The framework was applied in analysis of actual expression datasets related to lung, breast and prostrate cancer. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis associated with massive free air mimicking perforated diffuse peritonitis.

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Sakurai, Yoichi; Hikichi, Masahiro; Isogaki, Jun; Furuta, Shinpei; Sunagawa, Risaburo; Inaba, Kazuki; Komori, Yoshiyuki; Uyama, Ichiro

2008-11-21

While pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis (PCI) is a rare disease entity associated with a wide variety of gastrointestinal and non-gastrointestinal disorders, PCI associated with massive intra- and retroperitoneal free air is extremely uncommon, and is difficult to diagnose differentially from perforated peritonitis. We present two cases of PCI associated with massive peritoneal free air and/or retroperitoneal air that mimicked perforated peritonitis. These cases highlight the clinical importance of PCI that mimics perforated peritonitis, which requires emergency surgery. Preoperative imaging modalities and diagnostic laparoscopy are useful to make an accurate diagnosis.

Global transcription profiling reveals comprehensive insights into hypoxic response in Arabidopsis.

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Liu, Fenglong; Vantoai, Tara; Moy, Linda P; Bock, Geoffrey; Linford, Lara D; Quackenbush, John

2005-03-01

Plants have evolved adaptation mechanisms to sense oxygen deficiency in their environments and make coordinated physiological and structural adjustments to enhance their hypoxic tolerance. To gain insight into how plants respond to low-oxygen stress, gene expression profiling using whole-genome DNA amplicon microarrays was carried out at seven time points over 24 h, in wild-type and transgenic P(SAG12):ipt Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. Transcript levels of genes involved in glycolysis and fermentation pathways, ethylene synthesis and perception, calcium signaling, nitrogen utilization, trehalose metabolism, and alkaloid synthesis were significantly altered in response to oxygen limitation. Analysis based on gene ontology assignments suggested a significant down-regulation of genes whose functions are associated with cell walls, nucleosome structures, water channels, and ion transporters and a significant up-regulation of genes involved in transcriptional regulation, protein kinase activity, and auxin responses under conditions of oxygen shortage. Promoter analysis on a cluster of up-regulated genes revealed a significant overrepresentation of the AtMYB2-binding motif (GT motif), a sugar response element-like motif, and a G-box-related sequence, and also identified several putative anaerobic response elements. Finally, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reactions using 29 selected genes independently verified the microarray results. This study represents one of the most comprehensive analyses conducted to date investigating hypoxia-responsive transcriptional networks in plants.

JASPAR 2010: the greatly expanded open-access database of transcription factor binding profiles

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Portales-Casamar, Elodie; Thongjuea, Supat; Kwon, Andrew T.; Arenillas, David; Zhao, Xiaobei; Valen, Eivind; Yusuf, Dimas; Lenhard, Boris; Wasserman, Wyeth W.; Sandelin, Albin

2010-01-01

JASPAR (http://jaspar.genereg.net) is the leading open-access database of matrix profiles describing the DNA-binding patterns of transcription factors (TFs) and other proteins interacting with DNA in a sequence-specific manner. Its fourth major release is the largest expansion of the core database to date: the database now holds 457 non-redundant, curated profiles. The new entries include the first batch of profiles derived from ChIP-seq and ChIP-chip whole-genome binding experiments, and 177 yeast TF binding profiles. The introduction of a yeast division brings the convenience of JASPAR to an active research community. As binding models are refined by newer data, the JASPAR database now uses versioning of matrices: in this release, 12% of the older models were updated to improved versions. Classification of TF families has been improved by adopting a new DNA-binding domain nomenclature. A curated catalog of mammalian TFs is provided, extending the use of the JASPAR profiles to additional TFs belonging to the same structural family. The changes in the database set the system ready for more rapid acquisition of new high-throughput data sources. Additionally, three new special collections provide matrix profile data produced by recent alternative high-throughput approaches. PMID:19906716

Dynamic Metabolite Profiling in an Archaeon Connects Transcriptional Regulation to Metabolic Consequences.

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Todor, Horia; Gooding, Jessica; Ilkayeva, Olga R; Schmid, Amy K

2015-01-01

Previous work demonstrated that the TrmB transcription factor is responsible for regulating the expression of many enzyme-coding genes in the hypersaline-adapted archaeon Halobacterium salinarum via a direct interaction with a cis-regulatory sequence in their promoters. This interaction is abolished in the presence of glucose. Although much is known about the effects of TrmB at the transcriptional level, it remains unclear whether and to what extent changes in mRNA levels directly affect metabolite levels. In order to address this question, here we performed a high-resolution metabolite profiling time course during a change in nutrients using a combination of targeted and untargeted methods in wild-type and ΔtrmB strain backgrounds. We found that TrmB-mediated transcriptional changes resulted in widespread and significant changes to metabolite levels across the metabolic network. Additionally, the pattern of growth complementation using various purines suggests that the mis-regulation of gluconeogenesis in the ΔtrmB mutant strain in the absence of glucose results in low phosphoribosylpyrophosphate (PRPP) levels. We confirmed these low PRPP levels using a quantitative mass spectrometric technique and found that they are associated with a metabolic block in de novo purine synthesis, which is partially responsible for the growth defect of the ΔtrmB mutant strain in the absence of glucose. In conclusion, we show how transcriptional regulation of metabolism affects metabolite levels and ultimately, phenotypes.

Dynamic Metabolite Profiling in an Archaeon Connects Transcriptional Regulation to Metabolic Consequences.

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Horia Todor

Full Text Available Previous work demonstrated that the TrmB transcription factor is responsible for regulating the expression of many enzyme-coding genes in the hypersaline-adapted archaeon Halobacterium salinarum via a direct interaction with a cis-regulatory sequence in their promoters. This interaction is abolished in the presence of glucose. Although much is known about the effects of TrmB at the transcriptional level, it remains unclear whether and to what extent changes in mRNA levels directly affect metabolite levels. In order to address this question, here we performed a high-resolution metabolite profiling time course during a change in nutrients using a combination of targeted and untargeted methods in wild-type and ΔtrmB strain backgrounds. We found that TrmB-mediated transcriptional changes resulted in widespread and significant changes to metabolite levels across the metabolic network. Additionally, the pattern of growth complementation using various purines suggests that the mis-regulation of gluconeogenesis in the ΔtrmB mutant strain in the absence of glucose results in low phosphoribosylpyrophosphate (PRPP levels. We confirmed these low PRPP levels using a quantitative mass spectrometric technique and found that they are associated with a metabolic block in de novo purine synthesis, which is partially responsible for the growth defect of the ΔtrmB mutant strain in the absence of glucose. In conclusion, we show how transcriptional regulation of metabolism affects metabolite levels and ultimately, phenotypes.

Transcriptional Profiling of Nitrogen Fixation in Azotobacter vinelandii▿†

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Hamilton, Trinity L.; Ludwig, Marcus; Dixon, Ray; Boyd, Eric S.; Dos Santos, Patricia C.; Setubal, João C.; Bryant, Donald A.; Dean, Dennis R.; Peters, John W.

2011-01-01

Most biological nitrogen (N2) fixation results from the activity of a molybdenum-dependent nitrogenase, a complex iron-sulfur enzyme found associated with a diversity of bacteria and some methanogenic archaea. Azotobacter vinelandii, an obligate aerobe, fixes nitrogen via the oxygen-sensitive Mo nitrogenase but is also able to fix nitrogen through the activities of genetically distinct alternative forms of nitrogenase designated the Vnf and Anf systems when Mo is limiting. The Vnf system appears to replace Mo with V, and the Anf system is thought to contain Fe as the only transition metal within the respective active site metallocofactors. Prior genetic analyses suggest that a number of nif-encoded components are involved in the Vnf and Anf systems. Genome-wide transcription profiling of A. vinelandiicultured under nitrogen-fixing conditions under various metal amendments (e.g., Mo or V) revealed the discrete complement of genes associated with each nitrogenase system and the extent of cross talk between the systems. In addition, changes in transcript levels of genes not directly involved in N2fixation provided insight into the integration of central metabolic processes and the oxygen-sensitive process of N2fixation in this obligate aerobe. The results underscored significant differences between Mo-dependent and Mo-independent diazotrophic growth that highlight the significant advantages of diazotrophic growth in the presence of Mo. PMID:21724999

Kinome-wide transcriptional profiling of uveal melanoma reveals new vulnerabilities to targeted therapeutics.

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Bailey, Fiona P; Clarke, Kim; Kalirai, Helen; Kenyani, Jenna; Shahidipour, Haleh; Falciani, Francesco; Coulson, Judy M; Sacco, Joseph J; Coupland, Sarah E; Eyers, Patrick A

2018-03-01

Metastatic uveal melanoma (UM) is invariably fatal, usually within a year of diagnosis. There are currently no effective therapies, and clinical studies employing kinase inhibitors have so far demonstrated limited success. This is despite common activating mutations in GNAQ/11 genes, which trigger signalling pathways that might predispose tumours to a variety of targeted drugs. In this study, we have profiled kinome expression network dynamics in various human ocular melanomas. We uncovered a shared transcriptional profile in human primary UM samples and across a variety of experimental cell-based models. The poor overall response of UM cells to FDA-approved kinase inhibitors contrasted with much higher sensitivity to the bromodomain inhibitor JQ1, a broad transcriptional repressor. Mechanistically, we identified a repressed FOXM1-dependent kinase subnetwork in JQ1-exposed cells that contained multiple cell cycle-regulated protein kinases. Consistently, we demonstrated vulnerability of UM cells to inhibitors of mitotic protein kinases within this network, including the investigational PLK1 inhibitor BI6727. We conclude that analysis of kinome-wide signalling network dynamics has the potential to reveal actionable drug targets and inhibitors of potential therapeutic benefit for UM patients. © 2017 The Authors. Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research Published by John Wiley & Sons.

Transcriptional profiling at whole population and single cell levels reveals somatosensory neuron molecular diversity

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Chiu, Isaac M; Barrett, Lee B; Williams, Erika K; Strochlic, David E; Lee, Seungkyu; Weyer, Andy D; Lou, Shan; Bryman, Gregory S; Roberson, David P; Ghasemlou, Nader; Piccoli, Cara; Ahat, Ezgi; Wang, Victor; Cobos, Enrique J; Stucky, Cheryl L; Ma, Qiufu; Liberles, Stephen D; Woolf, Clifford J

2014-01-01

The somatosensory nervous system is critical for the organism's ability to respond to mechanical, thermal, and nociceptive stimuli. Somatosensory neurons are functionally and anatomically diverse but their molecular profiles are not well-defined. Here, we used transcriptional profiling to analyze the detailed molecular signatures of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) sensory neurons. We used two mouse reporter lines and surface IB4 labeling to purify three major non-overlapping classes of neurons: 1) IB4+SNS-Cre/TdTomato+, 2) IB4−SNS-Cre/TdTomato+, and 3) Parv-Cre/TdTomato+ cells, encompassing the majority of nociceptive, pruriceptive, and proprioceptive neurons. These neurons displayed distinct expression patterns of ion channels, transcription factors, and GPCRs. Highly parallel qRT-PCR analysis of 334 single neurons selected by membership of the three populations demonstrated further diversity, with unbiased clustering analysis identifying six distinct subgroups. These data significantly increase our knowledge of the molecular identities of known DRG populations and uncover potentially novel subsets, revealing the complexity and diversity of those neurons underlying somatosensation. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04660.001 PMID:25525749

JASPAR 2014: an extensively expanded and updated open-access database of transcription factor binding profiles.

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Mathelier, Anthony; Zhao, Xiaobei; Zhang, Allen W; Parcy, François; Worsley-Hunt, Rebecca; Arenillas, David J; Buchman, Sorana; Chen, Chih-yu; Chou, Alice; Ienasescu, Hans; Lim, Jonathan; Shyr, Casper; Tan, Ge; Zhou, Michelle; Lenhard, Boris; Sandelin, Albin; Wasserman, Wyeth W

2014-01-01

JASPAR (http://jaspar.genereg.net) is the largest open-access database of matrix-based nucleotide profiles describing the binding preference of transcription factors from multiple species. The fifth major release greatly expands the heart of JASPAR-the JASPAR CORE subcollection, which contains curated, non-redundant profiles-with 135 new curated profiles (74 in vertebrates, 8 in Drosophila melanogaster, 10 in Caenorhabditis elegans and 43 in Arabidopsis thaliana; a 30% increase in total) and 43 older updated profiles (36 in vertebrates, 3 in D. melanogaster and 4 in A. thaliana; a 9% update in total). The new and updated profiles are mainly derived from published chromatin immunoprecipitation-seq experimental datasets. In addition, the web interface has been enhanced with advanced capabilities in browsing, searching and subsetting. Finally, the new JASPAR release is accompanied by a new BioPython package, a new R tool package and a new R/Bioconductor data package to facilitate access for both manual and automated methods.

ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide presence in the heart of a tunicate, Ciona intestinalis.

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Aldo Gerbino

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Atrial natriuretic peptide was found in the heart of vertebrates, we studied the ANP presence in the heart of Ciona intestinalis. This is animal is very important because of the its evolutionary position between invertebrates and vertebrates. ANP presence was only revealed in myoepithelial cells of the myocardium. Results suggest the hypothesis that ANP is present not only in the vertebrates but also in the invertebrates and in Ciona heart ANP might play a similar role like in the heart of vertebrates.

Pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis in patients with antinuclear antibody negative systemic lupus erythematosus and dermatomyositis: report of two cases

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Soo Yeon; Cho, On Koo; Koh, Byung Hee; Kim, Yong Soo; Song, Soon Young [College of Medicine, Hanyang University, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2007-04-15

Pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis (PCI) occurring in association with collagen vascular disease is an unusual combination that presents with intramural gas in the gastrointestinal tract. We report two cases of PCI, one with antinuclear antibody (ANA) negative SLE and the other with dermatomyositis, with a review of the relevant literature.

Coordinated multitissue transcriptional and plasma metabonomic profiles following acute caloric restriction in mice.

Science.gov (United States)

Selman, Colin; Kerrison, Nicola D; Cooray, Anisha; Piper, Matthew D W; Lingard, Steven J; Barton, Richard H; Schuster, Eugene F; Blanc, Eric; Gems, David; Nicholson, Jeremy K; Thornton, Janet M; Partridge, Linda; Withers, Dominic J

2006-11-27

Caloric restriction (CR) increases healthy life span in a range of organisms. The underlying mechanisms are not understood but appear to include changes in gene expression, protein function, and metabolism. Recent studies demonstrate that acute CR alters mortality rates within days in flies. Multitissue transcriptional changes and concomitant metabolic responses to acute CR have not been described. We generated whole genome RNA transcript profiles in liver, skeletal muscle, colon, and hypothalamus and simultaneously measured plasma metabolites using proton nuclear magnetic resonance in mice subjected to acute CR. Liver and muscle showed increased gene expressions associated with fatty acid metabolism and a reduction in those involved in hepatic lipid biosynthesis. Glucogenic amino acids increased in plasma, and gene expression for hepatic gluconeogenesis was enhanced. Increased expression of genes for hormone-mediated signaling and decreased expression of genes involved in protein binding and development occurred in hypothalamus. Cell proliferation genes were decreased and cellular transport genes increased in colon. Acute CR captured many, but not all, hepatic transcriptional changes of long-term CR. Our findings demonstrate a clear transcriptional response across multiple tissues during acute CR, with congruent plasma metabolite changes. Liver and muscle switched gene expression away from energetically expensive biosynthetic processes toward energy conservation and utilization processes, including fatty acid metabolism and gluconeogenesis. Both muscle and colon switched gene expression away from cellular proliferation. Mice undergoing acute CR rapidly adopt many transcriptional and metabolic changes of long-term CR, suggesting that the beneficial effects of CR may require only a short-term reduction in caloric intake.

Effects of culture conditions on the growth and reproduction of Gut Weed, Ulva intestinalis Linnaeus (Ulvales, Chlorophyta

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Rapeeporn Ruangchuay

2012-11-01

Full Text Available In vitro cultivation of Gut Weed, Ulva intestinalis Linnaeus, was experimentally studied to support its near optimalfarming, with potential impact in Thailand on its direct use as human food or its co-cultures in shrimp farming.Germling clusters (2 weeks old and 7.50±2.98 mm long were seeded into 500 mL flasks and biomass growth rateoptimized with respect to the main controllable factors; seedling density, salinity, light intensity, and temperature. These factorswere assumed to each have an optimal value independent of the others, and the factors were optimized one at a time. Themaximum growth at three to four weeks of cultivation was obtained at the factor levels of 0.05 gL-1, 20 ppt, 80 mol photonm-2s-1 and 25°C. Early zoosporangia were obtained from 2nd to 4th weeks. The relative growth rate ranged from 9.47 to 22.18 %day-1, and only asexual reproduction of U. intestinalis was observed under these culture conditions.

Transcriptional profiles of supragranular-enriched genes associate with corticocortical network architecture in the human brain.

Science.gov (United States)

Krienen, Fenna M; Yeo, B T Thomas; Ge, Tian; Buckner, Randy L; Sherwood, Chet C

2016-01-26

The human brain is patterned with disproportionately large, distributed cerebral networks that connect multiple association zones in the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes. The expansion of the cortical surface, along with the emergence of long-range connectivity networks, may be reflected in changes to the underlying molecular architecture. Using the Allen Institute's human brain transcriptional atlas, we demonstrate that genes particularly enriched in supragranular layers of the human cerebral cortex relative to mouse distinguish major cortical classes. The topography of transcriptional expression reflects large-scale brain network organization consistent with estimates from functional connectivity MRI and anatomical tracing in nonhuman primates. Microarray expression data for genes preferentially expressed in human upper layers (II/III), but enriched only in lower layers (V/VI) of mouse, were cross-correlated to identify molecular profiles across the cerebral cortex of postmortem human brains (n = 6). Unimodal sensory and motor zones have similar molecular profiles, despite being distributed across the cortical mantle. Sensory/motor profiles were anticorrelated with paralimbic and certain distributed association network profiles. Tests of alternative gene sets did not consistently distinguish sensory and motor regions from paralimbic and association regions: (i) genes enriched in supragranular layers in both humans and mice, (ii) genes cortically enriched in humans relative to nonhuman primates, (iii) genes related to connectivity in rodents, (iv) genes associated with human and mouse connectivity, and (v) 1,454 gene sets curated from known gene ontologies. Molecular innovations of upper cortical layers may be an important component in the evolution of long-range corticocortical projections.

Transcriptional profiling of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae during the acute phase of a natural infection in pigs

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Harel Josée

2010-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae is the etiological agent of porcine pleuropneumonia, a respiratory disease which causes great economic losses worldwide. Many virulence factors are involved in the pathogenesis, namely capsular polysaccharides, RTX toxins, LPS and many iron acquisition systems. In order to identify genes that are expressed in vivo during a natural infection, we undertook transcript profiling experiments with an A. pleuropneumoniae DNA microarray, after recovery of bacterial mRNAs from serotype 5b-infected porcine lungs. AppChip2 contains 2033 PCR amplicons based on the genomic sequence of App serotype 5b strain L20, representing more than 95% of ORFs greater than 160 bp in length. Results Transcriptional profiling of A. pleuropneumoniae recovered from the lung of a pig suffering from a natural infection or following growth of the bacterial isolate in BHI medium was performed. An RNA extraction protocol combining beadbeating and hot-acid-phenol was developed in order to maximize bacterial mRNA yields and quality following total RNA extraction from lung lesions. Nearly all A. pleuropneumoniae transcripts could be detected on our microarrays, and 150 genes were deemed differentially expressed in vivo during the acute phase of the infection. Our results indicate that, for example, gene apxIVA from an operon coding for RTX toxin ApxIV is highly up-regulated in vivo, and that two genes from the operon coding for type IV fimbriae (APL_0878 and APL_0879 were also up-regulated. These transcriptional profiling data, combined with previous comparative genomic hybridizations performed by our group, revealed that 66 out of the 72 up-regulated genes are conserved amongst all serotypes and that 3 of them code for products that are predicted outer membrane proteins (genes irp and APL_0959, predicted to code for a TonB-dependent receptor and a filamentous hemagglutinin/adhesin respectively or lipoproteins (gene APL_0920. Only 4

Transcript profiling of Elf5+/- mammary glands during pregnancy identifies novel targets of Elf5.

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Renee L Rogers

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Elf5, an epithelial specific Ets transcription factor, plays a crucial role in the pregnancy-associated development of the mouse mammary gland. Elf5(-/- embryos do not survive, however the Elf5(+/- mammary gland displays a severe pregnancy-associated developmental defect. While it is known that Elf5 is crucial for correct mammary development and lactation, the molecular mechanisms employed by Elf5 to exert its effects on the mammary gland are largely unknown. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Transcript profiling was used to investigate the transcriptional changes that occur as a result of Elf5 haploinsufficiency in the Elf5(+/- mouse model. We show that the development of the mouse Elf5(+/- mammary gland is delayed at a transcriptional and morphological level, due to the delayed increase in Elf5 protein in these glands. We also identify a number of potential Elf5 target genes, including Mucin 4, whose expression, is directly regulated by the binding of Elf5 to an Ets binding site within its promoter. CONCLUSION: We identify novel transcriptional targets of Elf5 and show that Muc4 is a direct target of Elf5, further elucidating the mechanisms through which Elf5 regulates proliferation and differentiation in the mammary gland.

Comparative transcriptional profiling of human Merkel cells and Merkel cell carcinoma.

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Mouchet, Nicolas; Coquart, Nolwenn; Lebonvallet, Nicolas; Le Gall-Ianotto, Christelle; Mogha, Ariane; Fautrel, Alain; Boulais, Nicholas; Dréno, Brigitte; Martin, Ludovic; Hu, Weiguo; Galibert, Marie-Dominique; Misery, Laurent

2014-12-01

Merkel cell carcinoma is believed to be derived from Merkel cells after infection by Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) and other poorly understood events. Transcriptional profiling using cDNA microarrays was performed on cells from MCPy-negative and MCPy-positive Merkel cell carcinomas and isolated normal Merkel cells. This microarray revealed numerous significantly upregulated genes and some downregulated genes. The extensive list of genes that were identified in these experiments provides a large body of potentially valuable information of Merkel cell carcinoma carcinogenesis and could represent a source of potential targets for cancer therapy. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Transcriptional profiling of protein expression related genes of Pichia pastoris under simulated microgravity.

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Feng Qi

Full Text Available The physiological responses and transcription profiling of Pichia pastoris GS115 to simulated microgravity (SMG were substantially changed compared with normal gravity (NG control. We previously reported that the recombinant P. pastoris grew faster under SMG than NG during methanol induction phase and the efficiencies of recombinant enzyme production and secretion were enhanced under SMG, which was considered as the consequence of changed transcriptional levels of some key genes. In this work, transcriptiome profiling of P. pastoris cultured under SMG and NG conditions at exponential and stationary phases were determined using next-generation sequencing (NGS technologies. Four categories of 141 genes function as methanol utilization, protein chaperone, RNA polymerase and protein transportation or secretion classified according to Gene Ontology (GO were chosen to be analyzed on the basis of NGS results. And 80 significantly changed genes were weighted and estimated by Cluster 3.0. It was found that most genes of methanol metabolism (85% of 20 genes and protein transportation or secretion (82.2% of 45 genes were significantly up-regulated under SMG. Furthermore the quantity and fold change of up-regulated genes in exponential phase of each category were higher than those of stationary phase. The results indicate that the up-regulated genes of methanol metabolism and protein transportation or secretion mainly contribute to enhanced production and secretion of the recombinant protein under SMG.

Novel lineages of Giardia intestinalis identified by genetic analysis of organisms isolated from dogs in Australia.

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Monis, P T; Andrews, R H; Mayrhofer, G; Mackrill, J; Kulda, J; Isaac-Renton, J L; Ey, P L

1998-01-01

Infection of suckling mice with Giardia trophozoites recovered from the intestines of 11 dogs autopsied in Central and Southern Australia in each case produced an established isolate. In contrast, only 1 isolate was obtained by inoculation of faecal cysts. The organisms grew poorly in comparison with isolates from humans or non-canine animal hosts. Light microscopy revealed that the trophozoites had median bodies with the 'claw hammer' appearance typical of G. intestinalis (syn. G. duodenalis, G. lamblia) but that they differed in shape and nuclear morphology from axenic isolates of human or canine origin. Allozymic analysis of electrophoretic data representing 26 loci and phylogenetic analysis of nucleotide sequences obtained from DNA amplified from the glutamate dehydrogenase locus showed that the 11 isolates examined from Australian dogs were genetically distinct from all isolates of G. intestinalis that have been established previously from humans and animals, and also from G. muris. Both analytical methods placed 10 of the Australian canine isolates into a unique genetic lineage (designated Assemblage C) and the eleventh into a deep-rooted second branch (designated Assemblage D), each well separated from the 2 lineages (Assemblages A and B) of G. intestinalis that encompass all the genotypes known to infect humans. In contrast, 4 axenic isolates derived from dogs in Canada and Europe (the only other isolates to have been established from dogs) have genotypes characteristic of genetic Assemblages A or B. The findings indicate that the novel Giardia identified in these rural Australian dogs have a restricted host range, possibly confined to canine species. The poor success rate in establishing Giardia from dogs in vitro suggests, further, that similar genotypes may predominate as canine parasites world-wide. The absence of such organisms among isolates of Giardia that have been established from humans by propagation in suckling mice indicates that they are

Draft genome sequencing of giardia intestinalis assemblage B isolate GS: is human giardiasis caused by two different species?

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Oscar Franzén

2009-08-01

Full Text Available Giardia intestinalis is a major cause of diarrheal disease worldwide and two major Giardia genotypes, assemblages A and B, infect humans. The genome of assemblage A parasite WB was recently sequenced, and the structurally compact 11.7 Mbp genome contains simplified basic cellular machineries and metabolism. We here performed 454 sequencing to 16x coverage of the assemblage B isolate GS, the only Giardia isolate successfully used to experimentally infect animals and humans. The two genomes show 77% nucleotide and 78% amino-acid identity in protein coding regions. Comparative analysis identified 28 unique GS and 3 unique WB protein coding genes, and the variable surface protein (VSP repertoires of the two isolates are completely different. The promoters of several enzymes involved in the synthesis of the cyst-wall lack binding sites for encystation-specific transcription factors in GS. Several synteny-breaks were detected and verified. The tetraploid GS genome shows higher levels of overall allelic sequence polymorphism (0.5 versus <0.01% in WB. The genomic differences between WB and GS may explain some of the observed biological and clinical differences between the two isolates, and it suggests that assemblage A and B Giardia can be two different species.

Transcriptional Profiles of the Response to Ketoconazole and Amphotericin B in Trichophyton rubrum▿ †

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Yu, Lu; Zhang, Wenliang; Wang, Lingling; Yang, Jian; Liu, Tao; Peng, Junping; Leng, Wenchuan; Chen, Lihong; Li, Ruoyu; Jin, Qi

2007-01-01

Trichophyton rubrum is a pathogenic filamentous fungus of increasing medical concern. Two antifungal agents, ketoconazole (KTC) and amphotericin B (AMB), have specific activity against dermatophytes. To identify the mechanisms of action of KTC and AMB against T. rubrum, a cDNA microarray was constructed from the expressed sequence tags of the cDNA library from different developmental stages, and transcriptional profiles of the responses to KTC and AMB were determined. T. rubrum was exposed to subinhibitory concentrations of KTC and AMB for 12 h, and microarray analysis was used to examine gene transcription. KTC exposure induced transcription of genes involved in lipid, fatty acid, and sterol metabolism, including ERG11, ERG3, ERG25, ERG6, ERG26, ERG24, ERG4, CPO, INO1, DW700960, CPR, DW696584, DW406350, and ATG15. KTC also increased transcription of the multidrug resistance gene ABC1. AMB exposure increased transcription of genes involved in lipid, fatty acid, and sterol metabolism (DW696584, EB801458, IVD, DW694010, DW688343, DW684992), membrane transport (Git1, DW706156, DW684040, DMT, DW406136, CCH1, DW710650), and stress-related responses (HSP70, HSP104, GSS, AOX, EB801455, EB801702, TDH1, UBI4) but reduced transcription of genes involved in maintenance of cell wall integrity and signal transduction pathways (FKS1, SUN4, DW699324, GAS1, DW681613, SPS1, DW703091, STE7, DW703091, DW695308) and some ribosomal proteins. This is the first report of the use of microarray analysis to determine the effects of drug action in T. rubrum. PMID:17060531

Dynamic transcriptional profiling provides insights into tuberous root development in Rehmannia glutinosa

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Peng eSun

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Rehmannia glutinosa, a herb of the Scrophulariaceae family, is widely cultivated in the Northern part of China. The tuberous root has well known medicinal properties; however, yield and quality are threatened by abiotic and biotic stresses. Understanding the molecular process of tuberous root development may help identify novel targets for its control. In the present study, we used Illumina sequencing and de novo assembly strategies to obtain a reference transcriptome that is relevant to tuberous root development. We then conducted RNA-seq quantification analysis to determine gene expression profiles of the adventitious root (AR, thickening adventitious root (TAR, and the developing tuberous root (DTR. Expression profiling identified a total of 6,974 differentially expressed unigenes during root developmental. Bioinformatics analysis and gene expression profiling revealed changes in phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, starch and sucrose metabolism, and plant hormone biosynthesis during root development. Moreover, we identified and allocated putative functions to the genes involved in tuberous root development, including genes related to major carbohydrate metabolism, hormone metabolism, and transcription regulation. The present study provides the initial description of gene expression profiles of AR, TAR, and DTR, which facilitates identification of genes of interest. Moreover, our work provides insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying tuberous root development and may assist in the design and development of improved breeding schemes for different R. glutinosa varieties through genetic manipulation.

Profiling ethanol-targeted transcription factors in human carcinoma cell-derived embryoid bodies.

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Mandal, Chanchal; Halder, Debasish; Chai, Jin Choul; Lee, Young Seek; Jung, Kyoung Hwa; Chai, Young Gyu

2016-01-15

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is a collective term that represents fetal abnormalities associated with maternal alcohol consumption. Prenatal alcohol exposure and related anomalies are well characterized, but the molecular mechanism behind this phenomenon is not yet understood. Few insights have been gained from genetic and epigenetic studies of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Our aim was to profile the important molecular regulators of ethanol-related alterations of the genome. For this purpose, we have analyzed the gene expression pattern of human carcinoma cell-derived embryoid bodies in the absence or presence of ethanol. A cDNA microarray analysis was used to profile mRNA expression in embryoid bodies at day 7 with or without ethanol treatment. A total of 493 differentially expressed genes were identified in response to 50 mM ethanol exposure. Of these, 111 genes were up-regulated, and 382 were down-regulated. Gene ontology term enrichment analysis revealed that these genes are involved in important biological processes: neurological system processes, cognition, behavior, sensory perception of smell, taste and chemical stimuli and synaptic transmission. Similarly, the enrichment of disease-related genes included relevant categories such as neurological diseases, developmental disorders, skeletal and muscular disorders, and connective tissue disorders. Furthermore, we have identified a group of 26 genes that encode transcription factors. We validated the relative gene expression of several transcription factors using quantitative real time PCR. We hope that our study substantially contributes to the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathology of alcohol-mediated anomalies and facilitates further research. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Transcriptional profiling of cork oak phellogenic cells isolated by laser microdissection.

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Teixeira, Rita Teresa; Fortes, Ana Margarida; Bai, Hua; Pinheiro, Carla; Pereira, Helena

2018-02-01

The phenylpropanoid pathway impacts the cork quality development. In cork of bad quality, the flavonoid route is favored, whereas in good quality, cork lignin and suberin production prevails. Cork oaks develop a thick cork tissue as a protective shield that results of the continuous activity of a secondary meristem, the cork cambium, or phellogen. Most studies applied to developmental processes do not consider the cell types from which the samples were extracted. Here, laser microdissection (LM) coupled with transcript profiling using RNA sequencing (454 pyrosequencing) was applied to phellogen cells of trees producing low- and good quality cork. Functional annotation and functional enrichment analyses showed that stress-related genes are enriched in samples extracted from trees producing good quality cork (GQC). This process is under tight transcriptional (transcription factors, kinases) regulation and also hormonal control involving ABA, ethylene, and auxins. The phellogen cells collected from trees producing bad quality cork (BQC) show a consistent up-regulation of genes belonging to the flavonoid pathway as a response to stress. They also display a different modulation of cell wall genes resulting into a thinner cork layer, i.e., less meristematic activity. Based on the analysis of the phenylpropanoid pathway regulating genes, in GQC, the synthesis of lignin and suberin is promoted, whereas in BQC, the same pathway favors the biosynthesis of free phenolic compounds. This study provided new insights of how cell-specific gene expression can determine tissue and organ morphology and physiology and identified robust candidate genes that can be used in breeding programs aiming at improving cork quality.

Transcriptional and Cytokine Profiles Identify CXCL9 as a Biomarker of Disease Activity in Morphea.

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O'Brien, Jack C; Rainwater, Yevgeniya Byekova; Malviya, Neeta; Cyrus, Nika; Auer-Hackenberg, Lorenz; Hynan, Linda S; Hosler, Gregory A; Jacobe, Heidi T

2017-08-01

IFN-related pathways have not been studied in morphea, and biomarkers are needed. We sought to characterize morphea serum cytokine imbalance and IFN-related gene expression in blood and skin to address this gap by performing a case-control study of 87 participants with morphea and 26 healthy control subjects. We used multiplexed immunoassays to determine serum cytokine concentrations, performed transcriptional profiling of whole blood and lesional morphea skin, and used double-staining immunohistochemistry to determine the cutaneous cellular source of CXCL9. We found that CXCL9 was present at increased concentrations in morphea serum (P morphea skin (fold change = 30.6, P = 0.006), and preliminary transcriptional profiling showed little evidence for IFN signature in whole blood. Double-staining immunohistochemistry showed CXCL9 co-localized with CD68 + dermal macrophages. In summary, inflammatory morphea is characterized by T helper type 1 cytokine imbalance in serum, particularly CXCL9, which is associated with disease activity. CXCL9 expression in lesional macrophages implicates the skin as the source of circulating cytokines. CXCL9 is a promising biomarker of disease activity in morphea. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Versatile Gene-Specific Sequence Tags for Arabidopsis Functional Genomics: Transcript Profiling and Reverse Genetics Applications

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Hilson, Pierre; Allemeersch, Joke; Altmann, Thomas; Aubourg, Sébastien; Avon, Alexandra; Beynon, Jim; Bhalerao, Rishikesh P.; Bitton, Frédérique; Caboche, Michel; Cannoot, Bernard; Chardakov, Vasil; Cognet-Holliger, Cécile; Colot, Vincent; Crowe, Mark; Darimont, Caroline; Durinck, Steffen; Eickhoff, Holger; de Longevialle, Andéol Falcon; Farmer, Edward E.; Grant, Murray; Kuiper, Martin T.R.; Lehrach, Hans; Léon, Céline; Leyva, Antonio; Lundeberg, Joakim; Lurin, Claire; Moreau, Yves; Nietfeld, Wilfried; Paz-Ares, Javier; Reymond, Philippe; Rouzé, Pierre; Sandberg, Goran; Segura, Maria Dolores; Serizet, Carine; Tabrett, Alexandra; Taconnat, Ludivine; Thareau, Vincent; Van Hummelen, Paul; Vercruysse, Steven; Vuylsteke, Marnik; Weingartner, Magdalena; Weisbeek, Peter J.; Wirta, Valtteri; Wittink, Floyd R.A.; Zabeau, Marc; Small, Ian

2004-01-01

Microarray transcript profiling and RNA interference are two new technologies crucial for large-scale gene function studies in multicellular eukaryotes. Both rely on sequence-specific hybridization between complementary nucleic acid strands, inciting us to create a collection of gene-specific sequence tags (GSTs) representing at least 21,500 Arabidopsis genes and which are compatible with both approaches. The GSTs were carefully selected to ensure that each of them shared no significant similarity with any other region in the Arabidopsis genome. They were synthesized by PCR amplification from genomic DNA. Spotted microarrays fabricated from the GSTs show good dynamic range, specificity, and sensitivity in transcript profiling experiments. The GSTs have also been transferred to bacterial plasmid vectors via recombinational cloning protocols. These cloned GSTs constitute the ideal starting point for a variety of functional approaches, including reverse genetics. We have subcloned GSTs on a large scale into vectors designed for gene silencing in plant cells. We show that in planta expression of GST hairpin RNA results in the expected phenotypes in silenced Arabidopsis lines. These versatile GST resources provide novel and powerful tools for functional genomics. PMID:15489341

Comparing cancer vs normal gene expression profiles identifies new disease entities and common transcriptional programs in AML patients

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rapin, Nicolas; Bagger, Frederik Otzen; Jendholm, Johan

2014-01-01

Gene expression profiling has been used extensively to characterize cancer, identify novel subtypes, and improve patient stratification. However, it has largely failed to identify transcriptional programs that differ between cancer and corresponding normal cells and has not been efficient in iden......-karyotype AML, which allowed for the generation of a highly prognostic survival signature. Collectively, our CvN method holds great potential as a tool for the analysis of gene expression profiles of cancer patients....

Genome-wide transcriptional profiling of human glioblastoma cells in response to ITE treatment.

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Kang, Bo; Zhou, Yanwen; Zheng, Min; Wang, Ying-Jie

2015-09-01

A ligand-activated transcription factor aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is recently revealed to play a key role in embryogenesis and tumorigenesis (Feng et al. [1], Safe et al. [2]) and 2-(1'H-indole-3'-carbonyl)-thiazole-4-carboxylic acid methyl ester (ITE) (Song et al. [3]) is an endogenous AhR ligand that possesses anti-tumor activity. In order to gain insights into how ITE acts via the AhR in embryogenesis and tumorigenesis, we analyzed the genome-wide transcriptional profiles of the following three groups of cells: the human glioblastoma U87 parental cells, U87 tumor sphere cells treated with vehicle (DMSO) and U87 tumor sphere cells treated with ITE. Here, we provide the details of the sample gathering strategy and show the quality controls and the analyses associated with our gene array data deposited into the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) under the accession code of GSE67986.

Transcriptomic profiling-based mutant screen reveals three new transcription factors mediating menadione resistance in Neurospora crassa.

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Zhu, Jufen; Yu, Xinxu; Xie, Baogui; Gu, Xiaokui; Zhang, Zhenying; Li, Shaojie

2013-06-01

To gain insight into the regulatory mechanisms of oxidative stress responses in filamentous fungi, the genome-wide transcriptional response of Neurospora crassa to menadione was analysed by digital gene expression (DGE) profiling, which identified 779 upregulated genes and 576 downregulated genes. Knockout mutants affecting 130 highly-upregulated genes were tested for menadione sensitivity, which revealed that loss of the transcription factor siderophore regulation (SRE) (a transcriptional repressor for siderophore biosynthesis), catatase-3, cytochrome c peroxidase or superoxide dismutase 1 copper chaperone causes hypersensitivity to menadione. Deletion of sre dramatically increased transcription of the siderophore biosynthesis gene ono and the siderophore iron transporter gene sit during menadione stress, suggesting that SRE is required for repression of iron uptake under oxidative stress conditions. Contrary to its phenotype, the sre deletion mutant showed higher transcriptional levels of genes encoding reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavengers than wild type during menadione stress, which implies that the mutant suffers a higher level of oxidative stress than wild type. Uncontrolled iron uptake in the sre mutant might exacerbate cellular oxidative stress. This is the first report of a negative regulator of iron assimilation participating in the fungal oxidative stress response. In addition to SRE, eight other transcription factor genes were also menadione-responsive but their single gene knockout mutants showed wild-type menadione sensitivity. Two of them, named as mit-2 (menadione induced transcription factor-2) and mit-4 (menadione induced transcription factor-4), were selected for double mutant analysis. The double mutant was hypersensitive to menadione. Similarly, the double mutation of mit-2 and sre also had additive effects on menadione sensitivity, suggesting multiple transcription factors mediate oxidative stress resistance in an additive manner

JASPAR 2010: the greatly expanded open-access database of transcription factor binding profiles

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Portales-Casamar, Elodie; Thongjuea, Supat; Kwon, Andrew T

2009-01-01

JASPAR (http://jaspar.genereg.net) is the leading open-access database of matrix profiles describing the DNA-binding patterns of transcription factors (TFs) and other proteins interacting with DNA in a sequence-specific manner. Its fourth major release is the largest expansion of the core database...... to an active research community. As binding models are refined by newer data, the JASPAR database now uses versioning of matrices: in this release, 12% of the older models were updated to improved versions. Classification of TF families has been improved by adopting a new DNA-binding domain nomenclature...

Galactinol synthase transcriptional profile in two genotypes of Coffea canephora with contrasting tolerance to drought

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Tiago Benedito Dos Santos

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Increased synthesis of galactinol and raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs has been reported in vegetative tissues in response to a range of abiotic stresses. In this work, we evaluated the transcriptional profile of a Coffea canephora galactinol synthase gene (CcGolS1 in two clones that differed in tolerance to water deficit in order to assess the contribution of this gene to drought tolerance. The expression of CcGolS1 in leaves was differentially regulated by water deficit, depending on the intensity of stress and the genotype. In clone 109A (drought-susceptible, the abundance of CcGolS1 transcripts decreased upon exposure to drought, reaching minimum values during recovery from severe water deficit and stress. In contrast, CcGolS1 gene expression in clone 14 (drought-tolerant was stimulated by water deficit. Changes in galactinol and RFO content did not correlate with variation in the steady-state transcript level. However, the magnitude of increase in RFO accumulation was higher in the tolerant cultivar, mainly under severe water deficit. The finding that the drought-tolerant coffee clone showed enhanced accumulation of CcGolS1 transcripts and RFOs under water deficit suggests the possibility of using this gene to improve drought tolerance in this important crop.

The Simple Chordate Ciona intestinalis Has a Reduced Complement of Genes Associated with Fanconi Anemia

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Stanley, Edward C.; Azzinaro, Paul A.; Vierra, David A.; Howlett, Niall G.; Irvine, Steven Q.

2016-01-01

Fanconi anemia (FA) is a human genetic disease characterized by congenital defects, bone marrow failure, and increased cancer risk. FA is associated with mutation in one of 24 genes. The protein products of these genes function cooperatively in the FA pathway to orchestrate the repair of DNA interstrand cross-links. Few model organisms exist for the study of FA. Seeking a model organism with a simpler version of the FA pathway, we searched the genome of the simple chordate Ciona intestinalis ...

Circulating Human Eosinophils Share a Similar Transcriptional Profile in Asthma and Other Hypereosinophilic Disorders.

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Barnig, Cindy; Alsaleh, Ghada; Jung, Nicolas; Dembélé, Doulaye; Paul, Nicodème; Poirot, Anh; Uring-Lambert, Béatrice; Georgel, Philippe; de Blay, Fréderic; Bahram, Seiamak

2015-01-01

Eosinophils are leukocytes that are released into the peripheral blood in a phenotypically mature state and are capable of being recruited into tissues in response to appropriate stimuli. Eosinophils, traditionally considered cytotoxic effector cells, are leukocytes recruited into the airways of asthma patients where they are believed to contribute to the development of many features of the disease. This perception, however, has been challenged by recent findings suggesting that eosinophils have also immunomodulatory functions and may be involved in tissue homeostasis and wound healing. Here we describe a transcriptome-based approach-in a limited number of patients and controls-to investigate the activation state of circulating human eosinophils isolated by flow cytometry. We provide an overview of the global expression pattern in eosinophils in various relevant conditions, e.g., eosinophilic asthma, hypereosinophilic dermatological diseases, parasitosis and pulmonary aspergillosis. Compared to healthy subjects, circulating eosinophils isolated from asthma patients differed in their gene expression profile which is marked by downregulation of transcripts involved in antigen presentation, pathogen recognition and mucosal innate immunity, whereas up-regulated genes were involved in response to non-specific stimulation, wounding and maintenance of homeostasis. Eosinophils from other hypereosinophilic disorders displayed a very similar transcriptional profile. Taken together, these observations seem to indicate that eosinophils exhibit non-specific immunomodulatory functions important for tissue repair and homeostasis and suggest new roles for these cells in asthma immunobiology.

Helium ion microscopy and ultra-high-resolution scanning electron microscopy analysis of membrane-extracted cells reveals novel characteristics of the cytoskeleton of Giardia intestinalis.

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Gadelha, Ana Paula Rocha; Benchimol, Marlene; de Souza, Wanderley

2015-06-01

Giardia intestinalis presents a complex microtubular cytoskeleton formed by specialized structures, such as the adhesive disk, four pairs of flagella, the funis and the median body. The ultrastructural organization of the Giardia cytoskeleton has been analyzed using different microscopic techniques, including high-resolution scanning electron microscopy. Recent advances in scanning microscopy technology have opened a new venue for the characterization of cellular structures and include scanning probe microscopy techniques such as ultra-high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (UHRSEM) and helium ion microscopy (HIM). Here, we studied the organization of the cytoskeleton of G. intestinalis trophozoites using UHRSEM and HIM in membrane-extracted cells. The results revealed a number of new cytoskeletal elements associated with the lateral crest and the dorsal surface of the parasite. The fine structure of the banded collar was also observed. The marginal plates were seen linked to a network of filaments, which were continuous with filaments parallel to the main cell axis. Cytoplasmic filaments that supported the internal structures were seen by the first time. Using anti-actin antibody, we observed a labeling in these filamentous structures. Taken together, these data revealed new surface characteristics of the cytoskeleton of G. intestinalis and may contribute to an improved understanding of the structural organization of trophozoites. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Comprehensive transcriptional profiling of NaCl-stressed Arabidopsis roots reveals novel classes of responsive genes

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Deyholos Michael K

2006-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Roots are an attractive system for genomic and post-genomic studies of NaCl responses, due to their primary importance to agriculture, and because of their relative structural and biochemical simplicity. Excellent genomic resources have been established for the study of Arabidopsis roots, however, a comprehensive microarray analysis of the root transcriptome following NaCl exposure is required to further understand plant responses to abiotic stress and facilitate future, systems-based analyses of the underlying regulatory networks. Results We used microarrays of 70-mer oligonucleotide probes representing 23,686 Arabidopsis genes to identify root transcripts that changed in relative abundance following 6 h, 24 h, or 48 h of hydroponic exposure to 150 mM NaCl. Enrichment analysis identified groups of structurally or functionally related genes whose members were statistically over-represented among up- or down-regulated transcripts. Our results are consistent with generally observed stress response themes, and highlight potentially important roles for underappreciated gene families, including: several groups of transporters (e.g. MATE, LeOPT1-like; signalling molecules (e.g. PERK kinases, MLO-like receptors, carbohydrate active enzymes (e.g. XTH18, transcription factors (e.g. members of ZIM, WRKY, NAC, and other proteins (e.g. 4CL-like, COMT-like, LOB-Class 1. We verified the NaCl-inducible expression of selected transcription factors and other genes by qRT-PCR. Conclusion Micorarray profiling of NaCl-treated Arabidopsis roots revealed dynamic changes in transcript abundance for at least 20% of the genome, including hundreds of transcription factors, kinases/phosphatases, hormone-related genes, and effectors of homeostasis, all of which highlight the complexity of this stress response. Our identification of these transcriptional responses, and groups of evolutionarily related genes with either similar or divergent

The maternal genes Ci-p53/p73-a and Ci-p53/p73-b regulate zygotic ZicL expression and notochord differentiation in Ciona intestinalis embryos.

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Noda, Takeshi

2011-12-01

I isolated a Ciona intestinalis homolog of p53, Ci-p53/p73-a, in a microarray screen of rapidly degraded maternal mRNA by comparing the transcriptomes of unfertilized eggs and 32-cell stage embryos. Higher expression of the gene in eggs and lower expression in later embryonic stages were confirmed by whole-mount in situ hybridization (WISH) and quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR); expression was ubiquitous in eggs and early embryos. Knockdown of Ci-p53/p73-a by injection of antisense morpholino oligonucleotides (MOs) severely perturbed gastrulation cell movements and expression of notochord marker genes. A key regulator of notochord differentiation in Ciona embryos is Brachyury (Ci-Bra), which is directly activated by a zic-like gene (Ci-ZicL). The expression of Ci-ZicL and Ci-Bra in A-line notochord precursors was downregulated in Ci-p53/p73-a knockdown embryos. Maternal expression of Ci-p53/p73-b, a homolog of Ci-p53/p73-a, was also detected. In Ci-p53/p73-b knockdown embryos, gastrulation cell movements, expression of Ci-ZicL and Ci-Bra in A-line notochord precursors, and expression of notochord marker gene at later stages were perturbed. The upstream region of Ci-ZicL contains putative p53-binding sites. Cis-regulatory analysis of Ci-ZicL showed that these sites are involved in expression of Ci-ZicL in A-line notochord precursors at the 32-cell and early gastrula stages. These results suggest that p53 genes are maternal factors that play a crucial role in A-line notochord differentiation in C. intestinalis embryos by regulating Ci-ZicL expression. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Global Transcription Profiling Reveals Comprehensive Insights into Hypoxic Response in Arabidopsis1[w

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Liu, Fenglong; VanToai, Tara; Moy, Linda P.; Bock, Geoffrey; Linford, Lara D.; Quackenbush, John

2005-01-01

Plants have evolved adaptation mechanisms to sense oxygen deficiency in their environments and make coordinated physiological and structural adjustments to enhance their hypoxic tolerance. To gain insight into how plants respond to low-oxygen stress, gene expression profiling using whole-genome DNA amplicon microarrays was carried out at seven time points over 24 h, in wild-type and transgenic PSAG12:ipt Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. Transcript levels of genes involved in glycolysis and fermentation pathways, ethylene synthesis and perception, calcium signaling, nitrogen utilization, trehalose metabolism, and alkaloid synthesis were significantly altered in response to oxygen limitation. Analysis based on gene ontology assignments suggested a significant down-regulation of genes whose functions are associated with cell walls, nucleosome structures, water channels, and ion transporters and a significant up-regulation of genes involved in transcriptional regulation, protein kinase activity, and auxin responses under conditions of oxygen shortage. Promoter analysis on a cluster of up-regulated genes revealed a significant overrepresentation of the AtMYB2-binding motif (GT motif), a sugar response element-like motif, and a G-box-related sequence, and also identified several putative anaerobic response elements. Finally, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reactions using 29 selected genes independently verified the microarray results. This study represents one of the most comprehensive analyses conducted to date investigating hypoxia-responsive transcriptional networks in plants. PMID:15734912

Analysis of hepatic transcript profile and plasma lipid profile in early lactating dairy cows fed grape seed and grape marc meal extract.

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Gessner, Denise K; Winkler, Anne; Koch, Christian; Dusel, Georg; Liebisch, Gerhard; Ringseis, Robert; Eder, Klaus

2017-03-23

It was recently reported that dairy cows fed a polyphenol-rich grape seed and grape marc meal extract (GSGME) during the transition period had an increased milk yield, but the underlying reasons remained unclear. As polyphenols exert a broad spectrum of metabolic effects, we hypothesized that feeding of GSGME influences metabolic pathways in the liver which could account for the positive effects of GSGME in dairy cows. In order to identify these pathways, we performed genome-wide transcript profiling in the liver and lipid profiling in plasma of dairy cows fed GSGME during the transition period at 1 week postpartum. Transcriptomic analysis of the liver revealed 207 differentially expressed transcripts, from which 156 were up- and 51 were down-regulated, between cows fed GSGME and control cows. Gene set enrichment analysis of the 155 up-regulated mRNAs showed that the most enriched gene ontology (GO) biological process terms were dealing with cell cycle regulation and the most enriched Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways were p53 signaling and cell cycle. Functional analysis of the 43 down-regulated mRNAs revealed that a great part of these genes are involved in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-induced unfolded protein response (UPR) and inflammatory processes. Accordingly, protein folding, response to unfolded protein, unfolded protein binding, chemokine activity and heat shock protein binding were identified as one of the most enriched GO biological process and molecular function terms assigned to the down-regulated genes. In line with the transcriptomics data the plasma concentrations of the acute phase proteins serum amyloid A (SAA) and haptoglobin were reduced in cows fed GSGME compared to control cows. Lipidomic analysis of plasma revealed no differences in the concentrations of individual species of major and minor lipid classes between cows fed GSGME and control cows. Analysis of hepatic transcript profile in cows fed GSGME during the

Distinct cardiac transcriptional profiles defining pregnancy and exercise.

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Eunhee Chung

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Although the hypertrophic responses of the heart to pregnancy and exercise are both considered to be physiological processes, they occur in quite different hormonal and temporal settings. In this study, we have compared the global transcriptional profiles of left ventricular tissues at various time points during the progression of hypertrophy in exercise and pregnancy. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The following groups of female mice were analyzed: non-pregnant diestrus cycle sedentary control, mid-pregnant, late-pregnant, and immediate-postpartum, and animals subjected to 7 and 21 days of voluntary wheel running. Hierarchical clustering analysis shows that while mid-pregnancy and both exercise groups share the closest relationship and similar gene ontology categories, late pregnancy and immediate post-partum are quite different with high representation of secreted/extracellular matrix-related genes. Moreover, pathway-oriented ontological analysis shows that metabolism regulated by cytochrome P450 and chemokine pathways are the most significant signaling pathways regulated in late pregnancy and immediate-postpartum, respectively. Finally, increases in expression of components of the proteasome observed in both mid-pregnancy and immediate-postpartum also result in enhanced proteasome activity. Interestingly, the gene expression profiles did not correlate with the degree of cardiac hypertrophy observed in the animal groups, suggesting that distinct pathways are employed to achieve similar amounts of cardiac hypertrophy. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results demonstrate that cardiac adaptation to the later stages of pregnancy is quite distinct from both mid-pregnancy and exercise. Furthermore, it is very dynamic since, by 12 hours post-partum, the heart has already initiated regression of cardiac growth, and 50 genes have changed expression significantly in the immediate-postpartum compared to late-pregnancy. Thus, pregnancy

Analysis of temporal transcription expression profiles reveal links between protein function and developmental stages of Drosophila melanogaster.

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Wan, Cen; Lees, Jonathan G; Minneci, Federico; Orengo, Christine A; Jones, David T

2017-10-01

Accurate gene or protein function prediction is a key challenge in the post-genome era. Most current methods perform well on molecular function prediction, but struggle to provide useful annotations relating to biological process functions due to the limited power of sequence-based features in that functional domain. In this work, we systematically evaluate the predictive power of temporal transcription expression profiles for protein function prediction in Drosophila melanogaster. Our results show significantly better performance on predicting protein function when transcription expression profile-based features are integrated with sequence-derived features, compared with the sequence-derived features alone. We also observe that the combination of expression-based and sequence-based features leads to further improvement of accuracy on predicting all three domains of gene function. Based on the optimal feature combinations, we then propose a novel multi-classifier-based function prediction method for Drosophila melanogaster proteins, FFPred-fly+. Interpreting our machine learning models also allows us to identify some of the underlying links between biological processes and developmental stages of Drosophila melanogaster.

Analysis of temporal transcription expression profiles reveal links between protein function and developmental stages of Drosophila melanogaster.

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Cen Wan

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Accurate gene or protein function prediction is a key challenge in the post-genome era. Most current methods perform well on molecular function prediction, but struggle to provide useful annotations relating to biological process functions due to the limited power of sequence-based features in that functional domain. In this work, we systematically evaluate the predictive power of temporal transcription expression profiles for protein function prediction in Drosophila melanogaster. Our results show significantly better performance on predicting protein function when transcription expression profile-based features are integrated with sequence-derived features, compared with the sequence-derived features alone. We also observe that the combination of expression-based and sequence-based features leads to further improvement of accuracy on predicting all three domains of gene function. Based on the optimal feature combinations, we then propose a novel multi-classifier-based function prediction method for Drosophila melanogaster proteins, FFPred-fly+. Interpreting our machine learning models also allows us to identify some of the underlying links between biological processes and developmental stages of Drosophila melanogaster.

Indagine sulle malattie infiammatorie croniche intestinali in un'azienda ULSS veneta

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G. Moretti

2003-05-01

Full Text Available

Obiettivi: l’epidemiologia delle malattie infiammatorie croniche intestinali fino ad adesso in Italia è stata poco studiata. Da alcuni studi emerge una minor incidenza di questi fenomeni nel Sud Europa rispetto al Nord Europa e agli Stati Uniti. Lo scopo di questa indagine è quello di valutare l’incidenza della Rettocolite Ulcerosa (RU e del Morbo di Crohn (MC nella popolazione dell’Azienda ULSS 17, situata nella provincia di Padova.

Metodi: per la realizzazione di questa indagine ci si è avvalsi della collaborazione di 23 Medici di Medicina Generale (MMG operanti in 14 comuni dell’ULSS 17. I dati sono stati prelevati dal sistema informatizzato comune ai 23 MMG (Millenium, in base ai codici 555 e 556 dell’ICD9. È stato considerato il periodo di tempo 1995 - 2001. La popolazione media di riferimento è di 29.740 abitanti. Risultati: nel periodo considerato sono stati registrati in totale 45 nuovi casi, 35 casi di RU e 10 di MC. L’incidenza media della RU è stata di 16,76/100.000, quella del MC di 4,7/100.000. La RU ha avuto un’incidenza maggiore nel sesso maschile (rapporto 2:1, mentre per il MC si rileva l’opposto (rapporto 2:3. L’età media alla diagnosi per la RU è stata di 44 anni, quella del MC di 51,9. Dall’analisi temporale si evidenzia un progressivo aumento dell’incidenza del MC, mentre la RCU è più costante.

Conclusioni: paragonando i risultati ottenuti con quelli di altre indagini condotte in Italia, l’incidenza delle malattie infiammatorie croniche intestinali è apparentemente più elevata nel territorio dell’ULSS 17. Dalla revisione della letteratura nazionale e internazionale emerge che variazioni dell’incidenza di questi fenomeni possono essere ricondotte ad un diverso accesso ai servizi sanitari, a diverse pratiche diagnostiche o alla presenza di fattori di rischio di tipo genetico o ambientale

Gene expression profiling analysis of CRTC1-MAML2 fusion oncogene-induced transcriptional program in human mucoepidermoid carcinoma cells

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Jie; Li, Jian-Liang; Chen, Zirong; Griffin, James D.; Wu, Lizi

2015-01-01

Mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC) arises from multiple organs and accounts for the most common types of salivary gland malignancies. Currently, patients with unresectable and metastatic MEC have poor long-term clinical outcomes and no targeted therapies are available. The majority of MEC tumors contain a t(11;19) chromosomal translocation that fuses two genes, CRTC1 and MAML2, to generate the chimeric protein CRTC1-MAML2. CRTC1-MAML2 displays transforming activity in vitro and is required for human MEC cell growth and survival, partially due to its ability to constitutively activate CREB-mediated transcription. Consequently, CRTC1-MAML2 is implicated as a major etiologic molecular event and a therapeutic target for MEC. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying CRTC1-MAML2 oncogenic action in MEC have not yet been systematically analyzed. Elucidation of the CRTC1-MAML2-regulated transcriptional program and its underlying mechanisms will provide important insights into MEC pathogenesis that are essential for the development of targeted therapeutics. Transcriptional profiling was performed on human MEC cells with the depletion of endogenous CRTC1-MAML2 fusion or its interacting partner CREB via shRNA-mediated gene knockdown. A subset of target genes was validated via real-time RT-PCR assays. CRTC1-MAML2-perturbed molecular pathways in MEC were identified through pathway analyses. Finally, comparative analysis of CRTC1-MAML2-regulated and CREB-regulated transcriptional profiles was carried out to assess the contribution of CREB in mediating CRTC1-MAML2-induced transcription. A total of 808 differentially expressed genes were identified in human MEC cells after CRTC1-MAML2 knockdown and a subset of known and novel fusion target genes was confirmed by real-time RT-PCR. Pathway Analysis revealed that CRTC1-MAML2-regulated genes were associated with network functions that are important for cell growth, proliferation, survival, migration, and metabolism. Comparison of CRTC

Transcriptional profiles of Treponema denticola in response to environmental conditions.

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Ian McHardy

Full Text Available The periodontal pathogen T. denticola resides in a stressful environment rife with challenges, the human oral cavity. Knowledge of the stress response capabilities of this invasive spirochete is currently very limited. Whole genome expression profiles in response to different suspected stresses including heat shock, osmotic downshift, oxygen and blood exposure were examined. Most of the genes predicted to encode conserved heat shock proteins (HSPs were found to be induced under heat and oxygen stress. Several of these HSPs also seem to be important for survival in hypotonic solutions and blood. In addition to HSPs, differential regulation of many genes encoding metabolic proteins, hypothetical proteins, transcriptional regulators and transporters was observed in patterns that could betoken functional associations. In summary, stress responses in T. denticola exhibit many similarities to the corresponding stress responses in other organisms but also employ unique components including the induction of hypothetical proteins.

Transcriptional profiling of cells sorted by RNA abundance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Klemm, Sandy; Semrau, Stefan; Wiebrands, Kay; Mooijman, Dylan; Faddah, Dina A; Jaenisch, Rudolf; van Oudenaarden, Alexander

We have developed a quantitative technique for sorting cells on the basis of endogenous RNA abundance, with a molecular resolution of 10-20 transcripts. We demonstrate efficient and unbiased RNA extraction from transcriptionally sorted cells and report a high-fidelity transcriptome measurement of

Nutritional composition and physicochemical properties of two green seaweeds (Ulva pertusa and U. intestinalis from the Pattani Bay in Southern Thailand

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Ommee Benjama

2011-10-01

Full Text Available The chemical composition, amino acid, and element contents, as well as some physicochemical properties of Ulvapertusa and U. intestinalis, collected from the Pattani Bay in Southern Thailand in the rainy and summer seasons of 2007–2008, were investigated in order to gain more nutritional information. It was found that the two green seaweed speciescontained high level of protein (14.6–19.5% DW, lipid (2.1–8.7% DW, ash (25.9–28.6% DW, soluble fiber (25.3–39.6% DW,insoluble fiber (21.8–33.5% DW and total dietary fiber (51.3–62.2% DW. Comparing the element contents of the two species,U. pertusa was rich in Mg, K and Ca, while U. intestinalis was rich in Mg, K, Cl, Na, and Ca. The essential amino acids of thetwo species were rich in leucine, valine, and arginine contents. The most limiting essential amino acid of both species waslysine. However, the nutritional composition of the two seaweeds varied depending on seasonal change. As for the physicochemicalproperties of both seaweeds, their swelling capacity (SWC, water holding capacity (WHC, and oil holding capacity(OHC ranged from 4.0 to 6.4 ml/g DW, 7.8 to 15.0 g/g DW and 1.4 to 4.8 g oil/g DW, respectively. WHC and OHC of U.intestinalis was higher than those of U. pertusa (P<0.05. This study suggested that both species could be potentially usedas raw materials or ingredients to improve the nutritive value and texture of functional food and healthy products for humanbeings.

Transcriptional profile of fibroblasts obtained from the primary site, lymph node and bone marrow of breast cancer patients

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Paulo Roberto Del Valle

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF influence tumor development at primary as well as in metastatic sites, but there have been no direct comparisons of the transcriptional profiles of stromal cells from different tumor sites. In this study, we used customized cDNA microarrays to compare the gene expression profile of stromal cells from primary tumor (CAF, n = 4, lymph node metastasis (N+, n = 3 and bone marrow (BM, n = 4 obtained from breast cancer patients. Biological validation was done in another 16 samples by RT-qPCR. Differences between CAF vs N+, CAF vs BM and N+ vs BM were represented by 20, 235 and 245 genes, respectively (SAM test, FDR < 0.01. Functional analysis revealed that genes related to development and morphogenesis were overrepresented. In a biological validation set, NOTCH2 was confirmed to be more expressed in N+ (vs CAF and ADCY2, HECTD1, HNMT, LOX, MACF1, SLC1A3 and USP16 more expressed in BM (vs CAF. Only small differences were observed in the transcriptional profiles of fibroblasts from the primary tumor and lymph node of breast cancer patients, whereas greater differences were observed between bone marrow stromal cells and the other two sites. These differences may reflect the activities of distinct differentiation programs.

A Spore Counting Method and Cell Culture Model for Chlorine Disinfection Studies of Encephalitozoon syn. Septata intestinalis

OpenAIRE

Wolk, D. M.; Johnson, C. H.; Rice, E. W.; Marshall, M. M.; Grahn, K. F.; Plummer, C. B.; Sterling, C. R.

2000-01-01

The microsporidia have recently been recognized as a group of pathogens that have potential for waterborne transmission; however, little is known about the effects of routine disinfection on microsporidian spore viability. In this study, in vitro growth of Encephalitozoon syn. Septata intestinalis, a microsporidium found in the human gut, was used as a model to assess the effect of chlorine on the infectivity and viability of microsporidian spores. Spore inoculum concentrations were determine...

Intervention of pumpkin seed oil on metabolic disease revealed by metabonomics and transcript profile.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Xiu-Ju; Chen, Yu-Lian; Fu, Bing; Zhang, Wen; Liu, Zhiguo; Zhuo, Hexian

2017-03-01

Understanding the metabolic and transcription basis of pumpkin seed oil (PSO) intervention on metabolic disease (MD) is essential to daily nutrition and health. This study analyzed the liver metabolic variations of Wistar rats fed normal diet (CON), high-fat diet (HFD) and high-fat plus PSO diet (PSO) to establish the relationship between the liver metabolite composition/transcript profile and the effects of PSO on MD. By using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy together with multivariate data analysis, it was found that, compared with CON rats, HFD rats showed clear dysfunctions of choline metabolism, glucose metabolism and nucleotide and amino acid metabolism. Using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), it was found that, compared with HFD rats, PSO rats showed alleviated endoplasmic reticulum stress accompanied by lowered unfolded protein response. These findings provide useful information to understand the metabolic alterations triggered by MD and to evaluate the effects of PSO intervention. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.

Transcriptional Profiling and Identification of Heat-Responsive Genes in Perennial Ryegrass by RNA-Sequencing

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Kehua Wang

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne is one of the most widely used forage and turf grasses in the world due to its desirable agronomic qualities. However, as a cool-season perennial grass species, high temperature is a major factor limiting its performance in warmer and transition regions. In this study, a de novo transcriptome was generated using a cDNA library constructed from perennial ryegrass leaves subjected to short-term heat stress treatment. Then the expression profiling and identification of perennial ryegrass heat response genes by digital gene expression analyses was performed. The goal of this work was to produce expression profiles of high temperature stress responsive genes in perennial ryegrass leaves and further identify the potentially important candidate genes with altered levels of transcript, such as those genes involved in transcriptional regulation, antioxidant responses, plant hormones and signal transduction, and cellular metabolism. The de novo assembly of perennial ryegrass transcriptome in this study obtained more total and annotated unigenes compared to previously published ones. Many DEGs identified were genes that are known to respond to heat stress in plants, including HSFs, HSPs, and antioxidant related genes. In the meanwhile, we also identified four gene candidates mainly involved in C4 carbon fixation, and one TOR gene. Their exact roles in plant heat stress response need to dissect further. This study would be important by providing the gene resources for improving heat stress tolerance in both perennial ryegrass and other cool-season perennial grass plants.

Translatome profiling in dormant and nondormant sunflower (Helianthus annuus) seeds highlights post-transcriptional regulation of germination.

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Layat, Elodie; Leymarie, Juliette; El-Maarouf-Bouteau, Hayat; Caius, José; Langlade, Nicolas; Bailly, Christophe

2014-12-01

Seed dormancy, which blocks germination in apparently favourable conditions, is a key regulatory control point of plant population establishment. As germination requires de novo translation, its regulation by dormancy is likely to be related to the association of individual transcripts to polysomes. Here, the polysome-associated mRNAs, that is, the translatome, were fractionated and characterized with microarrays in dormant and nondormant sunflower (Helianthus annuus) embryos during their imbibition at 10°C, a temperature preventing germination of dormant embryos. Profiling of mRNAs in polysomal complexes revealed that the translatome differs between germinating and nongerminating embryos. Association of transcripts with polysomes reached a maximum after 15 h of imbibition; at this time-point 194 polysome-associated transcripts were specifically found in nondormant embryos and 47 in dormant embryos only. The proteins corresponding to the polysomal mRNAs in nondormant embryos appeared to be very pertinent for germination and were involved mainly in transport, regulation of transcription or cell wall modifications. This work demonstrates that seed germination results from a timely regulated and selective recruitment of mRNAs to polysomes, thus opening novel fields of investigation for the understanding of this developmental process. © 2014 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2014 New Phytologist Trust.

Quantitative profiling of housekeeping and Epstein-Barr virus gene transcription in Burkitt lymphoma cell lines using an oligonucleotide microarray

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Niggli Felix K

2006-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV is associated with lymphoid malignancies, including Burkitt's lymphoma (BL, and can transform human B cells in vitro. EBV-harboring cell lines are widely used to investigate lymphocyte transformation and oncogenesis. Qualitative EBV gene expression has been extensively described, but knowledge of quantitative transcription is lacking. We hypothesized that transcription levels of EBNA1, the gene essential for EBV persistence within an infected cell, are similar in BL cell lines. Results To compare quantitative gene transcription in the BL cell lines Namalwa, Raji, Akata, Jijoye, and P3HR1, we developed an oligonucleotide microarray chip, including 17 housekeeping genes, six latent EBV genes (EBNA1, EBNA2, EBNA3A, EBNA3C, LMP1, LMP2, and four lytic EBV genes (BZLF1, BXLF2, BKRF2, BZLF2, and used the cell line B95.8 as a reference for EBV gene transcription. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction assays were used to validate microarray results. We found that transcription levels of housekeeping genes differed considerably among BL cell lines. Using a selection of housekeeping genes with similar quantitative transcription in the tested cell lines to normalize EBV gene transcription data, we showed that transcription levels of EBNA1 were quite similar in very different BL cell lines, in contrast to transcription levels of other EBV genes. As demonstrated with Akata cells, the chip allowed us to accurately measure EBV gene transcription changes triggered by treatment interventions. Conclusion Our results suggest uniform EBNA1 transcription levels in BL and that microarray profiling can reveal novel insights on quantitative EBV gene transcription and its impact on lymphocyte biology.

Transcription Profiling Demonstrates Epigenetic Control of Non-retroviral RNA Virus-Derived Elements in the Human Genome

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Kozue Sofuku

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Endogenous bornavirus-like nucleoprotein elements (EBLNs are DNA sequences in vertebrate genomes formed by the retrotransposon-mediated integration of ancient bornavirus sequence. Thus, EBLNs evidence a mechanism of retrotransposon-mediated RNA-to-DNA information flow from environment to animals. Although EBLNs are non-transposable, they share some features with retrotransposons. Here, to test whether hosts control the expression of EBLNs similarly to retrotransposons, we profiled the transcription of all Homo sapiens EBLNs (hsEBLN-1 to hsEBLN-7. We could detect transcription of all hsEBLNs in at least one tissue. Among them, hsEBLN-1 is transcribed almost exclusively in the testis. In most tissues, expression from the hsEBLN-1 locus is silenced epigenetically. Finally, we showed the possibility that hsEBLN-1 integration at this locus affects the expression of a neighboring gene. Our results suggest that hosts regulate the expression of endogenous non-retroviral virus elements similarly to how they regulate the expression of retrotransposons, possibly contributing to new transcripts and regulatory complexity to the human genome.

Identification and Transcription Profiling of NDUFS8 in Aedes taeniorhynchus (Diptera: Culicidae): Developmental Regulation and Environmental Response

Science.gov (United States)

2014-12-18

Identification and transcription profiling of NDUFS8 in Aedes taeniorhynchus (Diptera: Culicidae): developmental regulation and environmental response...7205 Email lmzhao@ufl.edu Abstract: The cDNA of a NADH dehydrogenase-ubiquinone Fe-S protein 8 subunit (NDUFS8) gene from Aedes (Ochlerotatus...information useful for developing dsRNA pesticide for mosquito control. Keywords: Aedes taeniorhynchus, AetNDUFS8, mRNA expression, development

Gene Transcript Profiling in Sea Otters Post-Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: A Tool for Marine Ecosystem Health Assessment

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Lizabeth Bowen

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Using a panel of genes stimulated by oil exposure in a laboratory study, we evaluated gene transcription in blood leukocytes sampled from sea otters captured from 2006–2012 in western Prince William Sound (WPWS, Alaska, 17–23 years after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS. We compared WPWS sea otters to reference populations (not affected by the EVOS from the Alaska Peninsula (2009, Katmai National Park and Preserve (2009, Clam Lagoon at Adak Island (2012, Kodiak Island (2005 and captive sea otters in aquaria. Statistically, sea otter gene transcript profiles separated into three distinct clusters: Cluster 1, Kodiak and WPWS 2006–2008 (higher relative transcription; Cluster 2, Clam Lagoon and WPWS 2010–2012 (lower relative transcription; and Cluster 3, Alaska Peninsula, Katmai and captive sea otters (intermediate relative transcription. The lower transcription of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR, an established biomarker for hydrocarbon exposure, in WPWS 2010–2012 compared to earlier samples from WPWS is consistent with declining hydrocarbon exposure, but the pattern of overall low levels of transcription seen in WPWS 2010–2012 could be related to other factors, such as food limitation, pathogens or injury, and may indicate an inability to mount effective responses to stressors. Decreased transcriptional response across the entire gene panel precludes the evaluation of whether or not individual sea otters show signs of exposure to lingering oil. However, related studies on sea otter demographics indicate that by 2012, the sea otter population in WPWS had recovered, which indicates diminishing oil exposure.

Gene transcript profiling in sea otters post-Exxon Valdez oil spill: A tool for marine ecosystem health assessment

Science.gov (United States)

Bowen, Lizabeth; Miles, A. Keith; Ballachey, Brenda E.; Waters, Shannon C.; Bodkin, James L.

2016-01-01

Using a panel of genes stimulated by oil exposure in a laboratory study, we evaluated gene transcription in blood leukocytes sampled from sea otters captured from 2006–2012 in western Prince William Sound (WPWS), Alaska, 17–23 years after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS). We compared WPWS sea otters to reference populations (not affected by the EVOS) from the Alaska Peninsula (2009), Katmai National Park and Preserve (2009), Clam Lagoon at Adak Island (2012), Kodiak Island (2005) and captive sea otters in aquaria. Statistically, sea otter gene transcript profiles separated into three distinct clusters: Cluster 1, Kodiak and WPWS 2006–2008 (higher relative transcription); Cluster 2, Clam Lagoon and WPWS 2010–2012 (lower relative transcription); and Cluster 3, Alaska Peninsula, Katmai and captive sea otters (intermediate relative transcription). The lower transcription of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), an established biomarker for hydrocarbon exposure, in WPWS 2010–2012 compared to earlier samples from WPWS is consistent with declining hydrocarbon exposure, but the pattern of overall low levels of transcription seen in WPWS 2010–2012 could be related to other factors, such as food limitation, pathogens or injury, and may indicate an inability to mount effective responses to stressors. Decreased transcriptional response across the entire gene panel precludes the evaluation of whether or not individual sea otters show signs of exposure to lingering oil. However, related studies on sea otter demographics indicate that by 2012, the sea otter population in WPWS had recovered, which indicates diminishing oil exposure.

Evaluation of multiplex tandem real-time PCR for detection of Cryptosporidium spp., Dientamoeba fragilis, Entamoeba histolytica, and Giardia intestinalis in clinical stool samples.

Science.gov (United States)

Stark, D; Al-Qassab, S E; Barratt, J L N; Stanley, K; Roberts, T; Marriott, D; Harkness, J; Ellis, J T

2011-01-01

The aim of this study was to describe the first development and evaluation of a multiplex tandem PCR (MT-PCR) assay for the detection and identification of 4 common pathogenic protozoan parasites, Cryptosporidium spp., Dientamoeba fragilis, Entamoeba histolytica, and Giardia intestinalis, from human clinical samples. A total of 472 fecal samples submitted to the Department of Microbiology at St. Vincent's Hospital were included in the study. The MT-PCR assay was compared to four real-time PCR (RT-PCR) assays and microscopy by a traditional modified iron hematoxylin stain. The MT-PCR detected 28 G. intestinalis, 26 D. fragilis, 11 E. histolytica, and 9 Cryptosporidium sp. isolates. Detection and identification of the fecal protozoa by MT-PCR demonstrated 100% correlation with the RT-PCR results, and compared to RT-PCR, MT-PCR exhibited 100% sensitivity and specificity, while traditional microscopy of stained fixed fecal smears exhibited sensitivities and specificities of 56% and 100% for Cryptosporidium spp., 38% and 99% for D. fragilis, 47% and 97% for E. histolytica, and 50% and 100% for G. intestinalis. No cross-reactivity was detected in 100 stool samples containing various other bacterial, viral, and protozoan species. The MT-PCR assay was able to provide rapid, sensitive, and specific simultaneous detection and identification of the four most important diarrhea-causing protozoan parasites that infect humans. This study also highlights the lack of sensitivity demonstrated by microscopy, and thus, molecular methods such as MT-PCR must be considered the diagnostic methods of choice for enteric protozoan parasites.

Ubiquitination dynamics in the early-branching eukaryote Giardia intestinalis

Science.gov (United States)

Niño, Carlos A; Chaparro, Jenny; Soffientini, Paolo; Polo, Simona; Wasserman, Moises

2013-01-01

Ubiquitination is a highly dynamic and versatile posttranslational modification that regulates protein function, stability, and interactions. To investigate the roles of ubiquitination in a primitive eukaryotic lineage, we utilized the early-branching eukaryote Giardia intestinalis. Using a combination of biochemical, immunofluorescence-based, and proteomics approaches, we assessed the ubiquitination status during the process of differentiation in Giardia. We observed that different types of ubiquitin modifications present specific cellular and temporal distribution throughout the Giardia life cycle from trophozoites to cyst maturation. Ubiquitin signal was detected in the wall of mature cysts, and enzymes implicated in cyst wall biogenesis were identified as substrates for ubiquitination. Interestingly, inhibition of proteasome activity did not affect trophozoite replication and differentiation, while it caused a decrease in cyst viability, arguing for proteasome involvement in cyst wall maturation. Using a proteomics approach, we identified around 200 high-confidence ubiquitinated candidates that vary their ubiquitination status during differentiation. Our results indicate that ubiquitination is critical for several cellular processes in this primitive eukaryote. PMID:23613346

Pneumatosis Intestinalis: Can We Avoid Surgical Intervention in Nonsurgical Patients?

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Ayman Al-Talib

2009-09-01

Full Text Available Pneumatosis intestinalis (PI is the presence of gas within the wall of the gastrointestinal tract and represents a tremendous spectrum of conditions and outcomes, ranging from benign diseases to abdominal sepsis and death. It is seen with increased frequency in patients who are immunocompromised because of steroids, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or AIDS. PI may result from intraluminal bacterial gas entering the bowel wall due to increased mucosal permeability caused by defects in bowel wall lymphoid tissue. We present a case of PI who was treated conservatively and in whom PI resolved completely and we present a literature review of conservative management. It is not difficult to make a precise diagnosis of PI and to prevent unnecessary surgical intervention, especially when PI presents without clinical evidence of peritonitis. Conservative treatment is possible and safe for selected patients. Awareness of these rare causes of PI and close observation of selected patients without peritonitis may prevent unnecessary invasive surgical explorations.

A strong anti-inflammatory signature revealed by liver transcription profiling of Tmprss6-/- mice.

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Michela Riba

Full Text Available Control of systemic iron homeostasis is interconnected with the inflammatory response through the key iron regulator, the antimicrobial peptide hepcidin. We have previously shown that mice with iron deficiency anemia (IDA-low hepcidin show a pro-inflammatory response that is blunted in iron deficient-high hepcidin Tmprss6 KO mice. The transcriptional response associated with chronic hepcidin overexpression due to genetic inactivation of Tmprss6 is unknown. By using whole genome transcription profiling of the liver and analysis of spleen immune-related genes we identified several functional pathways differentially expressed in Tmprss6 KO mice, compared to IDA animals and thus irrespective of the iron status. In the effort of defining genes potentially targets of Tmprss6 we analyzed liver gene expression changes according to the genotype and independently of treatment. Tmprss6 inactivation causes down-regulation of liver pathways connected to immune and inflammatory response as well as spleen genes related to macrophage activation and inflammatory cytokines production. The anti-inflammatory status of Tmprss6 KO animals was confirmed by the down-regulation of pathways related to immunity, stress response and intracellular signaling in both liver and spleen after LPS treatment. Opposite to Tmprss6 KO mice, Hfe(-/- mice are characterized by iron overload with inappropriately low hepcidin levels. Liver expression profiling of Hfe(-/- deficient versus iron loaded mice show the opposite expression of some of the genes modulated by the loss of Tmprss6. Altogether our results confirm the anti-inflammatory status of Tmprss6 KO mice and identify new potential target pathways/genes of Tmprss6.

Spatial profiling of nuclear receptor transcription patterns over the course of Drosophila development.

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Wilk, Ronit; Hu, Jack; Krause, Henry M

2013-07-08

Previous work has shown that many of the 18 family members of Drosophila nuclear receptor transcription factors function in a temporal hierarchy to coordinate developmental progression and growth with the rate limiting process of metabolism. To gain further insight into these interactions and processes, we have undertaken a whole-family analysis of nuclear receptor mRNA spatial expression patterns over the entire process of embryogenesis, as well as the 3rd instar wandering larva stage, by using high-resolution fluorescence in situ hybridization. Overall, the patterns of expression are remarkably consistent with previously mapped spatial activity profiles documented during the same time points, with similar hot spots and temporal profiles in endocrine and metabolically important tissues. Among the more remarkable of the findings is that the majority of mRNA expression patterns observed show striking subcellular distributions, indicating potentially critical roles in the control of protein synthesis and subsequent subcellular distributions. These patterns will serve as a useful reference for future studies on the tissue-specific roles and interactions of nuclear receptor proteins, partners, cofactors and ligands.

Transcript profiling of two alfalfa genotypes with contrasting cell wall composition in stems using a cross-species platform: optimizing analysis by masking biased probes

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Jung Hans-Joachim G

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The GeneChip® Medicago Genome Array, developed for Medicago truncatula, is a suitable platform for transcript profiling in tetraploid alfalfa [Medicago sativa (L. subsp. sativa]. However, previous research involving cross-species hybridization (CSH has shown that sequence variation between two species can bias transcript profiling by decreasing sensitivity (number of expressed genes detected and the accuracy of measuring fold-differences in gene expression. Results Transcript profiling using the Medicago GeneChip® was conducted with elongating stem (ES and post-elongation stem (PES internodes from alfalfa genotypes 252 and 1283 that differ in stem cell wall concentrations of cellulose and lignin. A protocol was developed that masked probes targeting inter-species variable (ISV regions of alfalfa transcripts. A probe signal intensity threshold was selected that optimized both sensitivity and accuracy. After masking for both ISV regions and previously identified single-feature polymorphisms (SFPs, the number of differentially expressed genes between the two genotypes in both ES and PES internodes was approximately 2-fold greater than the number detected prior to masking. Regulatory genes, including transcription factor and receptor kinase genes that may play a role in development of secondary xylem, were significantly over-represented among genes up-regulated in 252 PES internodes compared to 1283 PES internodes. Several cell wall-related genes were also up-regulated in genotype 252 PES internodes. Real-time quantitative RT-PCR of differentially expressed regulatory and cell wall-related genes demonstrated increased sensitivity and accuracy after masking for both ISV regions and SFPs. Over 1,000 genes that were differentially expressed in ES and PES internodes of genotypes 252 and 1283 were mapped onto putative orthologous loci on M. truncatula chromosomes. Clustering simulation analysis of the differentially expressed genes

Functional Profiling of Transcription Factor Genes in Neurospora crassa

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Alexander J. Carrillo

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Regulation of gene expression by DNA-binding transcription factors is essential for proper control of growth and development in all organisms. In this study, we annotate and characterize growth and developmental phenotypes for transcription factor genes in the model filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa. We identified 312 transcription factor genes, corresponding to 3.2% of the protein coding genes in the genome. The largest class was the fungal-specific Zn2Cys6 (C6 binuclear cluster, with 135 members, followed by the highly conserved C2H2 zinc finger group, with 61 genes. Viable knockout mutants were produced for 273 genes, and complete growth and developmental phenotypic data are available for 242 strains, with 64% possessing at least one defect. The most prominent defect observed was in growth of basal hyphae (43% of mutants analyzed, followed by asexual sporulation (38%, and the various stages of sexual development (19%. Two growth or developmental defects were observed for 21% of the mutants, while 8% were defective in all three major phenotypes tested. Analysis of available mRNA expression data for a time course of sexual development revealed mutants with sexual phenotypes that correlate with transcription factor transcript abundance in wild type. Inspection of this data also implicated cryptic roles in sexual development for several cotranscribed transcription factor genes that do not produce a phenotype when mutated.

Germ cell regeneration-mediated, enhanced mutagenesis in the ascidian Ciona intestinalis reveals flexible germ cell formation from different somatic cells.

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Yoshida, Keita; Hozumi, Akiko; Treen, Nicholas; Sakuma, Tetsushi; Yamamoto, Takashi; Shirae-Kurabayashi, Maki; Sasakura, Yasunori

2017-03-15

The ascidian Ciona intestinalis has a high regeneration capacity that enables the regeneration of artificially removed primordial germ cells (PGCs) from somatic cells. We utilized PGC regeneration to establish efficient methods of germ line mutagenesis with transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs). When PGCs were artificially removed from animals in which a TALEN pair was expressed, somatic cells harboring mutations in the target gene were converted into germ cells, this germ cell population exhibited higher mutation rates than animals not subjected to PGC removal. PGC regeneration enables us to use TALEN expression vectors of specific somatic tissues for germ cell mutagenesis. Unexpectedly, cis elements for epidermis, neural tissue and muscle could be used for germ cell mutagenesis, indicating there are multiple sources of regenerated PGCs, suggesting a flexibility of differentiated Ciona somatic cells to regain totipotency. Sperm and eggs of a single hermaphroditic, PGC regenerated animal typically have different mutations, suggesting they arise from different cells. PGCs can be generated from somatic cells even though the maternal PGCs are not removed, suggesting that the PGC regeneration is not solely an artificial event but could have an endogenous function in Ciona. This study provides a technical innovation in the genome-editing methods, including easy establishment of mutant lines. Moreover, this study suggests cellular mechanisms and the potential evolutionary significance of PGC regeneration in Ciona. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Genome-wide dynamic transcriptional profiling in clostridium beijerinckii NCIMB 8052 using single-nucleotide resolution RNA-Seq

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Wang Yi

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Clostridium beijerinckii is a prominent solvent-producing microbe that has great potential for biofuel and chemical industries. Although transcriptional analysis is essential to understand gene functions and regulation and thus elucidate proper strategies for further strain improvement, limited information is available on the genome-wide transcriptional analysis for C. beijerinckii. Results The genome-wide transcriptional dynamics of C. beijerinckii NCIMB 8052 over a batch fermentation process was investigated using high-throughput RNA-Seq technology. The gene expression profiles indicated that the glycolysis genes were highly expressed throughout the fermentation, with comparatively more active expression during acidogenesis phase. The expression of acid formation genes was down-regulated at the onset of solvent formation, in accordance with the metabolic pathway shift from acidogenesis to solventogenesis. The acetone formation gene (adc, as a part of the sol operon, exhibited highly-coordinated expression with the other sol genes. Out of the > 20 genes encoding alcohol dehydrogenase in C. beijerinckii, Cbei_1722 and Cbei_2181 were highly up-regulated at the onset of solventogenesis, corresponding to their key roles in primary alcohol production. Most sporulation genes in C. beijerinckii 8052 demonstrated similar temporal expression patterns to those observed in B. subtilis and C. acetobutylicum, while sporulation sigma factor genes sigE and sigG exhibited accelerated and stronger expression in C. beijerinckii 8052, which is consistent with the more rapid forespore and endspore development in this strain. Global expression patterns for specific gene functional classes were examined using self-organizing map analysis. The genes associated with specific functional classes demonstrated global expression profiles corresponding to the cell physiological variation and metabolic pathway switch. Conclusions The results from this

Transcriptional profiling of Medicago truncatula under salt stress identified a novel CBF transcription factor MtCBF4 that plays an important role in abiotic stress responses

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Su Zhen

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Salt stress hinders the growth of plants and reduces crop production worldwide. However, different plant species might possess different adaptive mechanisms to mitigate salt stress. We conducted a detailed pathway analysis of transcriptional dynamics in the roots of Medicago truncatula seedlings under salt stress and selected a transcription factor gene, MtCBF4, for experimental validation. Results A microarray experiment was conducted using root samples collected 6, 24, and 48 h after application of 180 mM NaCl. Analysis of 11 statistically significant expression profiles revealed different behaviors between primary and secondary metabolism pathways in response to external stress. Secondary metabolism that helps to maintain osmotic balance was induced. One of the highly induced transcription factor genes was successfully cloned, and was named MtCBF4. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that MtCBF4, which belongs to the AP2-EREBP transcription factor family, is a novel member of the CBF transcription factor in M. truncatula. MtCBF4 is shown to be a nuclear-localized protein. Expression of MtCBF4 in M. truncatula was induced by most of the abiotic stresses, including salt, drought, cold, and abscisic acid, suggesting crosstalk between these abiotic stresses. Transgenic Arabidopsis over-expressing MtCBF4 enhanced tolerance to drought and salt stress, and activated expression of downstream genes that contain DRE elements. Over-expression of MtCBF4 in M. truncatula also enhanced salt tolerance and induced expression level of corresponding downstream genes. Conclusion Comprehensive transcriptomic analysis revealed complex mechanisms exist in plants in response to salt stress. The novel transcription factor gene MtCBF4 identified here played an important role in response to abiotic stresses, indicating that it might be a good candidate gene for genetic improvement to produce stress-tolerant plants.

Transcriptional profiling of Medicago truncatula under salt stress identified a novel CBF transcription factor MtCBF4 that plays an important role in abiotic stress responses

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background Salt stress hinders the growth of plants and reduces crop production worldwide. However, different plant species might possess different adaptive mechanisms to mitigate salt stress. We conducted a detailed pathway analysis of transcriptional dynamics in the roots of Medicago truncatula seedlings under salt stress and selected a transcription factor gene, MtCBF4, for experimental validation. Results A microarray experiment was conducted using root samples collected 6, 24, and 48 h after application of 180 mM NaCl. Analysis of 11 statistically significant expression profiles revealed different behaviors between primary and secondary metabolism pathways in response to external stress. Secondary metabolism that helps to maintain osmotic balance was induced. One of the highly induced transcription factor genes was successfully cloned, and was named MtCBF4. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that MtCBF4, which belongs to the AP2-EREBP transcription factor family, is a novel member of the CBF transcription factor in M. truncatula. MtCBF4 is shown to be a nuclear-localized protein. Expression of MtCBF4 in M. truncatula was induced by most of the abiotic stresses, including salt, drought, cold, and abscisic acid, suggesting crosstalk between these abiotic stresses. Transgenic Arabidopsis over-expressing MtCBF4 enhanced tolerance to drought and salt stress, and activated expression of downstream genes that contain DRE elements. Over-expression of MtCBF4 in M. truncatula also enhanced salt tolerance and induced expression level of corresponding downstream genes. Conclusion Comprehensive transcriptomic analysis revealed complex mechanisms exist in plants in response to salt stress. The novel transcription factor gene MtCBF4 identified here played an important role in response to abiotic stresses, indicating that it might be a good candidate gene for genetic improvement to produce stress-tolerant plants. PMID:21718548

Transcriptional profiling of MEF2-regulated genes in human neural progenitor cells derived from embryonic stem cells

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Shing Fai Chan

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2 family of transcription factors is highly expressed in the brain and constitutes a key determinant of neuronal survival, differentiation, and synaptic plasticity. However, genome-wide transcriptional profiling of MEF2-regulated genes has not yet been fully elucidated, particularly at the neural stem cell stage. Here we report the results of microarray analysis comparing mRNAs isolated from human neural progenitor/stem cells (hNPCs derived from embryonic stem cells expressing a control vector versus progenitors expressing a constitutively-active form of MEF2 (MEF2CA, which increases MEF2 activity. Microarray experiments were performed using the Illumina Human HT-12 V4.0 expression beadchip (GEO#: GSE57184. By comparing vector-control cells to MEF2CA cells, microarray analysis identified 1880 unique genes that were differentially expressed. Among these genes, 1121 genes were up-regulated and 759 genes were down-regulated. Our results provide a valuable resource for identifying transcriptional targets of MEF2 in hNPCs.

Alteration of the exopolysaccharide production and the transcriptional profile of free-living Frankia strain CcI3 under nitrogen-fixing conditions.

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Lee, Hae-In; Donati, Andrew J; Hahn, Dittmar; Tisa, Louis S; Chang, Woo-Suk

2013-12-01

We investigated the effect of different nitrogen (N) sources on exopolysaccharide (EPS) production and composition by Frankia strain CcI3, a N2-fixing actinomycete that forms root nodules with Casuarina species. Frankia cells grown in the absence of NH4Cl (i.e., under N2-fixing conditions) produced 1.7-fold more EPS, with lower galactose (45.1 vs. 54.7 mol%) and higher mannose (17.3 vs. 9.7 mol%) contents than those grown in the presence of NH4Cl as a combined N-source. In the absence of the combined N-source, terminally linked and branched residue contents were nearly twice as high with 32.8 vs. 15.1 mol% and 15.1 vs. 8.7 mol%, respectively, than in its presence, while the content of linearly linked residues was lower with 52.1 mol% compared to 76.2 mol%. To find out clues for the altered EPS production at the transcriptional level, we performed whole-gene expression profiling using quantitative reverse transcription PCR and microarray technology. The transcription profiles of Frankia strain CcI3 grown in the absence of NH4Cl revealed up to 2 orders of magnitude higher transcription of nitrogen fixation-related genes compared to those of CcI3 cells grown in the presence of NH4Cl. Unexpectedly, microarray data did not provide evidence for transcriptional regulation as a mechanism for differences in EPS production. These findings indicate effects of nitrogen fixation on the production and composition of EPS in Frankia strain CcI3 and suggest posttranscriptional regulation of enhanced EPS production in the absence of the combined N-source.

In Vitro Susceptibilities of the Microsporidia Encephalitozoon cuniculi, Encephalitozoon hellem, and Encephalitozoon intestinalis to Albendazole and Its Sulfoxide and Sulfone Metabolites

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Ridoux, Olivier; Drancourt, Michel

1998-01-01

In vitro comparisons demonstrated that the efficacy of albendazole, albendazole-sulfoxide, and albendazole-sulfone against pathogenic Encephalitozoon species was proportional to the degree of oxidation at a concentration of >10−3 μg/ml. Furthermore, at a concentration of <10−2 μg/ml, benzimidazoles were more effective against Encephalitozoon cuniculi and Encephalitozoon hellem than against Encephalitozoon intestinalis. PMID:9835533

Gene Expression Profiling Reveals a Massive, Aneuploidy-Dependent Transcriptional Deregulation and Distinct Differences between Lymph Node–Negative and Lymph Node–Positive Colon Carcinomas

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Grade, Marian; Hörmann, Patrick; Becker, Sandra; Hummon, Amanda B.; Wangsa, Danny; Varma, Sudhir; Simon, Richard; Liersch, Torsten; Becker, Heinz; Difilippantonio, Michael J.; Ghadimi, B. Michael; Ried, Thomas

2016-01-01

To characterize patterns of global transcriptional deregulation in primary colon carcinomas, we did gene expression profiling of 73 tumors [Unio Internationale Contra Cancrum stage II (n = 33) and stage III (n = 40)] using oligonucleotide microarrays. For 30 of the tumors, expression profiles were compared with those from matched normal mucosa samples. We identified a set of 1,950 genes with highly significant deregulation between tumors and mucosa samples (P 5-fold average expression difference between normal colon mucosa and carcinomas, including up-regulation of MYC and of HMGA1, a putative oncogene. Furthermore, we identified 68 genes that were significantly differentially expressed between lymph node–negative and lymph node–positive tumors (P deregulated genes were validated using quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR in >40 tumor and normal mucosa samples with good concordance between the techniques. Finally, we established a relationship between specific genomic imbalances, which were mapped for 32 of the analyzed colon tumors by comparative genomic hybridization, and alterations of global transcriptional activity. Previously, we had conducted a similar analysis of primary rectal carcinomas. The systematic comparison of colon and rectal carcinomas revealed a significant overlap of genomic imbalances and transcriptional deregulation, including activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling cascade, suggesting similar pathogenic pathways. PMID:17210682

Rapid changes in transcription profiles of the Plasmodium yoelii yir multigene family in clonal populations: lack of epigenetic memory?

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Deirdre Cunningham

Full Text Available The pir multigene family, found in the genomes of Plasmodium vivax, P. knowlesi and the rodent malaria species, encode variant antigens that could be targets of the immune response. Individual parasites of the rodent malaria Plasmodium yoelii, selected by micromanipulation, transcribe only 1 to 3 different pir (yir suggesting tight transcriptional control at the level of individual cells. Using microarray and quantitative RT-PCR, we show that despite this very restricted transcription in a single cell, many yir genes are transcribed throughout the intra-erythrocytic asexual cycle. The timing and level of transcription differs between genes, with some being more highly transcribed in ring and trophozoite stages, whereas others are more highly transcribed in schizonts. Infection of immunodeficient mice with single infected erythrocytes results in populations of parasites each with transcriptional profiles different from that of the parent parasite population and from each other. This drift away from the original 'set' of transcribed genes does not appear to follow a preset pattern and "epigenetic memory" of the yir transcribed in the parent parasite can be rapidly lost. Thus, regulation of pir gene transcription may be different from that of the well-characterised multigene family, var, of Plasmodium falciparum.

Sensing charges of the Ciona intestinalis voltage-sensing phosphatase.

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Villalba-Galea, Carlos A; Frezza, Ludivine; Sandtner, Walter; Bezanilla, Francisco

2013-11-01

Voltage control over enzymatic activity in voltage-sensitive phosphatases (VSPs) is conferred by a voltage-sensing domain (VSD) located in the N terminus. These VSDs are constituted by four putative transmembrane segments (S1 to S4) resembling those found in voltage-gated ion channels. The putative fourth segment (S4) of the VSD contains positive residues that likely function as voltage-sensing elements. To study in detail how these residues sense the plasma membrane potential, we have focused on five arginines in the S4 segment of the Ciona intestinalis VSP (Ci-VSP). After implementing a histidine scan, here we show that four arginine-to-histidine mutants, namely R223H to R232H, mediate voltage-dependent proton translocation across the membrane, indicating that these residues transit through the hydrophobic core of Ci-VSP as a function of the membrane potential. These observations indicate that the charges carried by these residues are sensing charges. Furthermore, our results also show that the electrical field in VSPs is focused in a narrow hydrophobic region that separates the extracellular and intracellular space and constitutes the energy barrier for charge crossing.

Pneumatosis intestinalis in children after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation

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Yeager, A M; Kanof, M E; Lake, A M; Kramer, S S; Jones, B; Saral, R; Santos, G W

1987-01-01

Four children, ages 3 to 8 years, developed pneumatosis intestinalis (PI) after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) for acute leukemia or severe aplastic anemia. PI was detected at a median of 48 days (range, 10-63 days) after BMT and was associated with abdominal symptoms and clinical signs. All patients had severe systemic and/or highgrade cutaneous acute graft-versus-host disease (AGVHD) at some time after BMT and were receiving corticosteroids at the time of development of PI; however, PI was associated with concomitant severe AGVHD in only one patient. One patient with PI had Hafnia alvei bacteremia and another patient had gastroenteritis due to rotavirus and adenovirus. All patients were treated with supportive care and systemic broad-spectrum antibiotics, and PI resolved 2-16 days after onset. Two patients died with BMT-associated complications unrelated to PI. Multiple factors contribute to the development of PI after BMT, and the prognosis for recovery from PI is good with medical management alone. Overall survival in these patients is dependent on the frequency and severity of other conditions, such as AGVHD and opportunistic infections, after BMT.

Clinical analysis of 20 cases of pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis

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Rui TONG

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Objective 　To review the experiences of diagnosis and treatment of pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis (PCI, and study the clinical characteristics of the disease in order to improve the diagnosis and treatment. Methods 　Clinical data from 20 patients with endoscopically confirmed PCI were retrospectively analyzed. They were admitted to the Chinese PLA General Hospital from June 1995 to June 2015. Results 　Among the patients 16 of them were male，and the other four were female. The main clinical manifestations were abdominal distention, diarrhea, abdominal pain and mucous bloody stool. The diagnosis relied mainly on colonoscopy and pathological examination. Laparoscopy assisted colorectal cancer resection was performed in 1 patient, laparostomy and repair of sigmoid colon perforation in 1, endoscopic treatment in 5 cases, drug administration and hyperbaric oxygen therapy in 2, drug treatment alone in 7, and no treatment in 4. Conclusions 　The final diagnosis depends on endoscopic findings. No treatment is recommended to patients with no symptoms. The management of patients with PCI includes antibiotics, oxygen therapy, endoscopic therapy, surgery, and appropriate therapy related to the underlying cause of PCI. The prognosis is good. DOI: 10.11855/j.issn.0577-7402.2016.02.09

Pneumatosis intestinalis in children after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yeager, A.M.; Kanof, M.E.; Lake, A.M.; Kramer, S.S.; Jones, B.; Saral, R.; Santos, G.W.

1987-01-01

Four children, ages 3 to 8 years, developed pneumatosis intestinalis (PI) after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) for acute leukemia or severe aplastic anemia. PI was detected at a median of 48 days (range, 10-63 days) after BMT and was associated with abdominal symptoms and clinical signs. All patients had severe systemic and/or highgrade cutaneous acute graft-versus-host disease (AGVHD) at some time after BMT and were receiving corticosteroids at the time of development of PI; however, PI was associated with concomitant severe AGVHD in only one patient. One patient with PI had Hafnia alvei bacteremia and another patient had gastroenteritis due to rotavirus and adenovirus. All patients were treated with supportive care and systemic broad-spectrum antibiotics, and PI resolved 2-16 days after onset. Two patients died with BMT-associated complications unrelated to PI. Multiple factors contribute to the development of PI after BMT, and the prognosis for recovery from PI is good with medical management alone. Overall survival in these patients is dependent on the frequency and severity of other conditions, such as AGVHD and opportunistic infections, after BMT. (orig.)

Transcript profiling reveals rewiring of iron assimilation gene expression in Candida albicans and C. dubliniensis.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Moran, Gary P

2012-12-01

Hyphal growth is repressed in Candida albicans and Candida dubliniensis by the transcription factor Nrg1. Transcript profiling of a C. dubliniensis NRG1 mutant identified a common group of 28 NRG1-repressed genes in both species, including the hypha-specific genes HWP1, ECE1 and the regulator of cell elongation UME6. Unexpectedly, C. dubliniensis NRG1 was required for wild-type levels of expression of 10 genes required for iron uptake including seven ferric reductases, SIT1, FTR1 and RBT5. However, at alkaline pH and during filamentous growth in 10% serum, most of these genes were highly induced in C. dubliniensis. Conversely, RBT5, PGA10, FRE10 and FRP1 did not exhibit induction during hyphal growth when NRG1 is downregulated, indicating that in C. dubliniensis NRG1 is also required for optimal expression of these genes in alkaline environments. In iron-depleted medium at pH 4.5, reduced growth of the NRG1 mutant relative to wild type was observed; however, growth was restored to wild-type levels or greater at pH 6.5, indicating that alkaline induction of iron assimilation gene expression could rescue this phenotype. These data indicate that transcriptional control of iron assimilation and pseudohypha formation has been separated in C. albicans, perhaps promoting growth in a wider range of niches.

Gene Expression and Metabolite Profiling of Developing Highbush Blueberry Fruit Indicates Transcriptional Regulation of Flavonoid Metabolism and Activation of Abscisic Acid Metabolism1[W][OA

Science.gov (United States)

Zifkin, Michael; Jin, Alena; Ozga, Jocelyn A.; Zaharia, L. Irina; Schernthaner, Johann P.; Gesell, Andreas; Abrams, Suzanne R.; Kennedy, James A.; Constabel, C. Peter

2012-01-01

Highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) fruits contain substantial quantities of flavonoids, which are implicated in a wide range of health benefits. Although the flavonoid constituents of ripe blueberries are known, the molecular genetics underlying their biosynthesis, localization, and changes that occur during development have not been investigated. Two expressed sequence tag libraries from ripening blueberry fruit were constructed as a resource for gene identification and quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction primer design. Gene expression profiling by quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction showed that flavonoid biosynthetic transcript abundance followed a tightly regulated biphasic pattern, and transcript profiles were consistent with the abundance of the three major classes of flavonoids. Proanthocyanidins (PAs) and corresponding biosynthetic transcripts encoding anthocyanidin reductase and leucoanthocyanidin reductase were most concentrated in young fruit and localized predominantly to the inner fruit tissue containing the seeds and placentae. Mean PA polymer length was seven to 8.5 subunits, linked predominantly via B-type linkages, and was relatively constant throughout development. Flavonol accumulation and localization patterns were similar to those of the PAs, and the B-ring hydroxylation pattern of both was correlated with flavonoid-3′-hydroxylase transcript abundance. By contrast, anthocyanins accumulated late in maturation, which coincided with a peak in flavonoid-3-O-glycosyltransferase and flavonoid-3′5′-hydroxylase transcripts. Transcripts of VcMYBPA1, which likely encodes an R2R3-MYB transcriptional regulator of PA synthesis, were prominent in both phases of development. Furthermore, the initiation of ripening was accompanied by a substantial rise in abscisic acid, a growth regulator that may be an important component of the ripening process and contribute to the regulation

Transcript and protein expression profile of PF11_0394, a Plasmodium falciparum protein expressed in salivary gland sporozoites

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Schlarman Maggie S

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Plasmodium falciparum malaria is a significant problem around the world today, thus there is still a need for new control methods to be developed. Because the sporozoite displays dual infectivity for both the mosquito salivary glands and vertebrate host tissue, it is a good target for vaccine development. Methods The P. falciparum gene, PF11_0394, was chosen as a candidate for study due to its potential role in the invasion of host tissues. This gene, which was selected using a data mining approach from PlasmoDB, is expressed both at the transcriptional and protein levels in sporozoites and likely encodes a putative surface protein. Using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR and green fluorescent protein (GFP-trafficking studies, a transcript and protein expression profile of PF11_0394 was determined. Results The PF11_0394 protein has orthologs in other Plasmodium species and Apicomplexans, but none outside of the group Apicomplexa. PF11_0394 transcript was found to be present during both the sporozoite and erythrocytic stages of the parasite life cycle, but no transcript was detected during axenic exoerythrocytic stages. Despite the presence of transcript throughout several life cycle stages, the PF11_0394 protein was only detected in salivary gland sporozoites. Conclusions PF11_0394 appears to be a protein uniquely detected in salivary gland sporozoites. Even though a specific function of PF11_0394 has not been determined in P. falciparum biology, it could be another candidate for a new vaccine.

Effect of chronic uremia on the transcriptional profile of the calcified aorta analyzed by RNA sequencing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rukov, Jakob Lewin; Gravesen, Eva; Mace, Maria L.

2016-01-01

The development of vascular calcification (VC) in chronic uremia (CU) is a tightly regulated process controlled by factors promoting and inhibiting mineralization. Next-generation high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) is a powerful and sensitive tool for quantitative gene expression profiling...... with an expression level of >1 reads/kilobase transcript/million mapped reads, 2,663 genes were differentially expressed with 47% upregulated genes and 53% downregulated genes in uremic rats. Significantly deregulated genes were enriched for ontologies related to the extracellular matrix, response to wounding...

In the ovary of Ciona intestinalis (Type A), immune-related galectin and phenoloxidase genes are differentially expressed by the follicle accessory cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Parrinello, Daniela; Sanfratello, Maria Antonietta; Parisi, Maria Giovanna; Vizzini, Aiti; Cammarata, Matteo

2018-01-01

Riboprobes (in situ hybridization) and antibodies (immunohistochemistry), previously used to show the upregulation of Ciona intestinalis (Type A) galectins (CiLgals-a, CiLgals-b) and phenoloxidase (CinPO2) immune-related genes, were tested on histological sections of the ovary. The ovarian follicles are composed of oocytes encased by follicular cells (FCs) and test cells (TCs). Results show the transcription upregulation of both CiLgals and CinPO2 genes in the vitellogenic FCs, conversely distinct cytolocalization of the proteins are shown. At vitellogenic stage, the CiLgals are localized in the FCs, in the oocyte cytoplasm, and close to the germinal vesicle (GV), whereas the CinPO2 was never identified in the FCs. In a presumptive advanced phase and at the post-vitellogenic stage the TCs appear to be labelled by the CinPO2 riboprobe, and the protein identified by the antibody suggesting an mRNA transcytosis process from FCs. At post-vitellogenic stage the CiLgals mainly enrich the GV nucleoplasm, whereas the CinPO2 is contained in TCs and in the ooplasm but never found in the GV. This finding sheds new light on a former paper in which TCs were reported to be the only CinPO2-producing cells in the ovarian follicle. Finally, CiLgals and CinPO2 genes transcription and proteins production seem to be associated with accessory cells during their differentiation from vitellogenic to post-vitellogenic stage. The present findings promote further research on the early upregulation of immune-related genes, and the potential multifunctional role of the produced proteins. In addition further insight on the accessory cells involvement in ascidian oogenesis are reported. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Discriminative identification of transcriptional responses of promoters and enhancers after stimulus

KAUST Repository

Kleftogiannis, Dimitrios A.

2016-10-17

Promoters and enhancers regulate the initiation of gene expression and maintenance of expression levels in spatial and temporal manner. Recent findings stemming from the Cap Analysis of Gene Expression (CAGE) demonstrate that promoters and enhancers, based on their expression profiles after stimulus, belong to different transcription response subclasses. One of the most promising biological features that might explain the difference in transcriptional response between subclasses is the local chromatin environment. We introduce a novel computational framework, PEDAL, for distinguishing effectively transcriptional profiles of promoters and enhancers using solely histone modification marks, chromatin accessibility and binding sites of transcription factors and co-activators. A case study on data from MCF-7 cell-line reveals that PEDAL can identify successfully the transcription response subclasses of promoters and enhancers from two different stimulations. Moreover, we report subsets of input markers that discriminate with minimized classification error MCF-7 promoter and enhancer transcription response subclasses. Our work provides a general computational approach for identifying effectively cell-specific and stimulation-specific promoter and enhancer transcriptional profiles, and thus, contributes to improve our understanding of transcriptional activation in human.

Simultaneous RNA-seq based transcriptional profiling of intracellular Brucella abortus and B. abortus-infected murine macrophages.

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Hop, Huynh Tan; Arayan, Lauren Togonon; Reyes, Alisha Wehdnesday Bernardo; Huy, Tran Xuan Ngoc; Min, WonGi; Lee, Hu Jang; Son, Jee Soo; Kim, Suk

2017-12-01

Brucella is a zoonotic pathogen that survives within macrophages; however the replicative mechanisms involved are not fully understood. We describe the isolation of sufficient Brucella abortus RNA from primary host cell environment using modified reported methods for RNA-seq analysis, and simultaneously characterize the transcriptional profiles of intracellular B. abortus and bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMM) from BALB/c mice at 24 h (replicative phase) post-infection. Our results revealed that 25.12% (801/3190) and 16.16% (515/3190) of the total B. abortus genes were up-regulated and down-regulated at >2-fold, respectively as compared to the free-living B. abortus. Among >5-fold differentially expressed genes, the up-regulated genes are mostly involved in DNA, RNA manipulations as well as protein biosynthesis and secretion while the down-regulated genes are mainly involved in energy production and metabolism. On the other hand, the host responses during B. abortus infection revealed that 14.01% (6071/43,346) of BMM genes were reproducibly transcribed at >5-fold during infection. Transcription of cytokines, chemokines and transcriptional factors, such as tumor necrosis factor (Tnf), interleukin-1α (Il1α), interleukin-1β (Il1β), interleukin-6 (Il6), interleukin-12 (Il12), chemokine C-X-C motif (CXCL) family, nuclear factor kappa B (Nf-κb), signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (Stat1), that may contribute to host defense were markedly induced while transcription of various genes involved in cell proliferation and metabolism were suppressed upon B. abortus infection. In conclusion, these data suggest that Brucella modulates gene expression in hostile intracellular environment while simultaneously alters the host pathways that may lead to the pathogen's intracellular survival and infection. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Transcriptional profiling of midgut immunity response and degeneration in the wandering silkworm, Bombyx mori.

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Xu, Qiuyun; Lu, Anrui; Xiao, Guohua; Yang, Bing; Zhang, Jie; Li, Xuquan; Guan, Jingmin; Shao, Qimiao; Beerntsen, Brenda T; Zhang, Peng; Wang, Chengshu; Ling, Erjun

2012-01-01

Lepidoptera insects have a novel development process comprising several metamorphic stages during their life cycle compared with vertebrate animals. Unlike most Lepidoptera insects that live on nectar during the adult stage, the Bombyx mori silkworm adults do not eat anything and die after egg-laying. In addition, the midguts of Lepidoptera insects produce antimicrobial proteins during the wandering stage when the larval tissues undergo numerous changes. The exact mechanisms responsible for these phenomena remain unclear. We used the silkworm as a model and performed genome-wide transcriptional profiling of the midgut between the feeding stage and the wandering stage. Many genes concerned with metabolism, digestion, and ion and small molecule transportation were down-regulated during the wandering stage, indicating that the wandering stage midgut loses its normal functions. Microarray profiling, qRT-PCR and western blot proved the production of antimicrobial proteins (peptides) in the midgut during the wandering stage. Different genes of the immune deficiency (Imd) pathway were up-regulated during the wandering stage. However, some key genes belonging to the Toll pathway showed no change in their transcription levels. Unlike butterfly (Pachliopta aristolochiae), the midgut of silkworm moth has a layer of cells, indicating that the development of midgut since the wandering stage is not usual. Cell division in the midgut was observed only for a short time during the wandering stage. However, there was extensive cell apoptosis before pupation. The imbalance of cell division and apoptosis probably drives the continuous degeneration of the midgut in the silkworm since the wandering stage. This study provided an insight into the mechanism of the degeneration of the silkworm midgut and the production of innate immunity-related proteins during the wandering stage. The imbalance of cell division and apoptosis induces irreversible degeneration of the midgut. The Imd pathway

Transcriptional blood signatures distinguish pulmonary tuberculosis, pulmonary sarcoidosis, pneumonias and lung cancers.

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Bloom, Chloe I; Graham, Christine M; Berry, Matthew P R; Rozakeas, Fotini; Redford, Paul S; Wang, Yuanyuan; Xu, Zhaohui; Wilkinson, Katalin A; Wilkinson, Robert J; Kendrick, Yvonne; Devouassoux, Gilles; Ferry, Tristan; Miyara, Makoto; Bouvry, Diane; Valeyre, Dominique; Dominique, Valeyre; Gorochov, Guy; Blankenship, Derek; Saadatian, Mitra; Vanhems, Phillip; Beynon, Huw; Vancheeswaran, Rama; Wickremasinghe, Melissa; Chaussabel, Damien; Banchereau, Jacques; Pascual, Virginia; Ho, Ling-Pei; Lipman, Marc; O'Garra, Anne

2013-01-01

New approaches to define factors underlying the immunopathogenesis of pulmonary diseases including sarcoidosis and tuberculosis are needed to develop new treatments and biomarkers. Comparing the blood transcriptional response of tuberculosis to other similar pulmonary diseases will advance knowledge of disease pathways and help distinguish diseases with similar clinical presentations. To determine the factors underlying the immunopathogenesis of the granulomatous diseases, sarcoidosis and tuberculosis, by comparing the blood transcriptional responses in these and other pulmonary diseases. We compared whole blood genome-wide transcriptional profiles in pulmonary sarcoidosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, to community acquired pneumonia and primary lung cancer and healthy controls, before and after treatment, and in purified leucocyte populations. An Interferon-inducible neutrophil-driven blood transcriptional signature was present in both sarcoidosis and tuberculosis, with a higher abundance and expression in tuberculosis. Heterogeneity of the sarcoidosis signature correlated significantly with disease activity. Transcriptional profiles in pneumonia and lung cancer revealed an over-abundance of inflammatory transcripts. After successful treatment the transcriptional activity in tuberculosis and pneumonia patients was significantly reduced. However the glucocorticoid-responsive sarcoidosis patients showed a significant increase in transcriptional activity. 144-blood transcripts were able to distinguish tuberculosis from other lung diseases and controls. Tuberculosis and sarcoidosis revealed similar blood transcriptional profiles, dominated by interferon-inducible transcripts, while pneumonia and lung cancer showed distinct signatures, dominated by inflammatory genes. There were also significant differences between tuberculosis and sarcoidosis in the degree of their transcriptional activity, the heterogeneity of their profiles and their transcriptional response to treatment.

Post-translational glutamylation and tyrosination in tubulin of tritrichomonads and the diplomonad Giardia intestinalis.

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Boggild, A K; Sundermann, C A; Estridge, B H

2002-01-01

Glutamylated and tyrosinated tubulin were localized in Giardia intestinalis and selected trichomonads of the Tritrichomonadinae subfamily, using specific monoclonal antibodies directed at each of the post-translational modifications. Analysis was carried out using indirect immunofluorescence microscopy. Although trichomonad tubulins remained unlabeled by anti-tyrosine tubulin (TUB-1A2), the presence of the glutamylation motif (GT 335) was confirmed and found to differ in distribution among tritrichomonads. Tritrichomonas muris was most heavily labeled with GT 335, while T. foetus was the least so. Like trichomonads, Giardia was unreactive to anti-tyrosine tubulin; however, the GT 335 antibody produced marked fluorescence in Giardia trophozoites. This study is the first to report immunofluorescent localization of tubulin glutamylation in Giardia and confirms previously reported mass spectrometry data.

DNA dynamics play a role as a basal transcription factor in the positioning and regulation of gene transcription initiation

OpenAIRE

Alexandrov, Boian S.; Gelev, Vladimir; Yoo, Sang Wook; Alexandrov, Ludmil B.; Fukuyo, Yayoi; Bishop, Alan R.; Rasmussen, Kim ?.; Usheva, Anny

2009-01-01

We assess the role of DNA breathing dynamics as a determinant of promoter strength and transcription start site (TSS) location. We compare DNA Langevin dynamic profiles of representative gene promoters, calculated with the extended non-linear PBD model of DNA with experimental data on transcription factor binding and transcriptional activity. Our results demonstrate that DNA dynamic activity at the TSS can be suppressed by mutations that do not affect basal transcription factor binding–DNA co...

Transcript Profiling of Hevea brasiliensis during Latex Flow

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Jinquan Chao

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Latex exploitation enhances latex regeneration in rubber trees. The latex exploitation-caused latex flow lasts from 10 min to a few hours, which is convenient for exploring the transcript profiling of latex metabolism-related genes at the different stages of latex flow. In the present study, the expression pattern of 62 latex metabolism-related genes involved in water transportation, carbohydrate metabolism, natural rubber biosynthesis, hormone signaling, ROS generation and scavenging, and latex coagulum across three stages of latex flow between rubber tree clones CATAS7-33-97 and CATAS8-79 were comparatively analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR. The two clones show differences in latex regeneration and have a different duration of latex flow. The results showed that the expression levels of 38 genes were significantly higher in CATAS8-79 latex than in CATAS7-33-97 during latex regeneration, while 45 genes had a notably higher expression level in CATAS8-79 latex during latex flow. Together with the activation of the MEP pathway and jasmonate pathway in CATAS8-79 latex, HbPIP1;3, HbPIP1;4, HbSUT3, HbSus3, HbHMGS1-2, HbMK should contribute to the high latex regeneration ability. The up-regulation of ethylene signaling and Hb44KD and the down-regulation of latex coagulation-related genes in CATAS8-79 latex might contribute to its longer latex flow duration. This study provides some cues for revealing the regulation of latex metabolism in rubber trees.

Metabolite and transcript profiling of berry skin during fruit development elucidates differential regulation between Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz cultivars at branching points in the polyphenol pathway.

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Degu, Asfaw; Hochberg, Uri; Sikron, Noga; Venturini, Luca; Buson, Genny; Ghan, Ryan; Plaschkes, Inbar; Batushansky, Albert; Chalifa-Caspi, Vered; Mattivi, Fulvio; Delledonne, Massimo; Pezzotti, Mario; Rachmilevitch, Shimon; Cramer, Grant R; Fait, Aaron

2014-07-26

Grapevine berries undergo complex biochemical changes during fruit maturation, many of which are dependent upon the variety and its environment. In order to elucidate the varietal dependent developmental regulation of primary and specialized metabolism, berry skins of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz were subjected to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based metabolite profiling from pre-veraison to harvest. The generated dataset was augmented with transcript profiling using RNAseq. The analysis of the metabolite data revealed similar developmental patterns of change in primary metabolites between the two cultivars. Nevertheless, towards maturity the extent of change in the major organic acid and sugars (i.e. sucrose, trehalose, malate) and precursors of aromatic and phenolic compounds such as quinate and shikimate was greater in Shiraz compared to Cabernet Sauvignon. In contrast, distinct directional projections on the PCA plot of the two cultivars samples towards maturation when using the specialized metabolite profiles were apparent, suggesting a cultivar-dependent regulation of the specialized metabolism. Generally, Shiraz displayed greater upregulation of the entire polyphenol pathway and specifically higher accumulation of piceid and coumaroyl anthocyanin forms than Cabernet Sauvignon from veraison onwards. Transcript profiling revealed coordinated increased transcript abundance for genes encoding enzymes of committing steps in the phenylpropanoid pathway. The anthocyanin metabolite profile showed F3'5'H-mediated delphinidin-type anthocyanin enrichment in both varieties towards maturation, consistent with the transcript data, indicating that the F3'5'H-governed branching step dominates the anthocyanin profile at late berry development. Correlation analysis confirmed the tightly coordinated metabolic changes during development, and suggested a source-sink relation between the central and specialized

Comparative Transcriptional Profiling of Three Super-Hybrid Rice Combinations

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Yonggang Peng

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Utilization of heterosis has significantly increased rice yields. However, its mechanism remains unclear. In this study, comparative transcriptional profiles of three super-hybrid rice combinations, LY2163, LY2186 and LYP9, at the flowering and filling stages, were created using rice whole-genome oligonucleotide microarray. The LY2163, LY2186 and LYP9 hybrids yielded 1193, 1630 and 1046 differentially expressed genes (DGs, accounting for 3.2%, 4.4% and 2.8% of the total number of genes (36,926, respectively, after using the z-test (p < 0.01. Functional category analysis showed that the DGs in each hybrid combination were mainly classified into the carbohydrate metabolism and energy metabolism categories. Further analysis of the metabolic pathways showed that DGs were significantly enriched in the carbon fixation pathway (p < 0.01 for all three combinations. Over 80% of the DGs were located in rice quantitative trait loci (QTLs of the Gramene database, of which more than 90% were located in the yield related QTLs in all three combinations, which suggested that there was a correlation between DGs and rice heterosis. Pathway Studio analysis showed the presence of DGs in the circadian regulatory network of all three hybrid combinations, which suggested that the circadian clock had a role in rice heterosis. Our results provide information that can help to elucidate the molecular mechanism underlying rice heterosis.

NSR-seq transcriptional profiling enables identification of a gene signature of Plasmodium falciparum parasites infecting children.

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Vignali, Marissa; Armour, Christopher D; Chen, Jingyang; Morrison, Robert; Castle, John C; Biery, Matthew C; Bouzek, Heather; Moon, Wonjong; Babak, Tomas; Fried, Michal; Raymond, Christopher K; Duffy, Patrick E

2011-03-01

Malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum results in approximately 1 million annual deaths worldwide, with young children and pregnant mothers at highest risk. Disease severity might be related to parasite virulence factors, but expression profiling studies of parasites to test this hypothesis have been hindered by extensive sequence variation in putative virulence genes and a preponderance of host RNA in clinical samples. We report here the application of RNA sequencing to clinical isolates of P. falciparum, using not-so-random (NSR) primers to successfully exclude human ribosomal RNA and globin transcripts and enrich for parasite transcripts. Using NSR-seq, we confirmed earlier microarray studies showing upregulation of a distinct subset of genes in parasites infecting pregnant women, including that encoding the well-established pregnancy malaria vaccine candidate var2csa. We also describe a subset of parasite transcripts that distinguished parasites infecting children from those infecting pregnant women and confirmed this observation using quantitative real-time PCR and mass spectrometry proteomic analyses. Based on their putative functional properties, we propose that these proteins could have a role in childhood malaria pathogenesis. Our study provides proof of principle that NSR-seq represents an approach that can be used to study clinical isolates of parasites causing severe malaria syndromes as well other blood-borne pathogens and blood-related diseases.

NSR-seq transcriptional profiling enables identification of a gene signature of Plasmodium falciparum parasites infecting children

Science.gov (United States)

Vignali, Marissa; Armour, Christopher D.; Chen, Jingyang; Morrison, Robert; Castle, John C.; Biery, Matthew C.; Bouzek, Heather; Moon, Wonjong; Babak, Tomas; Fried, Michal; Raymond, Christopher K.; Duffy, Patrick E.

2011-01-01

Malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum results in approximately 1 million annual deaths worldwide, with young children and pregnant mothers at highest risk. Disease severity might be related to parasite virulence factors, but expression profiling studies of parasites to test this hypothesis have been hindered by extensive sequence variation in putative virulence genes and a preponderance of host RNA in clinical samples. We report here the application of RNA sequencing to clinical isolates of P. falciparum, using not-so-random (NSR) primers to successfully exclude human ribosomal RNA and globin transcripts and enrich for parasite transcripts. Using NSR-seq, we confirmed earlier microarray studies showing upregulation of a distinct subset of genes in parasites infecting pregnant women, including that encoding the well-established pregnancy malaria vaccine candidate var2csa. We also describe a subset of parasite transcripts that distinguished parasites infecting children from those infecting pregnant women and confirmed this observation using quantitative real-time PCR and mass spectrometry proteomic analyses. Based on their putative functional properties, we propose that these proteins could have a role in childhood malaria pathogenesis. Our study provides proof of principle that NSR-seq represents an approach that can be used to study clinical isolates of parasites causing severe malaria syndromes as well other blood-borne pathogens and blood-related diseases. PMID:21317536

The post-transcriptional operon

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tenenbaum, Scott A.; Christiansen, Jan; Nielsen, Henrik

2011-01-01

model (PTO) is used to describe data from an assortment of methods (e.g. RIP-Chip, CLIP-Chip, miRNA profiling, ribosome profiling) that globally address the functionality of mRNA. Several examples of post-transcriptional operons have been documented in the literature and demonstrate the usefulness...... of the model in identifying new participants in cellular pathways as well as in deepening our understanding of cellular responses....

Giardia intestinalis and nutritional status in children participating in the complementary nutrition program, Antioquia, Colombia, May to October 2006 Giardia intestinalis e estado nutricional em crianças participantes do programa de nutrição complementar, melhoramento alimentar e nutricional da Antioquia (MANA - Instituto Colombiano de Bem-Estar Familiar (ICBF, Antióquia, Colombia, maio a outubro de 2006

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Jorge H. Botero-Garcés

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Giardia intestinalis infection is prevalent throughout the world and widely distributed in developing countries. In general, children display serious consequences to their state of health, including slow height-weight development; therefore, the main aim of this study was to determine the association between Giardia infection and the nutritional status of children who participate in the program of complementary feeding (Mejoramiento Alimentario y Nutricional de Antioquia (MANA - Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF. A cross-sectional study examining the association of giardiasis with nutritional status was conducted. A total of 2035 children aged eight months to six years-old were studied. Data were collected using structured questionnaires, anthropometric measurements and laboratory analysis of blood and stool samples. Analysis of the results showed that 27.6% of children were infected with G. intestinalis, while 8.1% and 1.9% were mildly and significantly underweight, respectively, and 14.1% presented stunting. Giardiasis was statistically identified as a strong predictor of stunting in this study population.A infecção pela Giardia intestinalis está amplamente distribuída no mundo apresentando a maior prevalência nos países em desenvolvimento. Em crianças, esta parasitose pode ter conseqüências graves no estado geral de saúde assim como no ganho de peso e estatura. O objetivo desta pesquisa foi estabelecer a associação entre a infecção com Giardia e o estado nutricional das crianças beneficiárias do programa de complementação alimentar - MANA. Um estudo de corte no qual foram avaliadas 2035 crianças entre os oito meses e os seis anos de idade foi realizado. A informação foi obtida a partir de questionários estruturados, medições antropométricas e exame de fezes. Os resultados mostraram que 27,6% das crianças estavam infectadas com Giardia intestinalis, das quais 8,1% apresentaram desnutrição moderada

Study on differential transcriptional profile in human hepatocyte exposed to different doses γ ray

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Jianguo; Wen Jianhua; Duan Zhikai; Tian Yu; Wang Fang; Zuo Yahui

2009-01-01

The study analyzed the differential transcriptional profile of normal human hepatic cell and human hepatic cell radiated with three different doses (0.5 Gy, 2 Gy, 4 Gy γ ray) by gene chip technique. The results showed that the whole differentially expressed genes of three different doses have 284 in 14112 human genes analyzed, in which 261 genes were up-regulated and 23 genes were down-regulated. These genes are mainly associated with interferon receptor, mitochondrial regulation, homo sapiens hepatitis A virus cellular receptor, cell cycle regulation, kinase and zinc finger protein etc. RT-PCR results indicated that up-regulated expression of gene HAVcr-1, HAVcr-2, MFTC, MOAP1 and down-regulated expression of gene TRIP12, DCN are consistent with gene chip data. (authors)

HaCaT Keratinocytes and Primary Epidermal Keratinocytes Have Different Transcriptional Profiles of Cornified Envelope-Associated Genes to T Helper Cell Cytokines

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Seo, Min-Duk; Kang, Tae Jin; Lee, Chang Hoon; Lee, Ai-Young; Noh, Minsoo

2012-01-01

HaCaT cells are the immortalized human keratinocytes and have been extensively used to study the epidermal homeostasis and its pathophysiology. T helper cells play a role in various chronic dermatological conditions and they can affect skin barrier homeostasis. To evaluate whether HaCaT cells can be used as a model cell system to study abnormal skin barrier development in various dermatologic diseases, we analyzed the gene expression profile of epidermal differentiation markers of HaCaT cells in response to major T helper (Th) cell cytokines, such as IFNγ, IL-4, IL-17A and IL-22. The gene transcriptional profile of cornified envelope-associated proteins, such as filaggrin, loricrin, involucrin and keratin 10 (KRT10), in HaCaT cells was generally different from that in normal human keratinocytes (NHKs). This suggests that HaCaT cells have a limitation as a model system to study the pathophysiological mechanism associated with the Th cell cytokine-dependent changes in cornified envelope-associated proteins which are essential for normal skin barrier development. In contrast, the gene transcription profile change of human β2-defensin (HBD2) in response to IFNγ, IL-4 or IL-17A in HaCaT cells was consistent with the expression pattern of NHKs. IFNγ also up-regulated transglutaminase 2 (TGM2) gene transcription in both HaCaT cells and NHKs. As an alternative cell culture system for NHKs, HaCaT cells can be used to study molecular mechanisms associated with abnormal HBD2 and TGM2 expression in response to IFNγ, IL-4 or IL-17A. PMID:24116291

Differences between flocculating yeast and regular industrial yeast in transcription and metabolite profiling during ethanol fermentation

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Lili Li

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Objectives: To improve ethanolic fermentation performance of self-flocculating yeast, difference between a flocculating yeast strain and a regular industrial yeast strain was analyzed by transcriptional and metabolic approaches. Results: The number of down-regulated (industrial yeast YIC10 vs. flocculating yeast GIM2.71 and up-regulated genes were 4503 and 228, respectively. It is the economic regulation for YIC10 that non-essential genes were down-regulated, and cells put more “energy” into growth and ethanol production. Hexose transport and phosphorylation were not the limiting-steps in ethanol fermentation for GIM2.71 compared to YIC10, whereas the reaction of 1,3-disphosphoglycerate to 3-phosphoglycerate, the decarboxylation of pyruvate to acetaldehyde and its subsequent reduction to ethanol were the most limiting steps. GIM2.71 had stronger stress response than non-flocculating yeast and much more carbohydrate was distributed to other bypass, such as glycerol, acetate and trehalose synthesis. Conclusions: Differences between flocculating yeast and regular industrial yeast in transcription and metabolite profiling will provide clues for improving the fermentation performance of GIM2.71.

Sialotranscriptomics of Rhipicephalus zambeziensis reveals intricate expression profiles of secretory proteins and suggests tight temporal transcriptional regulation during blood-feeding.

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de Castro, Minique Hilda; de Klerk, Daniel; Pienaar, Ronel; Rees, D Jasper G; Mans, Ben J

2017-08-10

Ticks secrete a diverse mixture of secretory proteins into the host to evade its immune response and facilitate blood-feeding, making secretory proteins attractive targets for the production of recombinant anti-tick vaccines. The largely neglected tick species, Rhipicephalus zambeziensis, is an efficient vector of Theileria parva in southern Africa but its available sequence information is limited. Next generation sequencing has advanced sequence availability for ticks in recent years and has assisted the characterisation of secretory proteins. This study focused on the de novo assembly and annotation of the salivary gland transcriptome of R. zambeziensis and the temporal expression of secretory protein transcripts in female and male ticks, before the onset of feeding and during early and late feeding. The sialotranscriptome of R. zambeziensis yielded 23,631 transcripts from which 13,584 non-redundant proteins were predicted. Eighty-six percent of these contained a predicted start and stop codon and were estimated to be putatively full-length proteins. A fifth (2569) of the predicted proteins were annotated as putative secretory proteins and explained 52% of the expression in the transcriptome. Expression analyses revealed that 2832 transcripts were differentially expressed among feeding time points and 1209 between the tick sexes. The expression analyses further indicated that 57% of the annotated secretory protein transcripts were differentially expressed. Dynamic expression profiles of secretory protein transcripts were observed during feeding of female ticks. Whereby a number of transcripts were upregulated during early feeding, presumably for feeding site establishment and then during late feeding, 52% of these were downregulated, indicating that transcripts were required at specific feeding stages. This suggested that secretory proteins are under stringent transcriptional regulation that fine-tunes their expression in salivary glands during feeding. No open

Primary effect of chemotherapy on the transcription profile of AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kuyl, Antoinette C van der; Burg, Remco van den; Zorgdrager, Fokla; Dekker, John T; Maas, Jolanda; Noesel, Carel JM van; Goudsmit, Jaap; Cornelissen, Marion

2002-01-01

Drugs & used in anticancer chemotherapy have severe effects upon the cellular transcription and replication machinery. From in vitro studies it has become clear that these drugs can affect specific genes, as well as have an effect upon the total transcriptome. Total mRNA from two skin lesions from a single AIDS-KS patient was analyzed with the SAGE (Serial Analysis of Gene Expression) technique to assess changes in the transcriptome induced by chemotherapy. SAGE libraries were constructed from material obtained 24 (KS-24) and 48 (KS-48) hrs after combination therapy with bleomycin, doxorubicin and vincristine. KS-24 and KS-48 were compared to SAGE libraries of untreated AIDS-KS, and to libraries generated from normal skin and from isolated CD4+ T-cells, using the programs USAGE and HTM. SAGE libraries were also compared with the SAGEmap database. In order to assess the primary response of AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma (AIDS-KS) to chemotherapy in vivo, we analyzed the transcriptome of AIDS-KS skin lesions from a HIV-1 seropositive patient at two time points after therapy. The mRNA profile was found to have changed dramatically within 24 hours after drug treatment. There was an almost complete absence of transcripts highly expressed in AIDS-KS, probably due to a transcription block. Analysis of KS-24 suggested that mRNA pool used in its construction originated from poly(A) binding protein (PABP) mRNP complexes, which are probably located in nuclear structures known as interchromatin granule clusters (IGCs). IGCs are known to fuse after transcription inhibition, probably affecting poly(A)+RNA distribution. Forty-eight hours after chemotherapy, mRNA isolated from the lesion was largely derived from infiltrating lymphocytes, confirming the transcriptional block in the AIDS-KS tissue. These in vivo findings indicate that the effect of anti-cancer drugs is likely to be more global than up- or downregulation of specific genes, at least in this single patient with

Transcriptome profiling of Nasonia vitripennis testis reveals novel transcripts expressed from the selfish B chromosome, paternal sex ratio.

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Akbari, Omar S; Antoshechkin, Igor; Hay, Bruce A; Ferree, Patrick M

2013-09-04

A widespread phenomenon in nature is sex ratio distortion of arthropod populations caused by microbial and genetic parasites. Currently little is known about how these agents alter host developmental processes to favor one sex or the other. The paternal sex ratio (PSR) chromosome is a nonessential, paternally transmitted centric fragment that segregates in natural populations of the jewel wasp, Nasonia vitripennis. To persist, PSR is thought to modify the hereditary material of the developing sperm, with the result that all nuclear DNA other than the PSR chromosome is destroyed shortly after fertilization. This results in the conversion of a fertilized embryo--normally a female--into a male, thereby insuring transmission of the "selfish" PSR chromosome, and simultaneously leading to wasp populations that are male-biased. To begin to understand this system at the mechanistic level, we carried out transcriptional profiling of testis from WT and PSR-carrying males. We identified a number of transcripts that are differentially expressed between these conditions. We also discovered nine transcripts that are uniquely expressed from the PSR chromosome. Four of these PSR-specific transcripts encode putative proteins, whereas the others have very short open reading frames and no homology to known proteins, suggesting that they are long noncoding RNAs. We propose several different models for how these transcripts could facilitate PSR-dependent effects. Our analyses also revealed 15.71 MB of novel transcribed regions in the N. vitripennis genome, thus increasing the current annotation of total transcribed regions by 53.4%. Finally, we detected expression of multiple meiosis-related genes in the wasp testis, despite the lack of conventional meiosis in the male sex.

Mitochondrial-type hsp70 genes of the amitochondriate protists, Giardia intestinalis, Entamoeba histolytica and two microsporidians☆

Science.gov (United States)

Arisue, Nobuko; Sánchez, Lidya B.; Weiss, Louis M.; Müller, Miklós; Hashimoto, Tetsuo

2011-01-01

Genes encoding putative mitochondrial-type heat shock protein 70 (mit-hsp70) were isolated and sequenced from amitochondriate protists, Giardia intestinalis, Entamoeba histolytica, and two microsporidians, Encephalitozoon hellem and Glugea plecoglossi. The deduced mit-hsp70 sequences were analyzed by sequence alignments and phylogenetic reconstructions. The mit-hsp70 sequence of these four amitochondriate protists were divergent from other mit-hsp70 sequences of mitochondriate eukaryotes. However, all of these sequences were clearly located within a eukaryotic mitochondrial clade in the tree including various type hsp70 sequences, supporting the emerging notion that none of these amitochondriate lineages are primitively amitochodrial, but lost their mitochondria secondarily in their evolutionary past. PMID:11880223

Transcriptional Profiling of Bone Marrow Stromal Cells in Response to Porphyromonas gingivalis Secreted Products

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Reddi, Durga; Belibasakis, Georgios N.

2012-01-01

Periodontitis is an infectious inflammatory disease that destroys the tooth-supporting (periodontal) tissues. Porphyromonas gingivalis is an oral pathogen highly implicated in the pathogenesis of this disease. It can exert its effects to a number of cells, including osteogenic bone marrow stromal cells which are important for homeostastic capacity of the tissues. By employing gene microarray technology, this study aimed to describe the overall transcriptional events (>2-fold regulation) elicited by P. gingivalis secreted products in bone marrow stromal cells, and to dissect further the categories of genes involved in bone metabolism, inflammatory and immune responses. After 6 h of challenge with P. gingivalis, 271 genes were up-regulated whereas 209 genes were down-regulated, whereas after 24 h, these numbers were 259 and 109, respectively. The early (6 h) response was characterised by regulation of genes associated with inhibition of cell cycle, induction of apoptosis and loss of structural integrity, whereas the late (24 h) response was characterised by induction of chemokines, cytokines and their associated intracellular pathways (such as NF-κB), mediators of connective tissue and bone destruction, and suppression of regulators of osteogenic differentiation. The most strongly up-regulated genes were lipocalin 2 (LCN2) and serum amyloid A3 (SAA3), both encoding for proteins of the acute phase inflammatory response. Collectively, these transcriptional changes elicited by P. gingivalis denote that the fundamental cellular functions are hindered, and that the cells acquire a phenotype commensurate with propagated innate immune response and inflammatory-mediated tissue destruction. In conclusion, the global transcriptional profile of bone marrow stromal cells in response to P. gingivalis is marked by deregulated homeostatic functions, with implications in the pathogenesis of periodontitis. PMID:22937121

Transcriptional profiling differences for articular cartilage and repair tissue in equine joint surface lesions

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Stromberg Arnold J

2009-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Full-thickness articular cartilage lesions that reach to the subchondral bone yet are restricted to the chondral compartment usually fill with a fibrocartilage-like repair tissue which is structurally and biomechanically compromised relative to normal articular cartilage. The objective of this study was to evaluate transcriptional differences between chondrocytes of normal articular cartilage and repair tissue cells four months post-microfracture. Methods Bilateral one-cm2 full-thickness defects were made in the articular surface of both distal femurs of four adult horses followed by subchondral microfracture. Four months postoperatively, repair tissue from the lesion site and grossly normal articular cartilage from within the same femorotibial joint were collected. Total RNA was isolated from the tissue samples, linearly amplified, and applied to a 9,413-probe set equine-specific cDNA microarray. Eight paired comparisons matched by limb and horse were made with a dye-swap experimental design with validation by histological analyses and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR. Results Statistical analyses revealed 3,327 (35.3% differentially expressed probe sets. Expression of biomarkers typically associated with normal articular cartilage and fibrocartilage repair tissue corroborate earlier studies. Other changes in gene expression previously unassociated with cartilage repair were also revealed and validated by RT-qPCR. Conclusion The magnitude of divergence in transcriptional profiles between normal chondrocytes and the cells that populate repair tissue reveal substantial functional differences between these two cell populations. At the four-month postoperative time point, the relative deficiency within repair tissue of gene transcripts which typically define articular cartilage indicate that while cells occupying the lesion might be of mesenchymal origin, they have not recapitulated differentiation to

Simultaneous transcriptional profiling of bacteria and their host cells.

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Michael S Humphrys

Full Text Available We developed an RNA-Seq-based method to simultaneously capture prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression profiles of cells infected with intracellular bacteria. As proof of principle, this method was applied to Chlamydia trachomatis-infected epithelial cell monolayers in vitro, successfully obtaining transcriptomes of both C. trachomatis and the host cells at 1 and 24 hours post-infection. Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular bacterial pathogens that cause a range of mammalian diseases. In humans chlamydiae are responsible for the most common sexually transmitted bacterial infections and trachoma (infectious blindness. Disease arises by adverse host inflammatory reactions that induce tissue damage & scarring. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying these outcomes. Chlamydia are genetically intractable as replication outside of the host cell is not yet possible and there are no practical tools for routine genetic manipulation, making genome-scale approaches critical. The early timeframe of infection is poorly understood and the host transcriptional response to chlamydial infection is not well defined. Our simultaneous RNA-Seq method was applied to a simplified in vitro model of chlamydial infection. We discovered a possible chlamydial strategy for early iron acquisition, putative immune dampening effects of chlamydial infection on the host cell, and present a hypothesis for Chlamydia-induced fibrotic scarring through runaway positive feedback loops. In general, simultaneous RNA-Seq helps to reveal the complex interplay between invading bacterial pathogens and their host mammalian cells and is immediately applicable to any bacteria/host cell interaction.

Transcriptional profiling of midgut immunity response and degeneration in the wandering silkworm, Bombyx mori.

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Qiuyun Xu

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Lepidoptera insects have a novel development process comprising several metamorphic stages during their life cycle compared with vertebrate animals. Unlike most Lepidoptera insects that live on nectar during the adult stage, the Bombyx mori silkworm adults do not eat anything and die after egg-laying. In addition, the midguts of Lepidoptera insects produce antimicrobial proteins during the wandering stage when the larval tissues undergo numerous changes. The exact mechanisms responsible for these phenomena remain unclear. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We used the silkworm as a model and performed genome-wide transcriptional profiling of the midgut between the feeding stage and the wandering stage. Many genes concerned with metabolism, digestion, and ion and small molecule transportation were down-regulated during the wandering stage, indicating that the wandering stage midgut loses its normal functions. Microarray profiling, qRT-PCR and western blot proved the production of antimicrobial proteins (peptides in the midgut during the wandering stage. Different genes of the immune deficiency (Imd pathway were up-regulated during the wandering stage. However, some key genes belonging to the Toll pathway showed no change in their transcription levels. Unlike butterfly (Pachliopta aristolochiae, the midgut of silkworm moth has a layer of cells, indicating that the development of midgut since the wandering stage is not usual. Cell division in the midgut was observed only for a short time during the wandering stage. However, there was extensive cell apoptosis before pupation. The imbalance of cell division and apoptosis probably drives the continuous degeneration of the midgut in the silkworm since the wandering stage. CONCLUSIONS: This study provided an insight into the mechanism of the degeneration of the silkworm midgut and the production of innate immunity-related proteins during the wandering stage. The imbalance of cell division and apoptosis

Transcriptional profiles of pulmonary innate immune responses to isogenic antibiotic-susceptible and multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

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Tam, Vincent H; Pérez, Cynthia; Ledesma, Kimberly R; Lewis, Russell E

2018-04-01

The virulence of an isogenic pair of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains was studied under similar experimental conditions in two animal infection models. The time to death was significantly longer for the multidrug resistant (MDR) than the wild-type strain. The transcriptional profiles of 84 innate immune response genes in the lungs of immune competent Balb/C mice were further compared. Significantly weaker expression of genes involved in production of soluble pattern recognition receptor and complement were observed in animals infected with the MDR strain. Altered patterns of innate immune system activation may explain the attenuated virulence in MDR bacteria. © 2018 The Societies and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Genome-wide organization and expression profiling of the NAC transcription factor family in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.).

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Singh, Anil Kumar; Sharma, Vishal; Pal, Awadhesh Kumar; Acharya, Vishal; Ahuja, Paramvir Singh

2013-08-01

NAC [no apical meristem (NAM), Arabidopsis thaliana transcription activation factor [ATAF1/2] and cup-shaped cotyledon (CUC2)] proteins belong to one of the largest plant-specific transcription factor (TF) families and play important roles in plant development processes, response to biotic and abiotic cues and hormone signalling. Our genome-wide analysis identified 110 StNAC genes in potato encoding for 136 proteins, including 14 membrane-bound TFs. The physical map positions of StNAC genes on 12 potato chromosomes were non-random, and 40 genes were found to be distributed in 16 clusters. The StNAC proteins were phylogenetically clustered into 12 subgroups. Phylogenetic analysis of StNACs along with their Arabidopsis and rice counterparts divided these proteins into 18 subgroups. Our comparative analysis has also identified 36 putative TNAC proteins, which appear to be restricted to Solanaceae family. In silico expression analysis, using Illumina RNA-seq transcriptome data, revealed tissue-specific, biotic, abiotic stress and hormone-responsive expression profile of StNAC genes. Several StNAC genes, including StNAC072 and StNAC101that are orthologs of known stress-responsive Arabidopsis RESPONSIVE TO DEHYDRATION 26 (RD26) were identified as highly abiotic stress responsive. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis largely corroborated the expression profile of StNAC genes as revealed by the RNA-seq data. Taken together, this analysis indicates towards putative functions of several StNAC TFs, which will provide blue-print for their functional characterization and utilization in potato improvement.

Genetic networks of liver metabolism revealed by integration of metabolic and transcriptional profiling.

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Christine T Ferrara

2008-03-01

Full Text Available Although numerous quantitative trait loci (QTL influencing disease-related phenotypes have been detected through gene mapping and positional cloning, identification of the individual gene(s and molecular pathways leading to those phenotypes is often elusive. One way to improve understanding of genetic architecture is to classify phenotypes in greater depth by including transcriptional and metabolic profiling. In the current study, we have generated and analyzed mRNA expression and metabolic profiles in liver samples obtained in an F2 intercross between the diabetes-resistant C57BL/6 leptin(ob/ob and the diabetes-susceptible BTBR leptin(ob/ob mouse strains. This cross, which segregates for genotype and physiological traits, was previously used to identify several diabetes-related QTL. Our current investigation includes microarray analysis of over 40,000 probe sets, plus quantitative mass spectrometry-based measurements of sixty-seven intermediary metabolites in three different classes (amino acids, organic acids, and acyl-carnitines. We show that liver metabolites map to distinct genetic regions, thereby indicating that tissue metabolites are heritable. We also demonstrate that genomic analysis can be integrated with liver mRNA expression and metabolite profiling data to construct causal networks for control of specific metabolic processes in liver. As a proof of principle of the practical significance of this integrative approach, we illustrate the construction of a specific causal network that links gene expression and metabolic changes in the context of glutamate metabolism, and demonstrate its validity by showing that genes in the network respond to changes in glutamine and glutamate availability. Thus, the methods described here have the potential to reveal regulatory networks that contribute to chronic, complex, and highly prevalent diseases and conditions such as obesity and diabetes.

[A sixty-year-old man suffering from multiple system atrophy with pneumatosis intestinalis].

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Shimizu, Fumitaka; Kawai, Motoharu; Ogasawara, Jun-Ichi; Negoro, Kiyoshi; Kanda, Takashi

2007-01-01

We herein report a 60-year-old man demonstrating multiple system atrophy of the cerebellar type (MSA-C) with a five-year of clinical history, who developed severe constipation followed by watery diarrhea. An abdominal CT scan showed free air in the abdominal cavity and extensive pericolic gas accumulation in the ascending and transverse colon. He was diagnosed to have pneumatosis intestinalis (PI). The air in the abdominal cavity as well as in the wall of the colon thereafter disappeared after nine days' of conservative therapy. The presense of chronic idiopathic intestinal pseudo-obstruction due to severe dysautonomia and a longstanding bed-ridden state may have been the cause of PI in this patient. This is the first case report of PI associated with MSA; however, the association of PI may have been overlooked in this disorder because of severe constipation and diarrhea, the two cardinal symptoms of PI, which happen to also be two of the typical symptoms of MSA itself.

Production of the 2400 kb Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) gene transcript; transcription time and cotranscriptional splicing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tennyson, C.N.; Worton, R.G. [Univ. of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children, Ontario (Canada)

1994-09-01

The largest known gene in any organism is the human DMD gene which has 79 exons that span 2400 kb. The extreme nature of the DMD gene raises questions concerning the time required for transcription and whether splicing begins before transcription is complete. DMD gene transcription is induced as cultured human myoblasts differentiate to form multinucleated myotubes, providing a system for studying the kinetics of transcription and splicing. Using quantitative RT-PCR, transcript accumulation was monitored from four different regions within the gene following induction of expression. By comparing the accumulation of transcripts from the 5{prime} and 3{prime} ends of the gene we have shown that approximately 12 hours are required to transcribe 1770 kb of the gene, extrapolating to a time of 16 hours for the transcription unit expressed in muscle. Comparison of accumulation profiles for spliced and total transcript demonstrated that transcripts are spliced at the 5{prime} end before transcription is complete, providing strong evidence for cotranscriptional splicing of DMD gene transcripts. Finally, the rate of transcript accumulation was reduced at the 3{prime} end of the gene relative to the 5{prime} end, perhaps due to premature termination of transcription complexes as they traverse this enormous transcription unit. The lag between transcription initiation and the appearance of complete transcripts could be important in limiting transcript production in dividing cells and to the timing of mRNA appearance in differentiating muscle.

Effect of Piper betle on Giardia intestinalis infection in vivo.

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Pecková, Radka; Doležal, Karel; Sak, Bohumil; Květoňová, Dana; Kváč, Martin; Nurcahyo, Wisnu; Foitová, Ivona

2018-01-01

Piper betle has been used as a medicinal plant in traditional medical systems throughout South and South East Asia. Experimental studies have revealed its wide and diverse biological and pharmacological effects. In this study, antigiardial activity of Piper betle was tested using experimental infections of Giardia intestinalis, the most common cause of protozoal diarrhoea worldwide, in Mongolian gerbils. Plants were extracted in water, methanol and methanol:tetrahydrofuran. Gerbils were treated for ten days intragastrically twice a day, with the dose of 40 mg of the extract per 100 g of body weight. Drug metronidazole was used as a negative control. Gerbils' faeces were taken every day and examined by flotation method, the number of shed cysts were counted using a haemocytometer. After gerbils' sacrifice and dissection, their duodena were then processed for examination using histological sectioning and scanning electron microscopy. The antigiardial activity was evaluated by the course of cyst shedding throughout the entire experiment. A significant decline in cyst shedding, evaluated by linear regression was found in gerbils treated with the aqueous extract. Our results indicate that the aqueous extract of P. betle shows giardicidal effects. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Comparative transcriptional profiling of Bacillus cereus sensu lato strains during growth in CO2-bicarbonate and aerobic atmospheres.

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Karla D Passalacqua

Full Text Available Bacillus species are spore-forming bacteria that are ubiquitous in the environment and display a range of virulent and avirulent phenotypes. This range is particularly evident in the Bacillus cereus sensu lato group; where closely related strains cause anthrax, food-borne illnesses, and pneumonia, but can also be non-pathogenic. Although much of this phenotypic range can be attributed to the presence or absence of a few key virulence factors, there are other virulence-associated loci that are conserved throughout the B. cereus group, and we hypothesized that these genes may be regulated differently in pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains.Here we report transcriptional profiles of three closely related but phenotypically unique members of the Bacillus cereus group--a pneumonia-causing B. cereus strain (G9241, an attenuated strain of B. anthracis (Sterne 34F(2, and an avirulent B. cereus strain (10987--during exponential growth in two distinct atmospheric environments: 14% CO(2/bicarbonate and ambient air. We show that the disease-causing Bacillus strains undergo more distinctive transcriptional changes between the two environments, and that the expression of plasmid-encoded virulence genes was increased exclusively in the CO(2 environment. We observed a core of conserved metabolic genes that were differentially expressed in all three strains in both conditions. Additionally, the expression profiles of putative virulence genes in G9241 suggest that this strain, unlike Bacillus anthracis, may regulate gene expression with both PlcR and AtxA transcriptional regulators, each acting in a different environment.We have shown that homologous and even identical genes within the genomes of three closely related members of the B. cereus sensu lato group are in some instances regulated very differently, and that these differences can have important implications for virulence. This study provides insights into the evolution of the B. cereus group, and

Elucidating MicroRNA Regulatory Networks Using Transcriptional, Post-transcriptional, and Histone Modification Measurements

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Sara J.C. Gosline

2016-01-01

Full Text Available MicroRNAs (miRNAs regulate diverse biological processes by repressing mRNAs, but their modest effects on direct targets, together with their participation in larger regulatory networks, make it challenging to delineate miRNA-mediated effects. Here, we describe an approach to characterizing miRNA-regulatory networks by systematically profiling transcriptional, post-transcriptional and epigenetic activity in a pair of isogenic murine fibroblast cell lines with and without Dicer expression. By RNA sequencing (RNA-seq and CLIP (crosslinking followed by immunoprecipitation sequencing (CLIP-seq, we found that most of the changes induced by global miRNA loss occur at the level of transcription. We then introduced a network modeling approach that integrated these data with epigenetic data to identify specific miRNA-regulated transcription factors that explain the impact of miRNA perturbation on gene expression. In total, we demonstrate that combining multiple genome-wide datasets spanning diverse regulatory modes enables accurate delineation of the downstream miRNA-regulated transcriptional network and establishes a model for studying similar networks in other systems.

Large-scale transcriptional profiling of lignified tissues in Tectona grandis.

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Galeano, Esteban; Vasconcelos, Tarcísio Sales; Vidal, Mabel; Mejia-Guerra, Maria Katherine; Carrer, Helaine

2015-09-15

Currently, Tectona grandis is one of the most valuable trees in the world and no transcript dataset related to secondary xylem is available. Considering how important the secondary xylem and sapwood transition from young to mature trees is, little is known about the expression differences between those successional processes and which transcription factors could regulate lignin biosynthesis in this tropical tree. Although MYB transcription factors are one of the largest superfamilies in plants related to secondary metabolism, it has not yet been characterized in teak. These results will open new perspectives for studies of diversity, ecology, breeding and genomic programs aiming to understand deeply the biology of this species. We present a widely expressed gene catalog for T. grandis using Illumina technology and the de novo assembly. A total of 462,260 transcripts were obtained, with 1,502 and 931 genes differentially expressed for stem and branch secondary xylem, respectively, during age transition. Analysis of stem and branch secondary xylem indicates substantial similarity in gene ontologies including carbohydrate enzymes, response to stress, protein binding, and allowed us to find transcription factors and heat-shock proteins differentially expressed. TgMYB1 displays a MYB domain and a predicted coiled-coil (CC) domain, while TgMYB2, TgMYB3 and TgMYB4 showed R2R3-MYB domain and grouped with MYBs from several gymnosperms and flowering plants. TgMYB1, TgMYB4 and TgCES presented higher expression in mature secondary xylem, in contrast with TgMYB2, TgHsp1, TgHsp2, TgHsp3, and TgBi whose expression is higher in young lignified tissues. TgMYB3 is expressed at lower level in secondary xylem. Expression patterns of MYB transcription factors and heat-shock proteins in lignified tissues are dissimilar when tree development was evaluated, obtaining more expression of TgMYB1 and TgMYB4 in lignified tissues of 60-year-old trees, and more expression in TgHsp1, TgHsp2, Tg

Comparison of transcriptional profiles of Clostridium thermocellum grown on cellobiose and pretreated yellow poplar using RNA-Seq

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Hui eWei

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The anaerobic, thermophilic bacterium, Clostridium thermocellum, secretes multi-protein enzyme complexes, termed cellulosomes, which synergistically interact with the microbial cell surface and efficiently disassemble plant cell wall biomass. C. thermocellum has also been considered a potential consolidated bioprocessing (CBP organism due to its ability to produce the biofuel products, hydrogen and ethanol. We found that C. thermocellum fermentation of pretreated yellow poplar (PYP produced 30% and 39% of ethanol and hydrogen product concentrations, respectively, compared to fermentation of cellobiose. RNA-seq was used to analyze the transcriptional profiles of these cells. The PYP-grown cells taken for analysis at the late stationary phase showed 1211 genes up-regulated and 314 down-regulated by more than 2-fold compared to the cellobiose-grown cells. These affected genes cover a broad spectrum of specific functional categories. The transcriptional analysis was further validated by sub-proteomics data taken from the literature; as well as by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR analyses of selected genes. Specifically, 47 cellulosomal protein-encoding genes, genes for 4 pairs of SigI-RsgI for polysaccharide sensing, 7 cellodextrin ABC transporter genes, and a set of NAD(PH hydogenase and alcohol dehydrogenase genes were up-regulated for cells growing on PYP compared to cellobiose. These genes could be potential candidates for future studies aimed at gaining insight into the regulatory mechanism of this organism as well as for improvement of C. thermocellum in its role as a CBP organism.

Metabolite Profiling and Transcript Analysis Reveal Specificities in the Response of a Berry Derived Cell Culture to Abiotic Stresses

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Biruk eAyenew

2015-09-01

Full Text Available As climate changes, there is a need to understand the expected effects on viticulture. In nature, stresses exist in a combined manner, hampering the elucidation of the effect of individual cues on grape berry metabolism. Cell suspension culture originated from pea-size Gamy Red grape berry was used to harness metabolic response to high light (2500 µmol m-2s-1, high temperature (40 0C and their combination in comparison to 25 0C and 100 µmol m-2s-1 under controlled condition. When LC-MS and GC-MS based metabolite profiling was implemented and integrated with targeted RT-qPCR transcript analysis specific responses were observed to the different cues. High light enhanced polyphenol metabolism while high temperature and its combination with high light induced amino acid and organic acid metabolism with additional effect on polyphenols. The trend of increment in TCA cycle genes like ATCs, ACo1 and IDH in the combined treatment might support the observed increment in organic acids, GABA shunt, and their derivatives. The apparent phenylalanine reduction with polyphenol increment under high light suggests enhanced fueling of the precursor towards the downstream phenylpropanoid pathway. In the polyphenol metabolism, a differential pattern of expression of flavonoid 3’,5’ hydroxylase and flavonoid 3’ hydroxylase was observed under high light and combined cues which were accompanied by characteristic metabolite profiles. High temperature decreased glycosylated cyanidin and peonidin forms while the combined cues increased acetylated and coumarylated peonidin forms. Transcription factors regulating anthocyanin metabolism and their methylation, MYB, OMT, UFGT and DFR, were expressed differentially among the treatments, overall in agreement with the metabolite profiles. Taken together these data provide insights into the coordination of central and secondary metabolism in relation to multiple abiotic stresses.

Global transcriptional profiling of longitudinal clinical isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis exhibiting rapid accumulation of drug resistance.

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Anirvan Chatterjee

Full Text Available The identification of multidrug resistant (MDR, extensively and totally drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb, in vulnerable sites such as Mumbai, is a grave threat to the control of tuberculosis. The current study aimed at explaining the rapid expression of MDR in Directly Observed Treatment Short Course (DOTS compliant patients, represents the first study comparing global transcriptional profiles of 3 pairs of clinical Mtb isolates, collected longitudinally at initiation and completion of DOTS. While the isolates were drug susceptible (DS at onset and MDR at completion of DOTS, they exhibited identical DNA fingerprints at both points of collection. The whole genome transcriptional analysis was performed using total RNA from H37Rv and 3 locally predominant spoligotypes viz. MANU1, CAS and Beijing, hybridized on MTBv3 (BuG@S microarray, and yielded 36, 98 and 45 differentially expressed genes respectively. Genes encoding transcription factors (sig, rpoB, cell wall biosynthesis (emb genes, protein synthesis (rpl and additional central metabolic pathways (ppdK, pknH, pfkB were found to be down regulated in the MDR isolates as compared to the DS isolate of the same genotype. Up regulation of drug efflux pumps, ABC transporters, trans-membrane proteins and stress response transcriptional factors (whiB in the MDR isolates was observed. The data indicated that Mtb, without specific mutations in drug target genes may persist in the host due to additional mechanisms like drug efflux pumps and lowered rate of metabolism. Furthermore this population of Mtb, which also showed reduced DNA repair activity, would result in selection and stabilization of spontaneous mutations in drug target genes, causing selection of a MDR strain in the presence of drug pressures. Efflux pump such as drrA may play a significant role in increasing fitness of low level drug resistant cells and assist in survival of Mtb till acquisition of drug resistant mutations with

Transcript Profiling Identifies NAC-Domain Genes Involved in Regulating Wall Ingrowth Deposition in Phloem Parenchyma Transfer Cells of Arabidopsis thaliana

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Yuzhou Wu

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Transfer cells (TCs play important roles in facilitating enhanced rates of nutrient transport at key apoplasmic/symplasmic junctions along the nutrient acquisition and transport pathways in plants. TCs achieve this capacity by developing elaborate wall ingrowth networks which serve to increase plasma membrane surface area thus increasing the cell's surface area-to-volume ratio to achieve increased flux of nutrients across the plasma membrane. Phloem parenchyma (PP cells of Arabidopsis leaf veins trans-differentiate to become PP TCs which likely function in a two-step phloem loading mechanism by facilitating unloading of photoassimilates into the apoplasm for subsequent energy-dependent uptake into the sieve element/companion cell (SE/CC complex. We are using PP TCs in Arabidopsis as a genetic model to identify transcription factors involved in coordinating deposition of the wall ingrowth network. Confocal imaging of pseudo-Schiff propidium iodide-stained tissue revealed different profiles of temporal development of wall ingrowth deposition across maturing cotyledons and juvenile leaves, and a basipetal gradient of deposition across mature adult leaves. RNA-Seq analysis was undertaken to identify differentially expressed genes common to these three different profiles of wall ingrowth deposition. This analysis identified 68 transcription factors up-regulated two-fold or more in at least two of the three experimental comparisons, with six of these transcription factors belonging to Clade III of the NAC-domain family. Phenotypic analysis of these NAC genes using insertional mutants revealed significant reductions in levels of wall ingrowth deposition, particularly in a double mutant of NAC056 and NAC018, as well as compromised sucrose-dependent root growth, indicating impaired capacity for phloem loading. Collectively, these results support the proposition that Clade III members of the NAC-domain family in Arabidopsis play important roles in

Transcriptional profiling of primary endometrial epithelial cells following acute HIV-1 exposure reveals gene signatures related to innate immunity.

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Zahoor, Muhammad Atif; Woods, Matthew William; Dizzell, Sara; Nazli, Aisha; Mueller, Kristen M; Nguyen, Philip V; Verschoor, Chris P; Kaushic, Charu

2018-04-01

Genital epithelial cells (GECs) line the mucosal surface of the female genital tract (FGT) and are the first cells that interface with both commensal microbiota and sexually transmitted pathogens. Despite the protective barrier formed by GECs, the FGT is a major site of HIV-1 infection. This highlights the importance of studying the interaction of HIV-1 and GECs. Using microarray analysis, we characterized the transcriptional profile of primary endometrial GECs grown in the presence or absence of physiological levels of E2 (10 -9  mol/L) or P4 (10 -7  mol/L) following acute exposure to HIV-1 for 6 hours. Acute exposure of primary endometrial GECs to HIV-1 resulted in the expression of genes related to inflammation, plasminogen activation, adhesion and diapedesis and interferon response. Interestingly, exposure to HIV-1 in the presence of E2 and P4 resulted in differential transcriptional profiles, suggesting that the response of primary endometrial GECs to HIV-1 exposure is modulated by female sex hormones. The gene expression signature of endometrial GECs indicates that the response of these cells may be key to determining host susceptibility to HIV-1 and that sex hormones modulate these interactions. This study allows us to explore possible mechanisms that explain the hormone-mediated fluctuation of HIV-1 susceptibility in women. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Clustering of transcriptional profiles identifies changes to insulin signaling as an early event in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease.

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Jackson, Harriet M; Soto, Ileana; Graham, Leah C; Carter, Gregory W; Howell, Gareth R

2013-11-25

Alzheimer's disease affects more than 35 million people worldwide but there is no known cure. Age is the strongest risk factor for Alzheimer's disease but it is not clear how age-related changes impact the disease. Here, we used a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease to identify age-specific changes that occur prior to and at the onset of traditional Alzheimer-related phenotypes including amyloid plaque formation. To identify these early events we used transcriptional profiling of mouse brains combined with computational approaches including singular value decomposition and hierarchical clustering. Our study identifies three key events in early stages of Alzheimer's disease. First, the most important drivers of Alzheimer's disease onset in these mice are age-specific changes. These include perturbations of the ribosome and oxidative phosphorylation pathways. Second, the earliest detectable disease-specific changes occur to genes commonly associated with the hypothalamic-adrenal-pituitary (HPA) axis. These include the down-regulation of genes relating to metabolism, depression and appetite. Finally, insulin signaling, in particular the down-regulation of the insulin receptor substrate 4 (Irs4) gene, may be an important event in the transition from age-related changes to Alzheimer's disease specific-changes. A combination of transcriptional profiling combined with computational analyses has uncovered novel features relevant to Alzheimer's disease in a widely used mouse model and offers avenues for further exploration into early stages of AD.

Isolation of Blastomyces dermatitidis yeast from lung tissue during murine infection for in vivo transcriptional profiling.

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Marty, Amber J; Wüthrich, Marcel; Carmen, John C; Sullivan, Thomas D; Klein, Bruce S; Cuomo, Christina A; Gauthier, Gregory M

2013-07-01

Blastomyces dermatitidis belongs to a group of thermally dimorphic fungi that grow as sporulating mold in the soil and convert to pathogenic yeast in the lung following inhalation of spores. Knowledge about the molecular events important for fungal adaptation and survival in the host remains limited. The development of high-throughput analytic tools such as RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) has potential to provide novel insight on fungal pathogenesis especially if applied in vivo during infection. However, in vivo transcriptional profiling is hindered by the low abundance of fungal cells relative to mammalian tissue and difficulty in isolating fungal cells from the tissues they infect. For the purpose of obtaining B. dermatitidis RNA for in vivo transcriptional analysis by RNA-Seq, we developed a simple technique for isolating yeast from murine lung tissue. Using a two-step approach of filtration and centrifugation following lysis of murine lung cells, 91% of yeast cells causing infection were isolated from lung tissue. B. dermatitidis recovered from the lung yielded high-quality RNA with minimal murine contamination and was suitable for RNA-Seq. Approximately 87% of the sequencing reads obtained from the recovered yeast aligned with the B. dermatitidis genome. This was similar to 93% alignment for yeast grown in vitro. The use of near-freezing temperature along with short ex vivo time minimized transcriptional changes that would have otherwise occurred with higher temperature or longer processing time. In conclusion, we have developed a technique that recovers the majority of yeast causing pulmonary infection and yields high-quality fungal RNA with minimal contamination by mammalian RNA. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcript profiling of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L. using the GeneChip® Soybean Genome Array: optimizing analysis by masking biased probes

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Gronwald John W

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L. and soybean (Glycine max both belong to the Phaseoleae tribe and share significant coding sequence homology. This suggests that the GeneChip® Soybean Genome Array (soybean GeneChip may be used for gene expression studies using common bean. Results To evaluate the utility of the soybean GeneChip for transcript profiling of common bean, we hybridized cRNAs purified from nodule, leaf, and root of common bean and soybean in triplicate to the soybean GeneChip. Initial data analysis showed a decreased sensitivity and accuracy of measuring differential gene expression in common bean cross-species hybridization (CSH GeneChip data compared to that of soybean. We employed a method that masked putative probes targeting inter-species variable (ISV regions between common bean and soybean. A masking signal intensity threshold was selected that optimized both sensitivity and accuracy of measuring differential gene expression. After masking for ISV regions, the number of differentially-expressed genes identified in common bean was increased by 2.8-fold reflecting increased sensitivity. Quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR analysis of 20 randomly selected genes and purine-ureide pathway genes demonstrated an increased accuracy of measuring differential gene expression after masking for ISV regions. We also evaluated masked probe frequency per probe set to gain insight into the sequence divergence pattern between common bean and soybean. The sequence divergence pattern analysis suggested that the genes for basic cellular functions and metabolism were highly conserved between soybean and common bean. Additionally, our results show that some classes of genes, particularly those associated with environmental adaptation, are highly divergent. Conclusions The soybean GeneChip is a suitable cross-species platform for transcript profiling in common bean when used in combination with the masking protocol described. In

Incorporating evolution of transcription factor binding sites into ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

PRAKASH KUMAR

Identifying transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) is essential to elucidate ... alignments with parts annotated as gap lessly aligned TFBSs (pair-profile hits) are generated. Moreover, the pair- profile related parameters are derived in a sound statistical framework. ... Much research has gone into the study of the evolution of.

Large-scale integration of small molecule-induced genome-wide transcriptional responses, Kinome-wide binding affinities and cell-growth inhibition profiles reveal global trends characterizing systems-level drug action

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Dusica eVidovic

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS project is a large-scale coordinated effort to build a comprehensive systems biology reference resource. The goals of the program include the generation of a very large multidimensional data matrix and informatics and computational tools to integrate, analyze, and make the data readily accessible. LINCS data include genome-wide transcriptional signatures, biochemical protein binding profiles, cellular phenotypic response profiles and various other datasets for a wide range of cell model systems and molecular and genetic perturbations. Here we present a partial survey of this data facilitated by data standards and in particular a robust compound standardization workflow; we integrated several types of LINCS signatures and analyzed the results with a focus on mechanism of action and chemical compounds. We illustrate how kinase targets can be related to disease models and relevant drugs. We identified some fundamental trends that appear to link Kinome binding profiles and transcriptional signatures to chemical information and biochemical binding profiles to transcriptional responses independent of chemical similarity. To fill gaps in the datasets we developed and applied predictive models. The results can be interpreted at the systems level as demonstrated based on a large number of signaling pathways. We can identify clear global relationships, suggesting robustness of cellular responses to chemical perturbation. Overall, the results suggest that chemical similarity is a useful measure at the systems level, which would support phenotypic drug optimization efforts. With this study we demonstrate the potential of such integrated analysis approaches and suggest prioritizing further experiments to fill the gaps in the current data.

Genomic binding profiles of functionally distinct RNA polymerase III transcription complexes in human cells.

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Moqtaderi, Zarmik; Wang, Jie; Raha, Debasish; White, Robert J; Snyder, Michael; Weng, Zhiping; Struhl, Kevin

2010-05-01

Genome-wide occupancy profiles of five components of the RNA polymerase III (Pol III) machinery in human cells identified the expected tRNA and noncoding RNA targets and revealed many additional Pol III-associated loci, mostly near short interspersed elements (SINEs). Several genes are targets of an alternative transcription factor IIIB (TFIIIB) containing Brf2 instead of Brf1 and have extremely low levels of TFIIIC. Strikingly, expressed Pol III genes, unlike nonexpressed Pol III genes, are situated in regions with a pattern of histone modifications associated with functional Pol II promoters. TFIIIC alone associates with numerous ETC loci, via the B box or a novel motif. ETCs are often near CTCF binding sites, suggesting a potential role in chromosome organization. Our results suggest that human Pol III complexes associate preferentially with regions near functional Pol II promoters and that TFIIIC-mediated recruitment of TFIIIB is regulated in a locus-specific manner.

Transcriptional profiles of pilocytic astrocytoma are related to their three different locations, but not to radiological tumor features

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zakrzewski, Krzysztof; Jarząb, Michał; Pfeifer, Aleksandra; Oczko-Wojciechowska, Małgorzata; Jarząb, Barbara; Liberski, Paweł P.; Zakrzewska, Magdalena

2015-01-01

Pilocytic astrocytoma is the most common type of brain tumor in the pediatric population, with a generally favorable prognosis, although recurrences or leptomeningeal dissemination are sometimes also observed. For tumors originating in the supra-or infratentorial location, a different molecular background was suggested, but plausible correlations between the transcriptional profile and radiological features and/or clinical course are still undefined. The purpose of this study was to identify gene expression profiles related to the most frequent locations of this tumor, subtypes based on various radiological features, and the clinical pattern of the disease. Eighty six children (55 males and 31 females) with histologically verified pilocytic astrocytoma were included in this study. Their age at the time of diagnosis ranged from fourteen months to seventeen years, with a mean age of seven years. There were 40 cerebellar, 23 optic tract/hypothalamic, 21 cerebral hemispheric, and two brainstem tumors. According to the radiological features presented on MRI, all cases were divided into four subtypes: cystic tumor with a non-enhancing cyst wall; cystic tumor with an enhancing cyst wall; solid tumor with central necrosis; and solid or mainly solid tumor. In 81 cases primary surgical resection was the only and curative treatment, and in five cases progression of the disease was observed. In 47 cases the analysis was done by using high density oligonucleotide microarrays (Affymetrix HG-U133 Plus 2.0) with subsequent bioinformatic analyses and confirmation of the results by independent RT-qPCR (on 39 samples). Bioinformatic analyses showed that the gene expression profile of pilocytic astrocytoma is highly dependent on the tumor location. The most prominent differences were noted for IRX2, PAX3, CXCL14, LHX2, SIX6, CNTN1 and SIX1 genes expression even within different compartments of the supratentorial region. Analysis of the genes potentially associated with radiological

The effects of Ankaferd® Blood Stopper on transcription factors in HUVEC and the erythrocyte protein profile

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Erkan Yılmaz

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Objective: Ankaferd® Blood Stopper (ABS is an herbal extract that has historically been used as a hemostatic agent in traditional Turkish medicine. ABS is comprised of a standardized herbal mixture of T. vulgaris, G. glabra, V. vinifera, A. officinarum, and U. dioica. ABS’s basic mechanism of action is the formation of an encapsulated protein web, which represents the focal point for vital erythrocyte masses. The hemostatic effects of ABS have been observed in vitro and in vivo. ABS was registered as a hemostatic agent for external hemorrhages and dental bleeding following phase I randomized, double-blind crossover placebo-controlled clinical research, and safety and efficacy reports. In terms of the potential use of ABS, transcription factors may be novel factors that play a role in the hemostatic and other pleiotropic effects of ABS. Materials and Methods: Hence, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of ABS on endothelium, and possible transcription factor changes in HUVEC (human umbilical vein endothelial cells and the erythrocyte membrane profile. ABS (5 μL and 50 μL was administered to HUVEC (in 75 cm2; ~75% fullness for 5 min and 15 min. Results: ABS caused significant increases in the level of activation of the following transcription factors; AP2, AR, CRE/ATF1, CREB, E2F1-5, E2F6, EGR, GATA, HNF-1, ISRE, Myc-Max, NF-1, NFkB, p53, PPAR, SMAD 2/3, SP1, TRE/AP1, and YY1. Following erythrocyte membrane isolation, protein complexes were undissolved, but denatured. The protein complex formed was resistant to heat and detergent. Trypsin and sonication were used in order to break this complex; the complex dissolved and erythrocyte membrane proteins were released in SDS-PAGE.Conclusion: ABS established a very fast and solid protein web, and increased the level of transcription factor activation. Therefore the cellular effects of ABS could be related to different intracellular biological pathways.

Genome-wide transcriptional profiling of skin and dorsal root ganglia after ultraviolet-B-induced inflammation.

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John M Dawes

Full Text Available Ultraviolet-B (UVB-induced inflammation produces a dose-dependent mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia in both humans and rats, most likely via inflammatory mediators acting at the site of injury. Previous work has shown that the gene expression of cytokines and chemokines is positively correlated between species and that these factors can contribute to UVB-induced pain. In order to investigate other potential pain mediators in this model we used RNA-seq to perform genome-wide transcriptional profiling in both human and rat skin at the peak of hyperalgesia. In addition we have also measured transcriptional changes in the L4 and L5 DRG of the rat model. Our data show that UVB irradiation produces a large number of transcriptional changes in the skin: 2186 and 3888 genes are significantly dysregulated in human and rat skin, respectively. The most highly up-regulated genes in human skin feature those encoding cytokines (IL6 and IL24, chemokines (CCL3, CCL20, CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL3 and CXCL5, the prostanoid synthesising enzyme COX-2 and members of the keratin gene family. Overall there was a strong positive and significant correlation in gene expression between the human and rat (R = 0.8022. In contrast to the skin, only 39 genes were significantly dysregulated in the rat L4 and L5 DRGs, the majority of which had small fold change values. Amongst the most up-regulated genes in DRG were REG3B, CCL2 and VGF. Overall, our data shows that numerous genes were up-regulated in UVB irradiated skin at the peak of hyperalgesia in both human and rats. Many of the top up-regulated genes were cytokines and chemokines, highlighting again their potential as pain mediators. However many other genes were also up-regulated and might play a role in UVB-induced hyperalgesia. In addition, the strong gene expression correlation between species re-emphasises the value of the UVB model as translational tool to study inflammatory pain.

Curated compendium of human transcriptional biomarker data.

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Golightly, Nathan P; Bell, Avery; Bischoff, Anna I; Hollingsworth, Parker D; Piccolo, Stephen R

2018-04-17

One important use of genome-wide transcriptional profiles is to identify relationships between transcription levels and patient outcomes. These translational insights can guide the development of biomarkers for clinical application. Data from thousands of translational-biomarker studies have been deposited in public repositories, enabling reuse. However, data-reuse efforts require considerable time and expertise because transcriptional data are generated using heterogeneous profiling technologies, preprocessed using diverse normalization procedures, and annotated in non-standard ways. To address this problem, we curated 45 publicly available, translational-biomarker datasets from a variety of human diseases. To increase the data's utility, we reprocessed the raw expression data using a uniform computational pipeline, addressed quality-control problems, mapped the clinical annotations to a controlled vocabulary, and prepared consistently structured, analysis-ready data files. These data, along with scripts we used to prepare the data, are available in a public repository. We believe these data will be particularly useful to researchers seeking to perform benchmarking studies-for example, to compare and optimize machine-learning algorithms' ability to predict biomedical outcomes.

The Superoxide Reductase from the Early Diverging Eukaryote Giardia Intestinalis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cabelli, D.E.; Testa, F.; Mastronicola, D.; Bordi, E.; Pucillo, L.P.; Sarti, P.; Saraiva, L.M.; Giuffre, A.; Teixeira, M.

2011-01-01

Unlike superoxide dismutases (SODs), superoxidereductases (SORs) eliminate superoxide anion (O 2 # sm b ullet# - ) not through its dismutation, but via reduction to hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) in the presence of an electron donor. The microaerobic protist Giardia intestinalis, responsible for a common intestinal disease in humans, though lacking SOD and other canonical reactive oxygen species-detoxifying systems, is among the very few eukaryotes encoding a SOR yet identified. In this study, the recombinant SOR from Giardia (SOR Gi ) was purified and characterized by pulse radiolysis and stopped-flow spectrophotometry. The protein, isolated in the reduced state, after oxidation by superoxide or hexachloroiridate(IV), yields a resting species (T final ) with Fe 3+ ligated to glutamate or hydroxide depending on pH (apparent pK a = 8.7). Although showing negligible SOD activity, reduced SOR Gi reacts with O 2 # sm b ullet# - with a pH-independent second-order rate constant k 1 = 1.0 x 10 9 M -1 s -1 and yields the ferric-(hydro)peroxo intermediate T 1 ; this in turn rapidly decays to the T final state with pH-dependent rates, without populating other detectable intermediates. Immunoblotting assays show that SOR Gi is expressed in the disease-causing trophozoite of Giardia. We propose that the superoxide-scavenging activity of SOR in Giardia may promote the survival of this air-sensitive parasite in the fairly aerobic proximal human small intestine during infection.

An endocrine disruptor, bisphenol A, affects development in the protochordate Ciona intestinalis: Hatching rates and swimming behavior alter in a dose-dependent manner

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matsushima, Ayami; Ryan, Kerrianne; Shimohigashi, Yasuyuki; Meinertzhagen, Ian A.

2013-01-01

Bisphenol A (BPA) is widely used industrially to produce polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. Numerous studies document the harmful effects caused by low-dose BPA exposure especially on nervous systems and behavior in experimental animals such as mice and rats. Here, we exposed embryos of a model chordate, Ciona intestinalis, to seawater containing BPA to evaluate adverse effects on embryonic development and on the swimming behavior of subsequent larvae. Ciona is ideal because its larva develops rapidly and has few cells. The rate of larval hatching decreased in a dose-dependent manner with exposures to BPA above 3 μM; swimming behavior was also affected in larvae emerging from embryos exposed to 1 μM BPA. Adverse effects were most severe on fertilized eggs exposed to BPA within 7 h post-fertilization. Ciona shares twelve nuclear receptors with mammals, and BPA is proposed to disturb the physiological functions of one or more of these. - Highlights: ► Embryos of Ciona intestinalis were exposed to BPA to evaluate its developmental effects. ► The rate of larval hatching decreased in a dose-dependent manner. ► Swimming behavior was affected in larvae that emerge from embryos exposed to 1 μM BPA. ► Our findings will support a new strategy to analyze the developmental effects induced by BPA. - Exposure of fertilized Ciona embryos to BPA decreased their hatch rate in a dose-dependent manner and led to abnormal larval swimming behavior.

Pairwise comparisons of ten porcine tissues identify differential transcriptional regulation at the gene, isoform, promoter and transcription start site level

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Farajzadeh, Leila; Hornshøj, Henrik; Momeni, Jamal; Thomsen, Bo; Larsen, Knud; Hedegaard, Jakob; Bendixen, Christian; Madsen, Lone Bruhn

2013-01-01

Highlights: •Transcriptome sequencing yielded 223 mill porcine RNA-seq reads, and 59,000 transcribed locations. •Establishment of unique transcription profiles for ten porcine tissues including four brain tissues. •Comparison of transcription profiles at gene, isoform, promoter and transcription start site level. •Highlights a high level of regulation of neuro-related genes at both gene, isoform, and TSS level. •Our results emphasize the pig as a valuable animal model with respect to human biological issues. -- Abstract: The transcriptome is the absolute set of transcripts in a tissue or cell at the time of sampling. In this study RNA-Seq is employed to enable the differential analysis of the transcriptome profile for ten porcine tissues in order to evaluate differences between the tissues at the gene and isoform expression level, together with an analysis of variation in transcription start sites, promoter usage, and splicing. Totally, 223 million RNA fragments were sequenced leading to the identification of 59,930 transcribed gene locations and 290,936 transcript variants using Cufflinks with similarity to approximately 13,899 annotated human genes. Pairwise analysis of tissues for differential expression at the gene level showed that the smallest differences were between tissues originating from the porcine brain. Interestingly, the relative level of differential expression at the isoform level did generally not vary between tissue contrasts. Furthermore, analysis of differential promoter usage between tissues, revealed a proportionally higher variation between cerebellum (CBE) versus frontal cortex and cerebellum versus hypothalamus (HYP) than in the remaining comparisons. In addition, the comparison of differential transcription start sites showed that the number of these sites is generally increased in comparisons including hypothalamus in contrast to other pairwise assessments. A comprehensive analysis of one of the tissue contrasts, i

A powerful method for transcriptional profiling of specific cell types in eukaryotes: laser-assisted microdissection and RNA sequencing.

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Marc W Schmid

Full Text Available The acquisition of distinct cell fates is central to the development of multicellular organisms and is largely mediated by gene expression patterns specific to individual cells and tissues. A spatially and temporally resolved analysis of gene expression facilitates the elucidation of transcriptional networks linked to cellular identity and function. We present an approach that allows cell type-specific transcriptional profiling of distinct target cells, which are rare and difficult to access, with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution. We combined laser-assisted microdissection (LAM, linear amplification starting from <1 ng of total RNA, and RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq. As a model we used the central cell of the Arabidopsis thaliana female gametophyte, one of the female gametes harbored in the reproductive organs of the flower. We estimated the number of expressed genes to be more than twice the number reported previously in a study using LAM and ATH1 microarrays, and identified several classes of genes that were systematically underrepresented in the transcriptome measured with the ATH1 microarray. Among them are many genes that are likely to be important for developmental processes and specific cellular functions. In addition, we identified several intergenic regions, which are likely to be transcribed, and describe a considerable fraction of reads mapping to introns and regions flanking annotated loci, which may represent alternative transcript isoforms. Finally, we performed a de novo assembly of the transcriptome and show that the method is suitable for studying individual cell types of organisms lacking reference sequence information, demonstrating that this approach can be applied to most eukaryotic organisms.

Dataset on differential gene expression analysis for splenic transcriptome profiling and the transcripts related to six immune pathways in grass carp

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Guoxi Li

2017-02-01

Full Text Available The data presented in this paper are related to the research article entitled “Transcriptome profiling of developing spleen tissue and discovery of immune-related genes in grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella” (Li et al. 2016 [1]. Please refer to this article for interpretation of the data. Data provided in this submission are comprised of the expression levels of unigenes, significantly differentially expressed genes(DEGs, significant enrichment GO term and KEGG pathway of DEGs, and information of the transcripts assigned to six immune pathways.

Isolation of a novel LPS-induced component of the ML superfamily in Ciona intestinalis.

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Vizzini, Aiti; Bonura, Angela; Longo, Valeria; Sanfratello, Maria Antonietta; Parrinello, Daniela; Cammarata, Matteo; Colombo, Paolo

2015-11-01

ML superfamily represents a group of proteins playing important roles in lipid metabolism and innate immune response. In this study, we report the identification of the first component of the ML superfamily in the invertebrate Ciona intestinalis by means of a subtractive hybridization strategy. Sequence homology and phylogenetic analysis showed that this protein forms a specific clade with vertebrate components of the Niemann-Pick type C2 protein and, for this reason, it has been named Ci-NPC2. The putative Ci-NPC2 is a 150 amino acids long protein with a short signal peptide, seven cysteine residues, three putative lipid binding site and a three-dimensional model showing a characteristic β-strand structure. Gene expression analysis demonstrated that the Ci-NPC2 protein is positively upregulated after LPS inoculum with a peak of expression 1 h after challenge. Finally, in-situ hybridization demonstrated that the Ci-NPC2 protein is preferentially expressed in hemocytes inside the vessel lumen. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pneumatosis intestinalis and portal venous gas secondary to Gefitinib therapy for lung adenocarcinoma

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Lee, Joo Young; Han, Hye-Suk; Lim, Sung-Nam; Shim, Young Kwang; Choi, Yong Hyeok; Lee, Ok-Jun; Lee, Ki Hyeong; Kim, Seung Taik

2012-01-01

Pneumatosis intestinalis (PI), defined as the presence of gas in the bowel wall, and portal venous gas (PVG) are relatively rare radiological findings. Although several chemotherapeutic agents and anti-vascular endothelial growth factor agents are reported to be associated with PI and PVG, an association with anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) agents has not been described previously. The present report describes a case of PI and PVG secondary to treatment with an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor. A 66-year-old woman who had been diagnosed with metastatic lung adenocarcinoma presented with nausea, vomiting and abdominal distension after commencing gefitinib. A computed tomography (CT) scan of the abdomen revealed PI extending from the ascending colon to the rectum, hepatic PVG, and infarction of the liver. Gefitinib therapy was discontinued immediately and the patient was managed conservatively. A follow-up CT scan 2 weeks later revealed that the PI and hepatic PVG had completely resolved. This is the first report of PI and PVG caused by EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Although these complications are extremely rare, clinicians should be aware of the risk of PI and PVG in patients undergoing targeted molecular therapy

Primer aislamiento de Encephalitozoon intestinalis a partir de muestra de materia fecal de un paciente colombiano con sida

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Ana Luz Galván

2008-09-01

Full Text Available Introducción. Los microsporidios son agentes de infecciones oportunistas en pacientes con sida y con trasplantes, principalmente. Enterocytozoon bieneusi y Encephalitozoon intestinalis son los más frecuentes, asociados con infecciones entéricas. Los cultivos celulares han contribuido al conocimiento de los microsporidios. En Colombia no se han obtenido aislamientos provenientes de pacientes con microsporidiosis y, por consiguiente, no existen cepas autóctonas de los mismos. Objetivo. Establecer el cultivo celular de microsporidios intestinales a partir de materia fecal de pacientes parasitados. Materiales y métodos. Se realizó concentración agua-éter de la materia fecal positiva para microsporidios y el sedimento resultante se trató con una mezcla de antibióticos y antimicóticos durante 18 horas a 37 oC. Se inocularon células Vero previamente cultivadas en placas de 24 pozos y en medio RPMI con suplemento de suero bovino fetal al 10% y antibióticos, con las esporas concentradas. Los cultivos se mantuvieron a 37 oC al 5% de CO2. Se cambió de medio cada dos días y se evaluó la presencia de esporas en los sobrenadantes mediante Gram-cromótropo rápido en caliente. Resultados. En la segunda semana después de la infección, se encontraron esporas de microsporidios con morfología y coloración características. Mediante PCR se determinó que el microsporidio encontrado correspondía a la especie E. intestinalis. Conclusión. Se estableció el cultivo in vitro de microsporidios de materia fecal. Este protocolo es importante para la obtención y el mantenimiento de cepas autóctonas en Colombia, y contribuirá a las investigaciones de aspectos bioquímicos, inmunológicos y epidemiológicos de dichas cepas.

Global gene expression profiling of brown to white adipose tissue transformation in sheep reveals novel transcriptional components linked to adipose remodeling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Basse, Astrid L.; Dixen, Karen; Yadav, Rachita

2015-01-01

. Conclusions: Using global gene expression profiling of the postnatal BAT to WAT transformation in sheep, we provide novel insight into adipose tissue plasticity in a large mammal, including identification of novel transcriptional components linked to adipose tissue remodeling. Moreover, our data set provides...... NR1H3, MYC, KLF4, ESR1, RELA and BCL6, which were linked to the overall changes in gene expression during the adipose tissue remodeling. Finally, the perirenal adipose tissue expressed both brown and brite/beige adipocyte marker genes at birth, the expression of which changed substantially over time...

Transcriptional profiling of suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA regulated genes in mineralizing dental pulp cells at early and late time points

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Henry F. Duncan

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Dental pulp tissue can be damaged by a range of irritants, however, if the irritation is removed and/or the tooth is adequately restored, pulp regeneration is possible (Mjör and Tronstad, 1974 [1]. At present, dental restorative materials limit healing by impairing mineralization and repair processes and as a result new biologically-based materials are being developed (Ferracane et al., 2010 [2]. Previous studies have highlighted the benefit of epigenetic modification by histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi application to dental pulp cells (DPCs, which induces changes to chromatin architecture, promoting gene expression and cellular-reparative events (Duncan et al., 2013 [3]; Paino et al., 2014 [4]. In this study a genome-wide transcription profiling in epigenetically-modified mineralizing primary DPC cultures was performed, at relatively early and late time-points, to identify differentially regulated transcripts that may provide novel therapeutic targets for use in restorative dentistry. Here we provide detailed methods and analysis on these microarray data which has been deposited in Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO: GSE67175.

RNA-seq Transcriptional Profiling of an Arbuscular Mycorrhiza Provides Insights into Regulated and Coordinated Gene Expression in Lotus japonicus and Rhizophagus irregularis.

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Handa, Yoshihiro; Nishide, Hiroyo; Takeda, Naoya; Suzuki, Yutaka; Kawaguchi, Masayoshi; Saito, Katsuharu

2015-08-01

Gene expression during arbuscular mycorrhizal development is highly orchestrated in both plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. To elucidate the gene expression profiles of the symbiotic association, we performed a digital gene expression analysis of Lotus japonicus and Rhizophagus irregularis using a HiSeq 2000 next-generation sequencer with a Cufflinks assembly and de novo transcriptome assembly. There were 3,641 genes differentially expressed during arbuscular mycorrhizal development in L. japonicus, approximately 80% of which were up-regulated. The up-regulated genes included secreted proteins, transporters, proteins involved in lipid and amino acid metabolism, ribosomes and histones. We also detected many genes that were differentially expressed in small-secreted peptides and transcription factors, which may be involved in signal transduction or transcription regulation during symbiosis. Co-regulated genes between arbuscular mycorrhizal and root nodule symbiosis were not particularly abundant, but transcripts encoding for membrane traffic-related proteins, transporters and iron transport-related proteins were found to be highly co-up-regulated. In transcripts of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, expansion of cytochrome P450 was observed, which may contribute to various metabolic pathways required to accommodate roots and soil. The comprehensive gene expression data of both plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi provide a powerful platform for investigating the functional and molecular mechanisms underlying arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Transcriptional profiling of nitrogen fixation and the role of NifA in the diazotrophic endophyte Azoarcus sp. strain BH72.

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Abhijit Sarkar

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The model endophyte Azoarcus sp. strain BH72 is known to contribute fixed nitrogen to its host Kallar grass and also expresses nitrogenase genes endophytically in rice seedlings. Availability of nitrogen is a signal regulating the transcription of nitrogenase genes. Therefore, we analysed global transcription in response to differences in the nitrogen source. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A DNA microarray, comprising 70-mer oligonucleotides representing 3989 open reading frames of the genome of strain BH72, was used for transcriptome studies. Transcription profiles of cells grown microaerobically on N2 versus ammonium were compared. Expression of 7.2% of the genes was significantly up-regulated, and 5.8% down-regulated upon N2 fixation, respectively. A parallel genome-wide prediction of σ(54-type promoter elements mapped to the upstream region of 38 sequences of which 36 were modulated under the N2 response. In addition to modulation of genes related to N2 fixation, the expressions of gene clusters that might be related to plant-microbe interaction and of several transcription factors were significantly enhanced. While comparing under N2-fixation conditions the transcriptome of wild type with a nifLA(- insertion mutant, NifA being the essential transcriptional activator for nif genes, 24.5% of the genome was found to be affected in expression. A genome-wide prediction of 29 NifA binding sequences matched to 25 of the target genes whose expression was differential during microarray analysis, some of which were putatively negatively regulated by NifA. For selected genes, differential expression was corroborated by real time RT-PCR studies. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Our data suggest that life under conditions of nitrogen fixation is an important part of the lifestyle of strain BH72 in roots, as a wide range of genes far beyond the nif regulon is modulated. Moreover, the NifA regulon in strain BH72 appears to encompass a wider range of

Identification of transcription factors potential related to brown planthopper resistance in rice via microarray expression profiling

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Wang Yubing

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Brown planthopper (BPH, Nilaparvata lugens Stål, is one of the most destructive insect pests of rice. The molecular responses of plants to sucking insects resemble responses to pathogen infection. However, the molecular mechanism of BPH-resistance in rice remains unclear. Transcription factors (TF are up-stream regulators of various genes that bind to specific DNA sequences, thereby controlling the transcription from DNA to mRNA. They are key regulators for transcriptional expression in biological processes, and are probably involved in the BPH-induced pathways in resistant rice varieties. Results We conducted a microarray experiment to analyze TF genes related to BPH resistance in a Sri Lankan rice cultivar, Rathu Heenati (RHT. We compared the expression profiles of TF genes in RHT with those of the susceptible rice cultivar Taichun Native 1 (TN1. We detected 2038 TF genes showing differential expression signals between the two rice varieties. Of these, 442 TF genes were probably related to BPH-induced resistance in RHT and TN1, and 229 may be related to constitutive resistance only in RHT. These genes showed a fold change (FC of more than 2.0 (P10, there were 37 induced TF genes and 26 constitutive resistance TF genes. Of these, 13 were probably involved in BPH-induced resistance, and 8 in constitutive resistance to BPH in RHT. Conclusions We explored the molecular mechanism of resistance to BPH in rice by comparing expressions of TF genes between RHT and TN1. We speculate that the level of gene repression, especially for early TF genes, plays an important role in the defense response. The fundamental point of the resistance strategy is that plants protect themselves by reducing their metabolic level to inhibit feeding by BPH and prevent damage from water and nutrient loss. We have selected 21 TF genes related to BPH resistance for further analyses to understand the molecular responses to BPH feeding in rice.

Nascent-Seq reveals novel features of mouse circadian transcriptional regulation

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Menet, Jerome S; Rodriguez, Joseph; Abruzzi, Katharine C; Rosbash, Michael

2012-01-01

A substantial fraction of the metazoan transcriptome undergoes circadian oscillations in many cells and tissues. Based on the transcription feedback loops important for circadian timekeeping, it is commonly assumed that this mRNA cycling reflects widespread transcriptional regulation. To address this issue, we directly measured the circadian dynamics of mouse liver transcription using Nascent-Seq (genome-wide sequencing of nascent RNA). Although many genes are rhythmically transcribed, many rhythmic mRNAs manifest poor transcriptional rhythms, indicating a prominent contribution of post-transcriptional regulation to circadian mRNA expression. This analysis of rhythmic transcription also showed that the rhythmic DNA binding profile of the transcription factors CLOCK and BMAL1 does not determine the transcriptional phase of most target genes. This likely reflects gene-specific collaborations of CLK:BMAL1 with other transcription factors. These insights from Nascent-Seq indicate that it should have broad applicability to many other gene expression regulatory issues. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00011.001 PMID:23150795

Simulated Microgravity Regulates Gene Transcript Profiles of 2T3 Preosteoblasts: Comparison of the Random Positioning Machine and the Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor

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Patel, Mamta J.; Liu, Wenbin; Sykes, Michelle C.; Ward, Nancy E.; Risin, Semyon A.; Risin, Diana; Hanjoong, Jo

2007-01-01

Microgravity of spaceflight induces bone loss due in part to decreased bone formation by osteoblasts. We have previously examined the microgravity-induced changes in gene expression profiles in 2T3 preosteoblasts using the Random Positioning Machine (RPM) to simulate microgravity conditions. Here, we hypothesized that exposure of preosteoblasts to an independent microgravity simulator, the Rotating Wall Vessel (RWV), induces similar changes in differentiation and gene transcript profiles, resulting in a more confined list of gravi-sensitive genes that may play a role in bone formation. In comparison to static 1g controls, exposure of 2T3 cells to RWV for 3 days inhibited alkaline phosphatase activity, a marker of differentiation, and downregulated 61 genes and upregulated 45 genes by more than two-fold as shown by microarray analysis. The microarray results were confirmed with real time PCR for downregulated genes osteomodulin, bone morphogenic protein 4 (BMP4), runx2, and parathyroid hormone receptor 1. Western blot analysis validated the expression of three downregulated genes, BMP4, peroxiredoxin IV, and osteoglycin, and one upregulated gene peroxiredoxin I. Comparison of the microarrays from the RPM and the RWV studies identified 14 gravi-sensitive genes that changed in the same direction in both systems. Further comparison of our results to a published database showing gene transcript profiles of mechanically loaded mouse tibiae revealed 16 genes upregulated by the loading that were shown to be downregulated by RWV and RPM. These mechanosensitive genes identified by the comparative studies may provide novel insights into understanding the mechanisms regulating bone formation and potential targets of countermeasure against decreased bone formation both in astronauts and in general patients with musculoskeletal disorders.

Detection of Giardia intestinalis in water samples collected from natural water reservoirs and wells in northern and north-eastern Poland using LAMP, real-time PCR and nested PCR.

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Lass, Anna; Szostakowska, Beata; Korzeniewski, Krzysztof; Karanis, Panagiotis

2017-10-01

Giardia intestinalis is a protozoan parasite, transmitted to humans and animals by the faecal-oral route, mainly through contaminated water and food. Knowledge about the distribution of this parasite in surface water in Poland is fragmentary and incomplete. Accordingly, 36 environmental water samples taken from surface water reservoirs and wells were collected in Pomerania and Warmia-Masuria provinces, Poland. The 50 L samples were filtered and subsequently analysed with three molecular detection methods: loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR) and nested PCR. Of the samples examined, Giardia DNA was found in 15 (42%) samples with the use of LAMP; in 12 (33%) of these samples, Giardia DNA from this parasite was also detected using real-time PCR; and in 9 (25%) using nested PCR. Sequencing of selected positive samples confirmed that the PCR products were fragments of the Giardia intestinalis small subunit rRNA gene. Genotyping using multiplex real-time PCR indicated the presence of assemblages A and B, with the latter predominating. The results indicate that surface water in Poland, as well as water taken from surface wells, may be a source of Giardia strains which are potentially pathogenic for humans. It was also demonstrated that LAMP assay is more sensitive than the other two molecular assays.

JASPAR 2018: update of the open-access database of transcription factor binding profiles and its web framework.

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Khan, Aziz; Fornes, Oriol; Stigliani, Arnaud; Gheorghe, Marius; Castro-Mondragon, Jaime A; van der Lee, Robin; Bessy, Adrien; Chèneby, Jeanne; Kulkarni, Shubhada R; Tan, Ge; Baranasic, Damir; Arenillas, David J; Sandelin, Albin; Vandepoele, Klaas; Lenhard, Boris; Ballester, Benoît; Wasserman, Wyeth W; Parcy, François; Mathelier, Anthony

2018-01-04

JASPAR (http://jaspar.genereg.net) is an open-access database of curated, non-redundant transcription factor (TF)-binding profiles stored as position frequency matrices (PFMs) and TF flexible models (TFFMs) for TFs across multiple species in six taxonomic groups. In the 2018 release of JASPAR, the CORE collection has been expanded with 322 new PFMs (60 for vertebrates and 262 for plants) and 33 PFMs were updated (24 for vertebrates, 8 for plants and 1 for insects). These new profiles represent a 30% expansion compared to the 2016 release. In addition, we have introduced 316 TFFMs (95 for vertebrates, 218 for plants and 3 for insects). This release incorporates clusters of similar PFMs in each taxon and each TF class per taxon. The JASPAR 2018 CORE vertebrate collection of PFMs was used to predict TF-binding sites in the human genome. The predictions are made available to the scientific community through a UCSC Genome Browser track data hub. Finally, this update comes with a new web framework with an interactive and responsive user-interface, along with new features. All the underlying data can be retrieved programmatically using a RESTful API and through the JASPAR 2018 R/Bioconductor package. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Circuit-wide Transcriptional Profiling Reveals Brain Region-Specific Gene Networks Regulating Depression Susceptibility.

Science.gov (United States)

Bagot, Rosemary C; Cates, Hannah M; Purushothaman, Immanuel; Lorsch, Zachary S; Walker, Deena M; Wang, Junshi; Huang, Xiaojie; Schlüter, Oliver M; Maze, Ian; Peña, Catherine J; Heller, Elizabeth A; Issler, Orna; Wang, Minghui; Song, Won-Min; Stein, Jason L; Liu, Xiaochuan; Doyle, Marie A; Scobie, Kimberly N; Sun, Hao Sheng; Neve, Rachael L; Geschwind, Daniel; Dong, Yan; Shen, Li; Zhang, Bin; Nestler, Eric J

2016-06-01

Depression is a complex, heterogeneous disorder and a leading contributor to the global burden of disease. Most previous research has focused on individual brain regions and genes contributing to depression. However, emerging evidence in humans and animal models suggests that dysregulated circuit function and gene expression across multiple brain regions drive depressive phenotypes. Here, we performed RNA sequencing on four brain regions from control animals and those susceptible or resilient to chronic social defeat stress at multiple time points. We employed an integrative network biology approach to identify transcriptional networks and key driver genes that regulate susceptibility to depressive-like symptoms. Further, we validated in vivo several key drivers and their associated transcriptional networks that regulate depression susceptibility and confirmed their functional significance at the levels of gene transcription, synaptic regulation, and behavior. Our study reveals novel transcriptional networks that control stress susceptibility and offers fundamentally new leads for antidepressant drug discovery. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcriptional profiling of human brain endothelial cells reveals key properties crucial for predictive in vitro blood-brain barrier models.

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Eduard Urich

Full Text Available Brain microvascular endothelial cells (BEC constitute the blood-brain barrier (BBB which forms a dynamic interface between the blood and the central nervous system (CNS. This highly specialized interface restricts paracellular diffusion of fluids and solutes including chemicals, toxins and drugs from entering the brain. In this study we compared the transcriptome profiles of the human immortalized brain endothelial cell line hCMEC/D3 and human primary BEC. We identified transcriptional differences in immune response genes which are directly related to the immortalization procedure of the hCMEC/D3 cells. Interestingly, astrocytic co-culturing reduced cell adhesion and migration molecules in both BECs, which possibly could be related to regulation of immune surveillance of the CNS controlled by astrocytic cells within the neurovascular unit. By matching the transcriptome data from these two cell lines with published transcriptional data from freshly isolated mouse BECs, we discovered striking differences that could explain some of the limitations of using cultured BECs to study BBB properties. Key protein classes such as tight junction proteins, transporters and cell surface receptors show differing expression profiles. For example, the claudin-5, occludin and JAM2 expression is dramatically reduced in the two human BEC lines, which likely explains their low transcellular electric resistance and paracellular leakiness. In addition, the human BEC lines express low levels of unique brain endothelial transporters such as Glut1 and Pgp. Cell surface receptors such as LRP1, RAGE and the insulin receptor that are involved in receptor-mediated transport are also expressed at very low levels. Taken together, these data illustrate that BECs lose their unique protein expression pattern outside of their native environment and display a more generic endothelial cell phenotype. A collection of key genes that seems to be highly regulated by the local

The effect of Ligula intestinalis on blood sex steroid hormones, gonadal tissue and some other biological parameters changes of Chalcalburnus mossulensis in Vahdat dam of Kordestan-Iran

OpenAIRE

Khanghah, Ali Parsa

2010-01-01

Chalcalburnus mossulensis from the cyprinidae family is one of the indigenous fish in Gheshlag Lake of Kordestan-Iran. Ligula intestinalis is one of the infective parasites of this fish. In this study, the effect of this parasite on some biological aspects of this fish like weight, length, PI, CF, GSR, blood sex steroid hormones and gonadal tissue, was investigated. During one year, by seasonal sampling, 144 fish sample from mentioned species were collected using trap net. By considering the ...

Identification of Two Protein-Signaling States Delineating Transcriptionally Heterogeneous Human Medulloblastoma

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Walderik W. Zomerman

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Summary: The brain cancer medulloblastoma consists of different transcriptional subgroups. To characterize medulloblastoma at the phosphoprotein-signaling level, we performed high-throughput peptide phosphorylation profiling on a large cohort of SHH (Sonic Hedgehog, group 3, and group 4 medulloblastomas. We identified two major protein-signaling profiles. One profile was associated with rapid death post-recurrence and resembled MYC-like signaling for which MYC lesions are sufficient but not necessary. The second profile showed enrichment for DNA damage, as well as apoptotic and neuronal signaling. Integrative analysis demonstrated that heterogeneous transcriptional input converges on these protein-signaling profiles: all SHH and a subset of group 3 patients exhibited the MYC-like protein-signaling profile; the majority of the other group 3 subset and group 4 patients displayed the DNA damage/apoptotic/neuronal signaling profile. Functional analysis of enriched pathways highlighted cell-cycle progression and protein synthesis as therapeutic targets for MYC-like medulloblastoma. : Using peptide phosphorylation profiling, Zomerman et al. identify two medulloblastoma phosphoprotein-signaling profiles that have prognostic value and are potentially targetable. They find that these profiles extend across transcriptome-based subgroup borders. This suggests that diverse genetic information converges on common protein-signaling pathways and highlights protein-signaling as a unique information layer. Keywords: medulloblastoma, protein-signaling, protein synthesis, MYC, TP53, proteome, phosphoproteome

Manuscript Transcription by Crowdsourcing: Transcribe Bentham

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Martin Moyle

2011-02-01

Full Text Available Transcribe Bentham is testing the feasibility of outsourcing the work of manuscript transcription to members of the public. UCL Library Services holds 60,000 folios of manuscripts of the philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832. Transcribe Bentham will digitise 12,500 Bentham folios, and, through a wiki-based interface, allow volunteer transcribers to take temporary ownership of manuscript images and to create TEI-encoded transcription text for final approval by UCL experts. Approved transcripts will be stored and preserved, with the manuscript images, in UCL’s public Digital Collections repository. The project makes innovative use of traditional library material. It will stimulate public engagement with UCL’s scholarly archive collections and the challenges of palaeography and manuscript transcription; it will raise the profile of the work and thought of Jeremy Bentham; and it will create new digital resources for future use by professional researchers. Towards the end of the project, the transcription tool will be made available to other projects and services. This paper is based on a presentation given by the lead author at LIBER’s 39th Annual General Conference in Aarhus, Denmark, 2010.

Isolation and Characterization of a Shewanella Phage–Host System from the Gut of the Tunicate, Ciona intestinalis

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Brittany Leigh

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Outnumbering all other biological entities on earth, bacteriophages (phages play critical roles in structuring microbial communities through bacterial infection and subsequent lysis, as well as through horizontal gene transfer. While numerous studies have examined the effects of phages on free-living bacterial cells, much less is known regarding the role of phage infection in host-associated biofilms, which help to stabilize adherent microbial communities. Here we report the cultivation and characterization of a novel strain of Shewanella fidelis from the gut of the marine tunicate Ciona intestinalis, inducible prophages from the S. fidelis genome, and a strain-specific lytic phage recovered from surrounding seawater. In vitro biofilm assays demonstrated that lytic phage infection affects biofilm formation in a process likely influenced by the accumulation and integration of the extracellular DNA released during cell lysis, similar to the mechanism that has been previously shown for prophage induction.

Investigación científica sobre genotipificación y distribución de Giardia intestinalis en humanos y caninos de América

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Giovanny Torres Lindarte

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Objetivo: Describir la distribución geográfica en América de los genotipos A, B, C y D de Giardia intestinalis hallados en humanos y en perros, y los marcadores y técnicas usadas, de acuerdo con la literatura científica. Materiales y métodos: Revisión sistemática en la que se seleccionaron 19 artículos, y en todos se caracterizaron aislados de humanos; solo 10 de estos caracterizaron aislados de perros. Resultados: México fue el país que más estudios realizó (31,6%. El genotipo A fue reportado en el 89,5% de los trabajos que analizaron aislados de humanos y el genotipo B en el 52,3%. En los que analizaron aislados de perros, el genotipo A se informó en el 60%, el genotipo B en el 20%, el genotipo C en el 30% y el genotipo D en un 20%. La técnica y el marcador más usados fueron la PCR-RFLP y el gen de b-Giardin. Conclusiones: El genotipo A es el responsable de la mayoría de infecciones en humanos como perros de América, aunque los genotipos B, C y D también fueron identificados. El hallazgo de perros infectados con genotipos zoonóticos sustentan su papel como fuentes potenciales de infección de G. intestinalis para humanos.

RNA-Seq for enrichment and analysis of IRF5 transcript expression in SLE.

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Rivka C Stone

Full Text Available Polymorphisms in the interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5 gene have been consistently replicated and shown to confer risk for or protection from the development of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE. IRF5 expression is significantly upregulated in SLE patients and upregulation associates with IRF5-SLE risk haplotypes. IRF5 alternative splicing has also been shown to be elevated in SLE patients. Given that human IRF5 exists as multiple alternatively spliced transcripts with distinct function(s, it is important to determine whether the IRF5 transcript profile expressed in healthy donor immune cells is different from that expressed in SLE patients. Moreover, it is not currently known whether an IRF5-SLE risk haplotype defines the profile of IRF5 transcripts expressed. Using standard molecular cloning techniques, we identified and isolated 14 new differentially spliced IRF5 transcript variants from purified monocytes of healthy donors and SLE patients to generate an IRF5 variant transcriptome. Next-generation sequencing was then used to perform in-depth and quantitative analysis of full-length IRF5 transcript expression in primary immune cells of SLE patients and healthy donors by next-generation sequencing. Evidence for additional alternatively spliced transcripts was obtained from de novo junction discovery. Data from these studies support the overall complexity of IRF5 alternative splicing in SLE. Results from next-generation sequencing correlated with cloning and gave similar abundance rankings in SLE patients thus supporting the use of this new technology for in-depth single gene transcript profiling. Results from this study provide the first proof that 1 SLE patients express an IRF5 transcript signature that is distinct from healthy donors, 2 an IRF5-SLE risk haplotype defines the top four most abundant IRF5 transcripts expressed in SLE patients, and 3 an IRF5 transcript signature enables clustering of SLE patients with the H2 risk haplotype.

Blood Transcriptional Signatures for Disease Progression in a Rat Model of Osteoarthritis

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Michał Korostyński

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Biomarkers of osteoarthritis (OA that can accurately diagnose the disease at the earliest stage would significantly support efforts to develop treatments for prevention and early intervention. We have sought to determine the time course of alterations in peripheral blood gene expression profile associated with the development of OA. Blood samples were collected from a tail vein of individual rats with monosodium iodoacetate- (MIA- induced OA (2, 14, 21, and 28 days after the treatment. We used whole-genome microarrays to reveal OA-related transcriptional alterations of 72 transcripts. Three main groups of coexpressed genes revealed diverse time-dependent profiles of up- and downregulation. Functional links that connect expression of the gradually downregulated genes to the G13 signaling pathway were indicated. The mRNA abundance levels of the identified transcripts were further analyzed in publicly available gene expression dataset obtained from a GARP study cohort of OA patients. We revealed three-gene signature differentially expressed in both rat and human blood (TNK2, KCTD2, and WDR37. The alterations in expression of the selected transcripts in peripheral blood samples of the patients indicate heterogeneity of the OA profiles potentially related to disease progress and severity of clinical symptoms. Our study identifies several potential stage-specific biomarkers of OA progression.

Probabilistic Inference on Multiple Normalized Signal Profiles from Next Generation Sequencing: Transcription Factor Binding Sites

KAUST Repository

Wong, Ka-Chun; Peng, Chengbin; Li, Yue

2015-01-01

With the prevalence of chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) with sequencing (ChIP-Seq) technology, massive ChIP-Seq data has been accumulated. The ChIP-Seq technology measures the genome-wide occupancy of DNA-binding proteins in vivo. It is well-known that different DNA-binding protein occupancies may result in a gene being regulated in different conditions (e.g. different cell types). To fully understand a gene's function, it is essential to develop probabilistic models on multiple ChIP-Seq profiles for deciphering the gene transcription causalities. In this work, we propose and describe two probabilistic models. Assuming the conditional independence of different DNA-binding proteins' occupancies, the first method (SignalRanker) is developed as an intuitive method for ChIP-Seq genome-wide signal profile inference. Unfortunately, such an assumption may not always hold in some gene regulation cases. Thus, we propose and describe another method (FullSignalRanker) which does not make the conditional independence assumption. The proposed methods are compared with other existing methods on ENCODE ChIP-Seq datasets, demonstrating its regression and classification ability. The results suggest that FullSignalRanker is the best-performing method for recovering the signal ranks on the promoter and enhancer regions. In addition, FullSignalRanker is also the best-performing method for peak sequence classification. We envision that SignalRanker and FullSignalRanker will become important in the era of next generation sequencing. FullSignalRanker program is available on the following website: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/∼wkc/FullSignalRanker/ © 2015 IEEE.

Probabilistic Inference on Multiple Normalized Signal Profiles from Next Generation Sequencing: Transcription Factor Binding Sites

KAUST Repository

Wong, Ka-Chun

2015-04-20

With the prevalence of chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) with sequencing (ChIP-Seq) technology, massive ChIP-Seq data has been accumulated. The ChIP-Seq technology measures the genome-wide occupancy of DNA-binding proteins in vivo. It is well-known that different DNA-binding protein occupancies may result in a gene being regulated in different conditions (e.g. different cell types). To fully understand a gene\\'s function, it is essential to develop probabilistic models on multiple ChIP-Seq profiles for deciphering the gene transcription causalities. In this work, we propose and describe two probabilistic models. Assuming the conditional independence of different DNA-binding proteins\\' occupancies, the first method (SignalRanker) is developed as an intuitive method for ChIP-Seq genome-wide signal profile inference. Unfortunately, such an assumption may not always hold in some gene regulation cases. Thus, we propose and describe another method (FullSignalRanker) which does not make the conditional independence assumption. The proposed methods are compared with other existing methods on ENCODE ChIP-Seq datasets, demonstrating its regression and classification ability. The results suggest that FullSignalRanker is the best-performing method for recovering the signal ranks on the promoter and enhancer regions. In addition, FullSignalRanker is also the best-performing method for peak sequence classification. We envision that SignalRanker and FullSignalRanker will become important in the era of next generation sequencing. FullSignalRanker program is available on the following website: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/∼wkc/FullSignalRanker/ © 2015 IEEE.

Transcriptional Profiling of Cholinergic Neurons From Basal Forebrain Identifies Changes in Expression of Genes Between Sleep and Wake.

Science.gov (United States)

Nikonova, Elena V; Gilliland, Jason DA; Tanis, Keith Q; Podtelezhnikov, Alexei A; Rigby, Alison M; Galante, Raymond J; Finney, Eva M; Stone, David J; Renger, John J; Pack, Allan I; Winrow, Christopher J

2017-06-01

To assess differences in gene expression in cholinergic basal forebrain cells between sleeping and sleep-deprived mice sacrificed at the same time of day. Tg(ChAT-eGFP)86Gsat mice expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) under control of the choline acetyltransferase (Chat) promoter were utilized to guide laser capture of cholinergic cells in basal forebrain. Messenger RNA expression levels in these cells were profiled using microarrays. Gene expression in eGFP(+) neurons was compared (1) to that in eGFP(-) neurons and to adjacent white matter, (2) between 7:00 am (lights on) and 7:00 pm (lights off), (3) between sleep-deprived and sleeping animals at 0, 3, 6, and 9 hours from lights on. There was a marked enrichment of ChAT and other markers of cholinergic neurons in eGFP(+) cells. Comparison of gene expression in these eGFP(+) neurons between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm revealed expected differences in the expression of clock genes (Arntl2, Per1, Per2, Dbp, Nr1d1) as well as mGluR3. Comparison of expression between spontaneous sleep and sleep-deprived groups sacrificed at the same time of day revealed a number of transcripts (n = 55) that had higher expression in sleep deprivation compared to sleep. Genes upregulated in sleep deprivation predominantly were from the protein folding pathway (25 transcripts, including chaperones). Among 42 transcripts upregulated in sleep was the cold-inducible RNA-binding protein. Cholinergic cell signatures were characterized. Whether the identified genes are changing as a consequence of differences in behavioral state or as part of the molecular regulatory mechanism remains to be determined. © Sleep Research Society 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Sleep Research Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.

Pneumatosis intestinalis and portal venous gas secondary to Gefitinib therapy for lung adenocarcinoma

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Lee Joo

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Pneumatosis intestinalis (PI, defined as the presence of gas in the bowel wall, and portal venous gas (PVG are relatively rare radiological findings. Although several chemotherapeutic agents and anti-vascular endothelial growth factor agents are reported to be associated with PI and PVG, an association with anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR agents has not been described previously. Case presentation The present report describes a case of PI and PVG secondary to treatment with an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor. A 66-year-old woman who had been diagnosed with metastatic lung adenocarcinoma presented with nausea, vomiting and abdominal distension after commencing gefitinib. A computed tomography (CT scan of the abdomen revealed PI extending from the ascending colon to the rectum, hepatic PVG, and infarction of the liver. Gefitinib therapy was discontinued immediately and the patient was managed conservatively. A follow-up CT scan 2 weeks later revealed that the PI and hepatic PVG had completely resolved. Conclusion This is the first report of PI and PVG caused by EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Although these complications are extremely rare, clinicians should be aware of the risk of PI and PVG in patients undergoing targeted molecular therapy.

Analysis of transcriptional regulatory pathways of photoreceptor genes by expression profiling of the Otx2-deficient retina.

Science.gov (United States)

Omori, Yoshihiro; Katoh, Kimiko; Sato, Shigeru; Muranishi, Yuki; Chaya, Taro; Onishi, Akishi; Minami, Takashi; Fujikado, Takashi; Furukawa, Takahisa

2011-01-01

In the vertebrate retina, the Otx2 transcription factor plays a crucial role in the cell fate determination of both rod and cone photoreceptors. We previously reported that Otx2 conditional knockout (CKO) mice exhibited a total absence of rods and cones in the retina due to their cell fate conversion to amacrine-like cells. In order to investigate the entire transcriptome of the Otx2 CKO retina, we compared expression profile of Otx2 CKO and wild-type retinas at P1 and P12 using microarray. We observed that expression of 101- and 1049-probe sets significantly decreased in the Otx2 CKO retina at P1 and P12, respectively, whereas, expression of 3- and 4149-probe sets increased at P1 and P12, respectively. We found that expression of genes encoding transcription factors involved in photoreceptor development, including Crx, Nrl, Nr2e3, Esrrb, and NeuroD, was markedly down-regulated in the Otx2 CKO at both P1 and P12. Furthermore, we identified three human retinal disease loci mapped in close proximity to certain down-regulated genes in the Otx2 CKO retina including Ccdc126, Tnfsf13 and Pitpnm1, suggesting that these genes are possibly responsible for these diseases. These transcriptome data sets of the Otx2 CKO retina provide a resource on developing rods and cones to further understand the molecular mechanisms underlying photoreceptor development, function and disease.

Analysis of transcriptional regulatory pathways of photoreceptor genes by expression profiling of the Otx2-deficient retina.

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Yoshihiro Omori

Full Text Available In the vertebrate retina, the Otx2 transcription factor plays a crucial role in the cell fate determination of both rod and cone photoreceptors. We previously reported that Otx2 conditional knockout (CKO mice exhibited a total absence of rods and cones in the retina due to their cell fate conversion to amacrine-like cells. In order to investigate the entire transcriptome of the Otx2 CKO retina, we compared expression profile of Otx2 CKO and wild-type retinas at P1 and P12 using microarray. We observed that expression of 101- and 1049-probe sets significantly decreased in the Otx2 CKO retina at P1 and P12, respectively, whereas, expression of 3- and 4149-probe sets increased at P1 and P12, respectively. We found that expression of genes encoding transcription factors involved in photoreceptor development, including Crx, Nrl, Nr2e3, Esrrb, and NeuroD, was markedly down-regulated in the Otx2 CKO at both P1 and P12. Furthermore, we identified three human retinal disease loci mapped in close proximity to certain down-regulated genes in the Otx2 CKO retina including Ccdc126, Tnfsf13 and Pitpnm1, suggesting that these genes are possibly responsible for these diseases. These transcriptome data sets of the Otx2 CKO retina provide a resource on developing rods and cones to further understand the molecular mechanisms underlying photoreceptor development, function and disease.

Effects of cytosine methylation on transcription factor binding sites

KAUST Repository

Medvedeva, Yulia A

2014-03-26

Background: DNA methylation in promoters is closely linked to downstream gene repression. However, whether DNA methylation is a cause or a consequence of gene repression remains an open question. If it is a cause, then DNA methylation may affect the affinity of transcription factors (TFs) for their binding sites (TFBSs). If it is a consequence, then gene repression caused by chromatin modification may be stabilized by DNA methylation. Until now, these two possibilities have been supported only by non-systematic evidence and they have not been tested on a wide range of TFs. An average promoter methylation is usually used in studies, whereas recent results suggested that methylation of individual cytosines can also be important.Results: We found that the methylation profiles of 16.6% of cytosines and the expression profiles of neighboring transcriptional start sites (TSSs) were significantly negatively correlated. We called the CpGs corresponding to such cytosines " traffic lights" We observed a strong selection against CpG " traffic lights" within TFBSs. The negative selection was stronger for transcriptional repressors as compared with transcriptional activators or multifunctional TFs as well as for core TFBS positions as compared with flanking TFBS positions.Conclusions: Our results indicate that direct and selective methylation of certain TFBS that prevents TF binding is restricted to special cases and cannot be considered as a general regulatory mechanism of transcription. 2013 Medvedeva et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Extensive polycistronism and antisense transcription in the mammalian Hox clusters.

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Gaëll Mainguy

Full Text Available The Hox clusters play a crucial role in body patterning during animal development. They encode both Hox transcription factor and micro-RNA genes that are activated in a precise temporal and spatial sequence that follows their chromosomal order. These remarkable collinear properties confer functional unit status for Hox clusters. We developed the TranscriptView platform to establish high resolution transcriptional profiling and report here that transcription in the Hox clusters is far more complex than previously described in both human and mouse. Unannotated transcripts can represent up to 60% of the total transcriptional output of a cluster. In particular, we identified 14 non-coding Transcriptional Units antisense to Hox genes, 10 of which (70% have a detectable mouse homolog. Most of these Transcriptional Units in both human and mouse present conserved sizeable sequences (>40 bp overlapping Hox transcripts, suggesting that these Hox antisense transcripts are functional. Hox clusters also display at least seven polycistronic clusters, i.e., different genes being co-transcribed on long isoforms (up to 30 kb. This work provides a reevaluated framework for understanding Hox gene function and dys-function. Such extensive transcriptions may provide a structural explanation for Hox clustering.

Differential Rickettsial Transcription in Bloodfeeding and Non-Bloodfeeding Arthropod Hosts.

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Victoria I Verhoeve

Full Text Available Crucial factors influencing the epidemiology of Rickettsia felis rickettsiosis include pathogenesis and transmission. Detection of R. felis DNA in a number of arthropod species has been reported, with characterized isolates, R. felis strain LSU and strain LSU-Lb, generated from the cat flea, Ctenocephalides felis, and the non-hematophagous booklouse, Liposcelis bostrychophila, respectively. While it is realized that strain influence on host biology varies, the rickettsial response to these distinct host environments remained undefined. To identify a panel of potential rickettsial transmission determinants in the cat flea, the transcriptional profile for these two strains of R. felis were compared in their arthropod hosts using RNAseq. Rickettsial genes with increased transcription in the flea as compared to the booklouse were identified. Genes previously associated with bacterial virulence including LPS biosynthesis, Type IV secretion system, ABC transporters, and a toxin-antitoxin system were selected for further study. Transcription of putative virulence-associated genes was determined in a flea infection bioassay for both strains of R. felis. A host-dependent transcriptional profile during bloodfeeding, specifically, an increased expression of selected transcripts in newly infected cat fleas and flea feces was detected when compared to arthropod cell culture and incubation in vertebrate blood. Together, these studies have identified novel, host-dependent rickettsial factors that likely contribute to successful horizontal transmission by bloodfeeding arthropods.

Estudio de la expresión de calmodulina y detección de posibles cambios en transducción de señales durante los procesos de diferenciación del parásito Giardia intestinalis / Study of calmodulin expression and detection of changes in signal transduction pathways during the differentiation processes of parasite Giardia intestinalis

OpenAIRE

Alvarado Mora, Magda Elvira

2009-01-01

Giardia intestinalis es un parásito que infecta humanos. El proceso de exquistación es fundamental para que Giardia pueda infectar a un nuevo hospedero. Es un proceso biológico muy interesante, en donde la forma dormitante (quiste) detecta que las condiciones ambientales son las adecuadas para la reactivación celular. En este trabajo se estableció un método para la purificación de quistes del parásito, y se realizaron experimentos de exquistación. Se analizaron cambios en el patrón de fosfori...

Transcriptional profiling of rice treated with MoHrip1 reveal the function of protein elicitor in enhancement of disease resistance and plant growth

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Shun Lv

2016-12-01

Full Text Available MoHrip1 is a protein elicitor isolated from Magnaporthe oryzae and was found to induce blast-resistance in rice. To investigate the comprehensive functions of MoHrip1, next-generation sequencing (NGS-based digital gene expression (DGE profiling was performed to collect the transcriptional data of differentially expressed genes induced by MoHrip1. A total of 308 genes were identified with differential expression, and 80 genes were predicted to be induced specifically by MoHrip1. Among these 308 genes, a series of genes associated with the salicylic acid (SA pathway, phytoalexin, transcription factors and pathogen-related proteins were identified. Both the SA signaling pathway and the gibberellin (GA pathway were activated, while the jasmonic acid (JA signaling pathway was repressed. The contents of endogenous SA and GA and the morphological characteristics of the rice after treatment were measured to provide evidence supporting the predictions made based on the DGE data. The 80 genes mentioned above might be candidate genes for studying interactions with MoHrip1. The transcriptional data provided global effect information in rice induced by MoHrip1, and all the results demonstrated that MoHrip1 could induce pathogen resistance and promote plant growth by regulating the contents of SA and GA directly or indirectly.

Transcriptional Profiling of Rice Treated with MoHrip1 Reveal the Function of Protein Elicitor in Enhancement of Disease Resistance and Plant Growth.

Science.gov (United States)

Lv, Shun; Wang, Zhenzhen; Yang, Xiufen; Guo, Lihua; Qiu, Dewen; Zeng, Hongmei

2016-01-01

MoHrip1 is a protein elicitor isolated from Magnaporthe oryzae and was found to induce blast-resistance in rice. To investigate the comprehensive functions of MoHrip1, next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based digital gene expression (DGE) profiling was performed to collect the transcriptional data of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) induced by MoHrip1. A total of 308 genes were identified with differential expression, and 80 genes were predicted to be induced specifically by MoHrip1. Among these 308 genes, a series of genes associated with the salicylic acid (SA) pathway, phytoalexin, transcription factors, and pathogen-related proteins were identified. Both the SA signaling pathway and the gibberellin (GA) pathway were activated, while the jasmonic acid (JA) signaling pathway was repressed. The contents of endogenous SA and GA and the morphological characteristics of the rice after treatment were measured to provide evidence supporting the predictions made based on the DGE data. The 80 genes mentioned above might be candidate genes for studying interactions with MoHrip1. The transcriptional data provided global effect information in rice induced by MoHrip1, and all the results demonstrated that MoHrip1 could induce pathogen resistance and promote plant growth by regulating the contents of SA and GA directly or indirectly.

Distal Regeneration Involves the Age Dependent Activity of Branchial Sac Stem Cells in the Ascidian Ciona intestinalis.

Science.gov (United States)

Jeffery, William R

2015-02-01

Tunicates have high capacities for regeneration but the underlying mechanisms and their relationship to life cycle progression are not well understood. Here we investigate the regeneration of distal structures in the ascidian tunicate Ciona intestinalis . Analysis of regenerative potential along the proximal-distal body axis indicated that distal organs, such as the siphons, their pigmented sensory organs, and the neural complex, could only be replaced from body fragments containing the branchial sac. Distal regeneration involves the formation of a blastema composed of cells that undergo cell proliferation prior to differentiation and cells that differentiate without cell proliferation. Both cell types originate in the branchial sac and appear in the blastema at different times after distal injury. Whereas the branchial sac stem cells are present in young animals, they are depleted in old animals that have lost their regeneration capacity. Thus Ciona adults contain a population of age-related stem cells located in the branchial sac that are a source of precursors for distal body regeneration.

Genes Involved in Human Ribosome Biogenesis areTranscriptionally Upregulated in Colorectal Cancer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mansilla, Francisco; Lamy, Philippe; Ørntoft, Torben Falck

2009-01-01

Microarray gene expression profiling comprising 168 colorectal adenocarcinomas and 10 normal mucosas showed that over 79% of the genes involved in human ribosome biogenesis are significantly upregulated (log2>0.5, p<10-3) when compared to normal mucosa. Overexpression was independent of microsate......Microarray gene expression profiling comprising 168 colorectal adenocarcinomas and 10 normal mucosas showed that over 79% of the genes involved in human ribosome biogenesis are significantly upregulated (log2>0.5, p... of microsatellite status. The promoters of the genes studied showed a significant enrichment for several transcription factor binding sites. There was a significant correlation between the number of binding site targets for these transcription factors and the observed gene transcript upregulation. The upregulation...

Transcriptional and Proteomic Profiling of Aspergillus flavipes in Response to Sulfur Starvation.

Science.gov (United States)

El-Sayed, Ashraf S A; Yassin, Marwa A; Ali, Gul Shad

2015-01-01

Aspergillus flavipes has received considerable interest due to its potential to produce therapeutic enzymes involved in sulfur amino acid metabolism. In natural habitats, A. flavipes survives under sulfur limitations by mobilizing endogenous and exogenous sulfur to operate diverse cellular processes. Sulfur limitation affects virulence and pathogenicity, and modulates proteome of sulfur assimilating enzymes of several fungi. However, there are no previous reports aimed at exploring effects of sulfur limitation on the regulation of A. flavipes sulfur metabolism enzymes at the transcriptional, post-transcriptional and proteomic levels. In this report, we show that sulfur limitation affects morphological and physiological responses of A. flavipes. Transcription and enzymatic activities of several key sulfur metabolism genes, ATP-sulfurylase, sulfite reductase, methionine permease, cysteine synthase, cystathionine β- and γ-lyase, glutathione reductase and glutathione peroxidase were increased under sulfur starvation conditions. A 50 kDa protein band was strongly induced by sulfur starvation, and the proteomic analyses of this protein band using LC-MS/MS revealed similarity to many proteins involved in the sulfur metabolism pathway.

Inference of RNA polymerase II transcription dynamics from chromatin immunoprecipitation time course data.

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Ciira wa Maina

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Gene transcription mediated by RNA polymerase II (pol-II is a key step in gene expression. The dynamics of pol-II moving along the transcribed region influence the rate and timing of gene expression. In this work, we present a probabilistic model of transcription dynamics which is fitted to pol-II occupancy time course data measured using ChIP-Seq. The model can be used to estimate transcription speed and to infer the temporal pol-II activity profile at the gene promoter. Model parameters are estimated using either maximum likelihood estimation or via Bayesian inference using Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. The Bayesian approach provides confidence intervals for parameter estimates and allows the use of priors that capture domain knowledge, e.g. the expected range of transcription speeds, based on previous experiments. The model describes the movement of pol-II down the gene body and can be used to identify the time of induction for transcriptionally engaged genes. By clustering the inferred promoter activity time profiles, we are able to determine which genes respond quickly to stimuli and group genes that share activity profiles and may therefore be co-regulated. We apply our methodology to biological data obtained using ChIP-seq to measure pol-II occupancy genome-wide when MCF-7 human breast cancer cells are treated with estradiol (E2. The transcription speeds we obtain agree with those obtained previously for smaller numbers of genes with the advantage that our approach can be applied genome-wide. We validate the biological significance of the pol-II promoter activity clusters by investigating cluster-specific transcription factor binding patterns and determining canonical pathway enrichment. We find that rapidly induced genes are enriched for both estrogen receptor alpha (ERα and FOXA1 binding in their proximal promoter regions.

HALO--a Java framework for precise transcript half-life determination.

Science.gov (United States)

Friedel, Caroline C; Kaufmann, Stefanie; Dölken, Lars; Zimmer, Ralf

2010-05-01

Recent improvements in experimental technologies now allow measurements of de novo transcription and/or RNA decay at whole transcriptome level and determination of precise transcript half-lives. Such transcript half-lives provide important insights into the regulation of biological processes and the relative contributions of RNA decay and de novo transcription to differential gene expression. In this article, we present HALO (Half-life Organizer), the first software for the precise determination of transcript half-lives from measurements of RNA de novo transcription or decay determined with microarrays or RNA-seq. In addition, methods for quality control, filtering and normalization are supplied. HALO provides a graphical user interface, command-line tools and a well-documented Java application programming interface (API). Thus, it can be used both by biologists to determine transcript half-lives fast and reliably with the provided user interfaces as well as software developers integrating transcript half-life analysis into other gene expression profiling pipelines. Source code, executables and documentation are available at http://www.bio.ifi.lmu.de/software/halo.

Global effects of the CSR-1 RNA interference pathway on transcriptional landscape

Science.gov (United States)

Cecere, Germano; Hoersch, Sebastian; O’Keeffe, Sean; Sachidanandam, Ravi; Grishok, Alla

2014-01-01

Argonaute proteins and their small RNA co-factors short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are known to inhibit gene expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. In Caenorhabditis elegans, the Argonaute CSR-1 binds thousands of endogenous siRNAs (endo-siRNAs) antisense to germline transcripts and associates with chromatin in a siRNA-dependent manner. However, its role in gene expression regulation remains controversial. Here, we used a genome-wide profiling of nascent RNA transcripts to demonstrate that the CSR-1 RNAi pathway promotes sense-oriented Pol II transcription. Moreover, a loss of CSR-1 function resulted in global increase in antisense transcription and ectopic transcription of silent chromatin domains, which led to reduced chromatin incorporation of centromere-specific histone H3. Based on these findings, we propose that the CSR-1 pathway has a role in maintaining the directionality of active transcription thereby propagating the distinction between transcriptionally active and silent genomic regions. PMID:24681887

Coordinated Evolution of Transcriptional and Post-Transcriptional Regulation for Mitochondrial Functions in Yeast Strains.

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Xuepeng Sun

Full Text Available Evolution of gene regulation has been proposed to play an important role in environmental adaptation. Exploring mechanisms underlying coordinated evolutionary changes at various levels of gene regulation could shed new light on how organism adapt in nature. In this study, we focused on regulatory differences between a laboratory Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain BY4742 and a pathogenic S. cerevisiae strain, YJM789. The two strains diverge in many features, including growth rate, morphology, high temperature tolerance, and pathogenicity. Our RNA-Seq and ribosomal footprint profiling data showed that gene expression differences are pervasive, and genes functioning in mitochondria are mostly divergent between the two strains at both transcriptional and translational levels. Combining functional genomics data from other yeast strains, we further demonstrated that significant divergence of expression for genes functioning in the electron transport chain (ETC was likely caused by differential expression of a transcriptional factor, HAP4, and that post-transcriptional regulation mediated by an RNA-binding protein, PUF3, likely led to expression divergence for genes involved in mitochondrial translation. We also explored mito-nuclear interactions via mitochondrial DNA replacement between strains. Although the two mitochondrial genomes harbor substantial sequence divergence, neither growth nor gene expression were affected by mitochondrial DNA replacement in both fermentative and respiratory growth media, indicating compatible mitochondrial and nuclear genomes between these two strains in the tested conditions. Collectively, we used mitochondrial functions as an example to demonstrate for the first time that evolution at both transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels could lead to coordinated regulatory changes underlying strain specific functional variations.

Global Transcriptional and Physiological Responses of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to Ammonium, L-Alanine, or L-Glutamine Limitation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Usaite, Renata; Patil, Kiran Raosaheb; Grotkjær, Thomas

2006-01-01

-ammonium in limitation and by growing cells in an excess of ammonium. Cells grown in L-alanine-limited cultures had higher biomass yield per nitrogen mole (19%) than those from ammonium-limited cultures. Whole-genome transcript profiles were analyzed with a genome-scalle metabolic model that suggested increased anabolic...... activity in L-alanine-limited cells. The changes in these cells were found to be focused around pyruvate, acetyl coenzyme A, glyoxylate, and alpha-ketoglutarate via increased levels of ALT1, DAL7, PYC1, GDH2, and ADH5 and decreased levels of GDH3, CIT2, and ACS1 transcripts. The transcript profiles were...

Transcriptional profiling reveals the expression of novel genes in response to various stimuli in the human dermatophyte Trichophyton rubrum

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Aquino-Ferreira Roseli

2010-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Cutaneous mycoses are common human infections among healthy and immunocompromised hosts, and the anthropophilic fungus Trichophyton rubrum is the most prevalent microorganism isolated from such clinical cases worldwide. The aim of this study was to determine the transcriptional profile of T. rubrum exposed to various stimuli in order to obtain insights into the responses of this pathogen to different environmental challenges. Therefore, we generated an expressed sequence tag (EST collection by constructing one cDNA library and nine suppression subtractive hybridization libraries. Results The 1388 unigenes identified in this study were functionally classified based on the Munich Information Center for Protein Sequences (MIPS categories. The identified proteins were involved in transcriptional regulation, cellular defense and stress, protein degradation, signaling, transport, and secretion, among other functions. Analysis of these unigenes revealed 575 T. rubrum sequences that had not been previously deposited in public databases. Conclusion In this study, we identified novel T. rubrum genes that will be useful for ORF prediction in genome sequencing and facilitating functional genome analysis. Annotation of these expressed genes revealed metabolic adaptations of T. rubrum to carbon sources, ambient pH shifts, and various antifungal drugs used in medical practice. Furthermore, challenging T. rubrum with cytotoxic drugs and ambient pH shifts extended our understanding of the molecular events possibly involved in the infectious process and resistance to antifungal drugs.

EWS/FLI mediates transcriptional repression via NKX2.2 during oncogenic transformation in Ewing's sarcoma.

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Leah A Owen

2008-04-01

Full Text Available EWS/FLI is a master regulator of Ewing's sarcoma formation. Gene expression studies in A673 Ewing's sarcoma cells have demonstrated that EWS/FLI downregulates more genes than it upregulates, suggesting that EWS/FLI, and/or its targets, function as transcriptional repressors. One critical EWS/FLI target, NKX2.2, is a transcription factor that contains both transcriptional activation and transcriptional repression domains, raising the possibility that it mediates portions of the EWS/FLI transcriptional signature. We now report that microarray analysis demonstrated that the transcriptional profile of NKX2.2 consists solely of downregulated genes, and overlaps with the EWS/FLI downregulated signature, suggesting that NKX2.2 mediates oncogenic transformation via transcriptional repression. Structure-function analysis revealed that the DNA binding and repressor domains in NKX2.2 are required for oncogenesis in Ewing's sarcoma cells, while the transcriptional activation domain is completely dispensable. Furthermore, blockade of TLE or HDAC function, two protein families thought to mediate the repressive function of NKX2.2, inhibited the transformed phenotype and reversed the NKX2.2 transcriptional profile in Ewing's sarcoma cells. Whole genome localization studies (ChIP-chip revealed that a significant portion of the NKX2.2-repressed gene expression signature was directly mediated by NKX2.2 binding. These data demonstrate that the transcriptional repressive function of NKX2.2 is necessary, and sufficient, for the oncogenic phenotype of Ewing's sarcoma, and suggest a therapeutic approach to this disease.

Discovery of non-directional and directional pioneer transcription factors by modeling DNase profile magnitude and shape

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Lewis, Sophia; Barkal, Amira A; van Hoff, John Peter; Karun, Vivek; Jaakkola, Tommi; Gifford, David K

2014-01-01

Here we describe Protein Interaction Quantitation (PIQ), a computational method that models the magnitude and shape of genome-wide DNase profiles to facilitate the identification of transcription factor (TF) binding sites. Through the use of machine learning techniques, PIQ identified binding sites for >700 TFs from one DNase-seq experiment with accuracy comparable to ChIP-seq for motif-associated TFs (median AUC=0.93 across 303 TFs). We applied PIQ to analyze DNase-seq data from mouse embryonic stem cells differentiating into pre-pancreatic and intestinal endoderm. We identified (n=120) and experimentally validated eight ‘pioneer’ TF families that dynamically open chromatin, enabling other TFs to bind to adjacent DNA. Four pioneer TF families only open chromatin in one direction from their motifs. Furthermore, we identified a class of ‘settler’ TFs whose genomic binding is principally governed by proximity to open chromatin. Our results support a model of hierarchical TF binding in which directional and non-directional pioneer activity shapes the chromatin landscape for population by settler TFs. PMID:24441470

Detecting Differential Transcription Factor Activity from ATAC-Seq Data

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Ignacio J. Tripodi

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Transcription factors are managers of the cellular factory, and key components to many diseases. Many non-coding single nucleotide polymorphisms affect transcription factors, either by directly altering the protein or its functional activity at individual binding sites. Here we first briefly summarize high-throughput approaches to studying transcription factor activity. We then demonstrate, using published chromatin accessibility data (specifically ATAC-seq, that the genome-wide profile of TF recognition motifs relative to regions of open chromatin can determine the key transcription factor altered by a perturbation. Our method of determining which TFs are altered by a perturbation is simple, is quick to implement, and can be used when biological samples are limited. In the future, we envision that this method could be applied to determine which TFs show altered activity in response to a wide variety of drugs and diseases.

Global effects of the CSR-1 RNA interference pathway on the transcriptional landscape.

Science.gov (United States)

Cecere, Germano; Hoersch, Sebastian; O'Keeffe, Sean; Sachidanandam, Ravi; Grishok, Alla

2014-04-01

Argonaute proteins and their small RNA cofactors short interfering RNAs are known to inhibit gene expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. In Caenorhabditis elegans, the Argonaute CSR-1 binds thousands of endogenous siRNAs (endo-siRNAs) that are antisense to germline transcripts. However, its role in gene expression regulation remains controversial. Here we used genome-wide profiling of nascent RNA transcripts and found that the CSR-1 RNA interference pathway promoted sense-oriented RNA polymerase II transcription. Moreover, a loss of CSR-1 function resulted in global increase in antisense transcription and ectopic transcription of silent chromatin domains, which led to reduced chromatin incorporation of centromere-specific histone H3. On the basis of these findings, we propose that the CSR-1 pathway helps maintain the directionality of active transcription, thereby propagating the distinction between transcriptionally active and silent genomic regions.

Transcription facilitated genome-wide recruitment of topoisomerase I and DNA gyrase.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahmed, Wareed; Sala, Claudia; Hegde, Shubhada R; Jha, Rajiv Kumar; Cole, Stewart T; Nagaraja, Valakunja

2017-05-01

Movement of the transcription machinery along a template alters DNA topology resulting in the accumulation of supercoils in DNA. The positive supercoils generated ahead of transcribing RNA polymerase (RNAP) and the negative supercoils accumulating behind impose severe topological constraints impeding transcription process. Previous studies have implied the role of topoisomerases in the removal of torsional stress and the maintenance of template topology but the in vivo interaction of functionally distinct topoisomerases with heterogeneous chromosomal territories is not deciphered. Moreover, how the transcription-induced supercoils influence the genome-wide recruitment of DNA topoisomerases remains to be explored in bacteria. Using ChIP-Seq, we show the genome-wide occupancy profile of both topoisomerase I and DNA gyrase in conjunction with RNAP in Mycobacterium tuberculosis taking advantage of minimal topoisomerase representation in the organism. The study unveils the first in vivo genome-wide interaction of both the topoisomerases with the genomic regions and establishes that transcription-induced supercoils govern their recruitment at genomic sites. Distribution profiles revealed co-localization of RNAP and the two topoisomerases on the active transcriptional units (TUs). At a given locus, topoisomerase I and DNA gyrase were localized behind and ahead of RNAP, respectively, correlating with the twin-supercoiled domains generated. The recruitment of topoisomerases was higher at the genomic loci with higher transcriptional activity and/or at regions under high torsional stress compared to silent genomic loci. Importantly, the occupancy of DNA gyrase, sole type II topoisomerase in Mtb, near the Ter domain of the Mtb chromosome validates its function as a decatenase.

Osmotic stress upregulates the transcription of thiamine (vitamin B1 ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Osmotic stress upregulates the transcription of thiamine (vitamin B1) ... Oil palm's responses in terms of the expression profiles of these two thiamine biosynthesis genes to an osmotic stress inducer, polyethylene glycol ... from 32 Countries:.

Quantitative transcriptional profiling of ATDC5 mouse progenitor cells during chondrogenesis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chen, Li; Fink, Trine; Zhang, Xiao-Yan

2005-01-01

During the differentiation of a mouse chondroprogenitor cell line, ATDC5, an analysis of the transcription cartilage-related genes was carried out using real-time RT-PCR in a semiquantitative fashion. A total number of 104 genes both previously linked to chondrogenesis and hitherto not associated...

Inferring the role of transcription factors in regulatory networks

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Le Borgne Michel

2008-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Expression profiles obtained from multiple perturbation experiments are increasingly used to reconstruct transcriptional regulatory networks, from well studied, simple organisms up to higher eukaryotes. Admittedly, a key ingredient in developing a reconstruction method is its ability to integrate heterogeneous sources of information, as well as to comply with practical observability issues: measurements can be scarce or noisy. In this work, we show how to combine a network of genetic regulations with a set of expression profiles, in order to infer the functional effect of the regulations, as inducer or repressor. Our approach is based on a consistency rule between a network and the signs of variation given by expression arrays. Results We evaluate our approach in several settings of increasing complexity. First, we generate artificial expression data on a transcriptional network of E. coli extracted from the literature (1529 nodes and 3802 edges, and we estimate that 30% of the regulations can be annotated with about 30 profiles. We additionally prove that at most 40.8% of the network can be inferred using our approach. Second, we use this network in order to validate the predictions obtained with a compendium of real expression profiles. We describe a filtering algorithm that generates particularly reliable predictions. Finally, we apply our inference approach to S. cerevisiae transcriptional network (2419 nodes and 4344 interactions, by combining ChIP-chip data and 15 expression profiles. We are able to detect and isolate inconsistencies between the expression profiles and a significant portion of the model (15% of all the interactions. In addition, we report predictions for 14.5% of all interactions. Conclusion Our approach does not require accurate expression levels nor times series. Nevertheless, we show on both data, real and artificial, that a relatively small number of perturbation experiments are enough to determine

Identification of transcription factors potential related to brown planthopper resistance in rice via microarray expression profiling.

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Wang, Yubing; Guo, Huimin; Li, Haichao; Zhang, Hao; Miao, Xuexia

2012-12-10

Brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens Stål, is one of the most destructive insect pests of rice. The molecular responses of plants to sucking insects resemble responses to pathogen infection. However, the molecular mechanism of BPH-resistance in rice remains unclear. Transcription factors (TF) are up-stream regulators of various genes that bind to specific DNA sequences, thereby controlling the transcription from DNA to mRNA. They are key regulators for transcriptional expression in biological processes, and are probably involved in the BPH-induced pathways in resistant rice varieties. We conducted a microarray experiment to analyze TF genes related to BPH resistance in a Sri Lankan rice cultivar, Rathu Heenati (RHT). We compared the expression profiles of TF genes in RHT with those of the susceptible rice cultivar Taichun Native 1 (TN1). We detected 2038 TF genes showing differential expression signals between the two rice varieties. Of these, 442 TF genes were probably related to BPH-induced resistance in RHT and TN1, and 229 may be related to constitutive resistance only in RHT. These genes showed a fold change (FC) of more than 2.0 (Pgenes related to BPH-induced resistance, most of them were readily induced in TN1 than in RHT by BPH feeding, for instance, 154 TF genes were up-regulated in TN1, but only 31 TF genes were up-regulated in RHT at 24 hours after BPH infestation; 2-4 times more TF genes were induced in TN1 than in RHT by BPH. At an FC threshold of >10, there were 37 induced TF genes and 26 constitutive resistance TF genes. Of these, 13 were probably involved in BPH-induced resistance, and 8 in constitutive resistance to BPH in RHT. We explored the molecular mechanism of resistance to BPH in rice by comparing expressions of TF genes between RHT and TN1. We speculate that the level of gene repression, especially for early TF genes, plays an important role in the defense response. The fundamental point of the resistance strategy is that plants

Dissecting interferon-induced transcriptional programs in human peripheral blood cells.

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Simon J Waddell

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Interferons are key modulators of the immune system, and are central to the control of many diseases. The response of immune cells to stimuli in complex populations is the product of direct and indirect effects, and of homotypic and heterotypic cell interactions. Dissecting the global transcriptional profiles of immune cell populations may provide insights into this regulatory interplay. The host transcriptional response may also be useful in discriminating between disease states, and in understanding pathophysiology. The transcriptional programs of cell populations in health therefore provide a paradigm for deconvoluting disease-associated gene expression profiles.We used human cDNA microarrays to (1 compare the gene expression programs in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs elicited by 6 major mediators of the immune response: interferons alpha, beta, omega and gamma, IL12 and TNFalpha; and (2 characterize the transcriptional responses of purified immune cell populations (CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, B cells, NK cells and monocytes to IFNgamma stimulation. We defined a highly stereotyped response to type I interferons, while responses to IFNgamma and IL12 were largely restricted to a subset of type I interferon-inducible genes. TNFalpha stimulation resulted in a distinct pattern of gene expression. Cell type-specific transcriptional programs were identified, highlighting the pronounced response of monocytes to IFNgamma, and emergent properties associated with IFN-mediated activation of mixed cell populations. This information provides a detailed view of cellular activation by immune mediators, and contributes an interpretive framework for the definition of host immune responses in a variety of disease settings.

Distal regeneration involves the age dependent activity of branchial sac stem cells in the ascidian Ciona intestinalis

Science.gov (United States)

2014-01-01

Abstract Tunicates have high capacities for regeneration but the underlying mechanisms and their relationship to life cycle progression are not well understood. Here we investigate the regeneration of distal structures in the ascidian tunicate Ciona intestinalis. Analysis of regenerative potential along the proximal−distal body axis indicated that distal organs, such as the siphons, their pigmented sensory organs, and the neural complex, could only be replaced from body fragments containing the branchial sac. Distal regeneration involves the formation of a blastema composed of cells that undergo cell proliferation prior to differentiation and cells that differentiate without cell proliferation. Both cell types originate in the branchial sac and appear in the blastema at different times after distal injury. Whereas the branchial sac stem cells are present in young animals, they are depleted in old animals that have lost their regeneration capacity. Thus Ciona adults contain a population of age‐related stem cells located in the branchial sac that are a source of precursors for distal body regeneration. PMID:25893097

Investigación científica sobre genotipificación y distribución de Giardia intestinalis en humanos y caninos de América

OpenAIRE

Giovanny Torres Lindarte; Mario Zapata Tamayo; Marcos Restrepo Isaza; Leonardo Ríos Osorio

2011-01-01

Objetivo: Describir la distribución geográfica en América de los genotipos A, B, C y D de Giardia intestinalis hallados en humanos y en perros, y los marcadores y técnicas usadas, de acuerdo con la literatura científica. Materiales y métodos: Revisión sistemática en la que se seleccionaron 19 artículos, y en todos se caracterizaron aislados de humanos; solo 10 de estos caracterizaron aislados de perros. Resultados: México fue el país que más estudios realizó (31,6%). El genotipo A fue reporta...

High occurrence of Blastocystis sp. subtypes 1-3 and Giardia intestinalis assemblage B among patients in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

Science.gov (United States)

Forsell, Joakim; Granlund, Margareta; Samuelsson, Linn; Koskiniemi, Satu; Edebro, Helén; Evengård, Birgitta

2016-06-29

Blastocystis is a common intestinal parasite with worldwide distribution but the distribution of Blastocystis and its subtypes in East Africa is largely unknown. In this study, we investigate the distribution of Blastocystis subtypes in Zanzibar, Tanzania and report the prevalence of intestinal parasites using both molecular methods and microscopy. Stool samples were collected from both diarrhoeic and non-diarrhoeic outpatients in Zanzibar. In addition to microscopy, real-time PCR for Blastocystis, Entamoeba histolytica and E. dispar, Giardia intestinalis, Cryptosporidium spp., and Dientamoeba fragilis was used. Blastocystis subtypes were determined by a conventional PCR followed by partial sequencing of the SSU-rRNA gene. Genetic assemblages of Giardia were determined by PCR with assemblage specific primers. Intestinal parasites were detected in 85 % of the 174 participants, with two or more parasites present in 56 %. Blastocystis sp. and Giardia intestinalis were the most common parasites, identified by PCR in 61 and 53 % of the stool samples respectively, but no correlation between carriage of Blastocystis and Giardia was found. The Blastocystis subtype distribution was ST1 34.0 %, ST2 26.4 %, ST3 25.5 %, ST7 0.9 %, and 13.2 % were positive only by qPCR (non-typable). The Giardia genetic assemblages identified were A 6.5 %, B 85 %, A + B 4.3 %, and non-typable 4.3 %. The detection rate with microscopy was substantially lower than with PCR, 20 % for Blastocystis and 13.8 % for Giardia. The prevalence of Blastocystis increased significantly with age while Giardia was most prevalent in children two to five years old. No correlation between diarrhoea and the identification of Giardia, Blastocystis, or their respective genetic subtypes could be shown and, as a possible indication of parasite load, the mean cycle threshold values in the qPCR for Giardia were equal in diarrhoeic and non-diarrhoeic patients. Carriage of intestinal parasites was very

ReTrOS: a MATLAB toolbox for reconstructing transcriptional activity from gene and protein expression data.

Science.gov (United States)

Minas, Giorgos; Momiji, Hiroshi; Jenkins, Dafyd J; Costa, Maria J; Rand, David A; Finkenstädt, Bärbel

2017-06-26

Given the development of high-throughput experimental techniques, an increasing number of whole genome transcription profiling time series data sets, with good temporal resolution, are becoming available to researchers. The ReTrOS toolbox (Reconstructing Transcription Open Software) provides MATLAB-based implementations of two related methods, namely ReTrOS-Smooth and ReTrOS-Switch, for reconstructing the temporal transcriptional activity profile of a gene from given mRNA expression time series or protein reporter time series. The methods are based on fitting a differential equation model incorporating the processes of transcription, translation and degradation. The toolbox provides a framework for model fitting along with statistical analyses of the model with a graphical interface and model visualisation. We highlight several applications of the toolbox, including the reconstruction of the temporal cascade of transcriptional activity inferred from mRNA expression data and protein reporter data in the core circadian clock in Arabidopsis thaliana, and how such reconstructed transcription profiles can be used to study the effects of different cell lines and conditions. The ReTrOS toolbox allows users to analyse gene and/or protein expression time series where, with appropriate formulation of prior information about a minimum of kinetic parameters, in particular rates of degradation, users are able to infer timings of changes in transcriptional activity. Data from any organism and obtained from a range of technologies can be used as input due to the flexible and generic nature of the model and implementation. The output from this software provides a useful analysis of time series data and can be incorporated into further modelling approaches or in hypothesis generation.

SMRT has tissue-specific isoform profiles that include a form containing one CoRNR box

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Short, Stephen; Malartre, Marianne; Sharpe, Colin

2005-01-01

SMRT acts as a corepressor for a range of transcription factors. The amino-terminal part of the protein includes domains that mainly mediate transcriptional repression whilst the carboxy-terminal part includes domains that interact with nuclear receptors using up to three motifs called CoRNR boxes. The region of the SMRT primary transcript encoding the interaction domains is subject to alternative splicing that varies the inclusion of the third CoRNR box. The profile in mice includes an abundant, novel SMRT isoform that possesses just one CoRNR box. Mouse tissues therefore express SMRT isoforms containing one, two or three CoRNR boxes. In frogs, the SMRT isoform profile is tissue-specific. The mouse also shows distinct profiles generated by differential expression levels of the SMRT transcript isoforms. The formation of multiple SMRT isoforms and their tissue-specific regulation indicates a mechanism, whereby cells can define the repertoire of transcription factors regulated by SMRT

Clinical significance of pneumatosis intestinalis - correlation of MDCT-findings with treatment and outcome

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Treyaud, Marc-Olivier; Duran, Rafael; Knebel, Jean-Francois; Meuli, Reto A.; Schmidt, Sabine [Lausanne University Hospital, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Lausanne (Switzerland); Zins, Marc [Fondation Hopital St Joseph, Department of Radiology, Paris (France)

2017-01-15

To evaluate the clinical significance of pneumatosis intestinalis (PI) including the influence on treatment and outcome. Two radiologists jointly reviewed MDCT-examinations of 149 consecutive emergency patients (53 women, mean age 64, range 21-95) with PI of the stomach (n = 4), small (n = 68) and/or large bowel (n = 96). PI extension, distribution and possibly associated porto-mesenteric venous gas (PMVG) were correlated with other MDCT-findings, risk factors, clinical management, laboratory, histopathology, final diagnosis and outcome. The most frequent cause of PI was intestinal ischemia (n = 80,53.7 %), followed by infection (n = 18,12.1 %), obstructive (n = 12,8.1 %) and non-obstructive (n = 10,6.7 %) bowel dilatation, unknown aetiologies (n = 8,5.4 %), drugs (n = 8,5.4 %), inflammation (n = 7,4.7 %), and others (n = 6,4 %). Neither PI distribution nor extension significantly correlated with underlying ischemia. Overall mortality was 41.6 % (n = 62), mostly related to intestinal ischemia (p = 0.003). Associated PMVG significantly correlated with underlying ischemia (p = 0.009), as did the anatomical distribution of PMVG (p = 0.015). Decreased mural contrast-enhancement was the only other MDCT-feature significantly associated with ischemia (p p < 0.001). Elevated white blood count significantly correlated with ischemia (p = 0.03). In emergency patients, ischemia remains the most common aetiology of PI, showing the highest mortality. PI with associated PMVG is an alerting sign. PI together with decreased mural contrast-enhancement indicates underlying ischemia. (orig.)

Integration analysis of microRNA and mRNA paired expression profiling identifies deregulated microRNA-transcription factor-gene regulatory networks in ovarian endometriosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Luyang; Gu, Chenglei; Ye, Mingxia; Zhang, Zhe; Li, Li'an; Fan, Wensheng; Meng, Yuanguang

2018-01-22

The etiology and pathophysiology of endometriosis remain unclear. Accumulating evidence suggests that aberrant microRNA (miRNA) and transcription factor (TF) expression may be involved in the pathogenesis and development of endometriosis. This study therefore aims to survey the key miRNAs, TFs and genes and further understand the mechanism of endometriosis. Paired expression profiling of miRNA and mRNA in ectopic endometria compared with eutopic endometria were determined by high-throughput sequencing techniques in eight patients with ovarian endometriosis. Binary interactions and circuits among the miRNAs, TFs, and corresponding genes were identified by the Pearson correlation coefficients. miRNA-TF-gene regulatory networks were constructed using bioinformatic methods. Eleven selected miRNAs and TFs were validated by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction in 22 patients. Overall, 107 differentially expressed miRNAs and 6112 differentially expressed mRNAs were identified by comparing the sequencing of the ectopic endometrium group and the eutopic endometrium group. The miRNA-TF-gene regulatory network consists of 22 miRNAs, 12 TFs and 430 corresponding genes. Specifically, some key regulators from the miR-449 and miR-34b/c cluster, miR-200 family, miR-106a-363 cluster, miR-182/183, FOX family, GATA family, and E2F family as well as CEBPA, SOX9 and HNF4A were suggested to play vital regulatory roles in the pathogenesis of endometriosis. Integration analysis of the miRNA and mRNA expression profiles presents a unique insight into the regulatory network of this enigmatic disorder and possibly provides clues regarding replacement therapy for endometriosis.

Scaling proprioceptor gene transcription by retrograde NT3 signaling.

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Jun Lee

Full Text Available Cell-type specific intrinsic programs instruct neuronal subpopulations before target-derived factors influence later neuronal maturation. Retrograde neurotrophin signaling controls neuronal survival and maturation of dorsal root ganglion (DRG sensory neurons, but how these potent signaling pathways intersect with transcriptional programs established at earlier developmental stages remains poorly understood. Here we determine the consequences of genetic alternation of NT3 signaling on genome-wide transcription programs in proprioceptors, an important sensory neuron subpopulation involved in motor reflex behavior. We find that the expression of many proprioceptor-enriched genes is dramatically altered by genetic NT3 elimination, independent of survival-related activities. Combinatorial analysis of gene expression profiles with proprioceptors isolated from mice expressing surplus muscular NT3 identifies an anticorrelated gene set with transcriptional levels scaled in opposite directions. Voluntary running experiments in adult mice further demonstrate the maintenance of transcriptional adjustability of genes expressed by DRG neurons, pointing to life-long gene expression plasticity in sensory neurons.

Exploiting bilosomes for delivering bioactive polysaccharide isolated from Enteromorpha intestinalis for hacking hepatocellular carcinoma.

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Matloub, Azza Abdelmageed; Salama, Alaa Hamed; Aglan, Hadeer Ahmed; AbouSamra, Mona Mahmoud; ElSouda, Sahar Salah Mohamed; Ahmed, Hanaa Hamdy

2018-04-01

Bile salts containing vesicles (bilosomes) represent a portentous vesicular carrier that showed prosperous results in delivering active moieties in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). In this study, bilosomes were exploited to deliver sulfated polysaccharide-protein complexes of Enteromorpha intestinalis (EHEM) and enhance its activity against hepatocellular carcinoma as well as resist harsh GIT conditions. Bilosomes were prepared using the sodium salt of three different bile acids (cholic, deoxycholic, taurodeoxycholic) and two different nonionic surfactants (Span 40 and 65). The effects of experimental variables were thoroughly studied to obtain an optimum formulation loading EHEM. The selected formulation (EH-Bilo-2) prepared with sodium cholate and Span 65 displayed nano-sized (181.1 ± 16.80 nm) spherical vesicles with reasonable entrapment efficiency (71.60 ± 0.25%) and controlled release properties; and thus was investigated as anti-hepatocarcinogenic candidate for in vivo studies. Treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) bearing rats with EH-Bilo-2 experienced significant decrease in serum α-fetoprotein, endoglin, lipocalin-2, and heat shock protein 70 levels vs. the untreated counterparts. Furthermore, the photomicrographs of their liver tissue sections showed focal area of degenerated pleomorphic hepatocytes with fine fibrosis originating from the portal area. Thus, the optimized bilosomal formulation is a promising delegate for tackling hepatocellular carcinoma owing to its powerful anti-cancer and anti-angiogenic activity.

Shedding light on cell compartmentation in the candidate phylum Poribacteria by high resolution visualisation and transcriptional profiling

KAUST Repository

Jahn, Martin T.

2016-10-31

Assigning functions to uncultivated environmental microorganisms continues to be a challenging endeavour. Here, we present a new microscopy protocol for fluorescence in situ hybridisation-correlative light and electron microscopy (FISH-CLEM) that enabled, to our knowledge for the first time, the identification of single cells within their complex microenvironment at electron microscopy resolution. Members of the candidate phylum Poribacteria, common and uncultivated symbionts of marine sponges, were used towards this goal. Cellular 3D reconstructions revealed bipolar, spherical granules of low electron density, which likely represent carbon reserves. Poribacterial activity profiles were retrieved from prokaryotic enriched sponge metatranscriptomes using simulation-based optimised mapping. We observed high transcriptional activity for proteins related to bacterial microcompartments (BMC) and we resolved their subcellular localisation by combining FISH-CLEM with immunohistochemistry (IHC) on ultra-thin sponge tissue sections. In terms of functional relevance, we propose that the BMC-A region may be involved in 1,2-propanediol degradation. The FISH-IHC-CLEM approach was proven an effective toolkit to combine -omics approaches with functional studies and it should be widely applicable in environmental microbiology.

Transcriptional profiling of PBMCs unravels B cell mediated immunopathogenic imprints of HCV vasculitis.

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Comstock, Emily; Kim, Cheol-Woo; Murphy, Alison; Emmanuel, Benjamin; Zhang, Xi; Sneller, Michael; Poonia, Bhawna; Kottilil, Shyamasundaran

2017-01-01

B cell depletion therapy using rituximab has been shown to be effective in achieving remission in patients with HCV-mixed cryoglobulinemic (MC) vasculitis. Previously, we have demonstrated abnormalities in peripheral immune cells involving neutrophils, chemotaxis, and innate immune activation among patients with HCV-MC vasculitis when compared to HCV patients without vasculitis. In this study, we evaluated the effect of B cell depletion therapy on transcriptional profiles of peripheral blood mononuclear cells before and after riruximab therapy, in order to unravel the pathogenic mechanism involved in HCV-MC vasculitis induced by abnormal B cell proliferation. DNA microarray analysis was performed using RNA from PBMCs from seven patients with HCV-MC vasculitis and seven normal volunteers. DNA was hybridized to Affymetrix U133A chips. After normalization, differentially expressed gene list with treatment was generated using partitional clustering. RT-PCR, flow cytometry, and enzyme immunoassay (EIA) was used to validate DNA microarray findings. Differentially expressed genes included B cells and non-B cell genes. Validation of genes using purified cell subsets demonstrated distinct effect of B cell depletion therapy on non-B cells, such as monocytes, T cells, and NK cells. Notably, B lymphocyte stimulator (BLyS) levels were persistently elevated in patients who subsequently relapsed. In conclusion, pathogenesis of HCV-MC vasculitis is mediated by abnormal proliferation of B cells, driven by BLyS, leading to significant effects on non-B cells in mediating symptomatology. Future therapeutics using a combination approach of B cell depletion and proliferation may be desired to achieve long-term remission.

Exploring the utility of organo-polyoxometalate hybrids to inhibit SOX transcription factors

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Kamesh Narasimhan

2014-01-01

Conclusion: Polyoxometalates are highly potent, nanomolar range inhibitors of the DNA binding activity of the Sox-HMG family. However, binding assays involving a limited subset of structurally diverse polyoxometalates revealed a low selectivity profile against different transcription factor families. Further progress in achieving selectivity and deciphering structure-activity relationship of POMs require the identification of POM binding sites on transcription factors using elaborate approaches like X-ray crystallography and multidimensional NMR. In summary, our report reaffirms that transcription factors are challenging molecular architectures and that future polyoxometalate chemistry must consider further modification strategies, to address the substantial challenges involved in achieving target selectivity.

Molecular cloning, transcriptional profiling, and subcellular localization of signal transducer and activator of transcription 2 (STAT2) ortholog from rock bream, Oplegnathus fasciatus.

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Bathige, S D N K; Umasuthan, Navaneethaiyer; Priyathilaka, Thanthrige Thiunuwan; Thulasitha, William Shanthakumar; Jayasinghe, J D H E; Wan, Qiang; Nam, Bo-Hye; Lee, Jehee

2017-08-30

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 2 (STAT2) is a key element that transduces signals from the cell membrane to the nucleus via the type I interferon-signaling pathway. Although the structural and functional aspects of STAT proteins are well studied in mammals, information on teleostean STATs is very limited. In this study, a STAT paralog, which is highly homologous to the STAT2 members, was identified from a commercially important fish species called rock bream and designated as RbSTAT2. The RbSTAT2 gene was characterized at complementary DNA (cDNA) and genomic sequence levels, and was found to possess structural features common with its mammalian counterparts. The complete cDNA sequence was distributed into 24 exons in the genomic sequence. The promoter proximal region was analyzed and found to contain potential transcription factor binding sites to regulate the transcription of RbSTAT2. Phylogenetic studies and comparative genomic structure organization revealed the distinguishable evolution for fish and other vertebrate STAT2 orthologs. Transcriptional quantification was performed by SYBR Green quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and the ubiquitous expression of RbSTAT2 transcripts was observed in all tissues analyzed from healthy fish, with a remarkably high expression in blood cells. Significantly (Prock bream irido virus; RBIV), bacterial (Edwardsiella tarda and Streptococcus iniae), and immune stimulants (poly I:C and LPS). Antiviral potential was further confirmed by WST-1 assay, by measuring the viability of rock bream heart cells treated with RBIV. In addition, results of an in vitro challenge experiment signified the influence of rock bream interleukin-10 (RbIL-10) on transcription of RbSTAT2. Subcellular localization studies by transfection of pEGFP-N1/RbSTAT2 into rock bream heart cells revealed that the RbSTAT2 was usually located in the cytoplasm and translocated near to the nucleus upon poly I:C administration. Altogether, these

Crowding-induced transcriptional bursts dictate polymerase and nucleosome density profiles along genes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van den Berg, A.A.; Depken, S.M.

2017-01-01

During eukaryotic transcription, RNA polymerase (RNAP) translocates along DNA molecules covered with nucleosomes and other DNA binding proteins. Though the interactions between a single nucleosome and RNAP are by now fairly well understood, this understanding has not been synthesized into a

Transcriptional analysis of phloem-associated cells of potato.

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Lin, Tian; Lashbrook, Coralie C; Cho, Sung Ki; Butler, Nathaniel M; Sharma, Pooja; Muppirala, Usha; Severin, Andrew J; Hannapel, David J

2015-09-03

Numerous signal molecules, including proteins and mRNAs, are transported through the architecture of plants via the vascular system. As the connection between leaves and other organs, the petiole and stem are especially important in their transport function, which is carried out by the phloem and xylem, especially by the sieve elements in the phloem system. The phloem is an important conduit for transporting photosynthate and signal molecules like metabolites, proteins, small RNAs, and full-length mRNAs. Phloem sap has been used as an unadulterated source to profile phloem proteins and RNAs, but unfortunately, pure phloem sap cannot be obtained in most plant species. Here we make use of laser capture microdissection (LCM) and RNA-seq for an in-depth transcriptional profile of phloem-associated cells of both petioles and stems of potato. To expedite our analysis, we have taken advantage of the potato genome that has recently been fully sequenced and annotated. Out of the 27 k transcripts assembled that we identified, approximately 15 k were present in phloem-associated cells of petiole and stem with greater than ten reads. Among these genes, roughly 10 k are affected by photoperiod. Several RNAs from this day length-regulated group are also abundant in phloem cells of petioles and encode for proteins involved in signaling or transcriptional control. Approximately 22 % of the transcripts in phloem cells contained at least one binding motif for Pumilio, Nova, or polypyrimidine tract-binding proteins in their downstream sequences. Highlighting the predominance of binding processes identified in the gene ontology analysis of active genes from phloem cells, 78 % of the 464 RNA-binding proteins present in the potato genome were detected in our phloem transcriptome. As a reasonable alternative when phloem sap collection is not possible, LCM can be used to isolate RNA from specific cell types, and along with RNA-seq, provides practical access to expression profiles of

Transcript Profile of Flowering Regulatory Genes in VcFT-Overexpressing Blueberry Plants.

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Walworth, Aaron E; Chai, Benli; Song, Guo-Qing

2016-01-01

In order to identify genetic components in flowering pathways of highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.), a transcriptome reference composed of 254,396 transcripts and 179,853 gene contigs was developed by assembly of 72.7 million reads using Trinity. Using this transcriptome reference and a query of flowering pathway genes of herbaceous plants, we identified potential flowering pathway genes/transcripts of blueberry. Transcriptome analysis of flowering pathway genes was then conducted on leaf tissue samples of transgenic blueberry cv. Aurora ('VcFT-Aurora'), which overexpresses a blueberry FLOWERING LOCUS T-like gene (VcFT). Sixty-one blueberry transcripts of 40 genes showed high similarities to 33 known flowering-related genes of herbaceous plants, of which 17 down-regulated and 16 up-regulated genes were identified in 'VcFT-Aurora'. All down-regulated genes encoded transcription factors/enzymes upstream in the signaling pathway containing VcFT. A blueberry CONSTANS-LIKE 5-like (VcCOL5) gene was down-regulated and associated with five other differentially expressed (DE) genes in the photoperiod-mediated flowering pathway. Three down-regulated genes, i.e., a MADS-AFFECTING FLOWERING 2-like gene (VcMAF2), a MADS-AFFECTING FLOWERING 5-like gene (VcMAF5), and a VERNALIZATION1-like gene (VcVRN1), may function as integrators in place of FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) in the vernalization pathway. Because no CONSTAN1-like or FLOWERING LOCUS C-like genes were found in blueberry, VcCOL5 and VcMAF2/VcMAF5 or VRN1 might be the major integrator(s) in the photoperiod- and vernalization-mediated flowering pathway, respectively. The major down-stream genes of VcFT, i.e., SUPPRESSOR of Overexpression of Constans 1-like (VcSOC1), LEAFY-like (VcLFY), APETALA1-like (VcAP1), CAULIFLOWER 1-like (VcCAL1), and FRUITFULL-like (VcFUL) genes were present and showed high similarity to their orthologues in herbaceous plants. Moreover, overexpression of VcFT promoted expression of all of these

Transcript Profile of Flowering Regulatory Genes in VcFT-Overexpressing Blueberry Plants.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aaron E Walworth

Full Text Available In order to identify genetic components in flowering pathways of highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L., a transcriptome reference composed of 254,396 transcripts and 179,853 gene contigs was developed by assembly of 72.7 million reads using Trinity. Using this transcriptome reference and a query of flowering pathway genes of herbaceous plants, we identified potential flowering pathway genes/transcripts of blueberry. Transcriptome analysis of flowering pathway genes was then conducted on leaf tissue samples of transgenic blueberry cv. Aurora ('VcFT-Aurora', which overexpresses a blueberry FLOWERING LOCUS T-like gene (VcFT. Sixty-one blueberry transcripts of 40 genes showed high similarities to 33 known flowering-related genes of herbaceous plants, of which 17 down-regulated and 16 up-regulated genes were identified in 'VcFT-Aurora'. All down-regulated genes encoded transcription factors/enzymes upstream in the signaling pathway containing VcFT. A blueberry CONSTANS-LIKE 5-like (VcCOL5 gene was down-regulated and associated with five other differentially expressed (DE genes in the photoperiod-mediated flowering pathway. Three down-regulated genes, i.e., a MADS-AFFECTING FLOWERING 2-like gene (VcMAF2, a MADS-AFFECTING FLOWERING 5-like gene (VcMAF5, and a VERNALIZATION1-like gene (VcVRN1, may function as integrators in place of FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC in the vernalization pathway. Because no CONSTAN1-like or FLOWERING LOCUS C-like genes were found in blueberry, VcCOL5 and VcMAF2/VcMAF5 or VRN1 might be the major integrator(s in the photoperiod- and vernalization-mediated flowering pathway, respectively. The major down-stream genes of VcFT, i.e., SUPPRESSOR of Overexpression of Constans 1-like (VcSOC1, LEAFY-like (VcLFY, APETALA1-like (VcAP1, CAULIFLOWER 1-like (VcCAL1, and FRUITFULL-like (VcFUL genes were present and showed high similarity to their orthologues in herbaceous plants. Moreover, overexpression of VcFT promoted expression of all of

Transcript Profile of Flowering Regulatory Genes in VcFT-Overexpressing Blueberry Plants

Science.gov (United States)

Walworth, Aaron E.; Chai, Benli; Song, Guo-qing

2016-01-01

In order to identify genetic components in flowering pathways of highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.), a transcriptome reference composed of 254,396 transcripts and 179,853 gene contigs was developed by assembly of 72.7 million reads using Trinity. Using this transcriptome reference and a query of flowering pathway genes of herbaceous plants, we identified potential flowering pathway genes/transcripts of blueberry. Transcriptome analysis of flowering pathway genes was then conducted on leaf tissue samples of transgenic blueberry cv. Aurora (‘VcFT-Aurora’), which overexpresses a blueberry FLOWERING LOCUS T-like gene (VcFT). Sixty-one blueberry transcripts of 40 genes showed high similarities to 33 known flowering-related genes of herbaceous plants, of which 17 down-regulated and 16 up-regulated genes were identified in ‘VcFT-Aurora’. All down-regulated genes encoded transcription factors/enzymes upstream in the signaling pathway containing VcFT. A blueberry CONSTANS-LIKE 5-like (VcCOL5) gene was down-regulated and associated with five other differentially expressed (DE) genes in the photoperiod-mediated flowering pathway. Three down-regulated genes, i.e., a MADS-AFFECTING FLOWERING 2-like gene (VcMAF2), a MADS-AFFECTING FLOWERING 5-like gene (VcMAF5), and a VERNALIZATION1-like gene (VcVRN1), may function as integrators in place of FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) in the vernalization pathway. Because no CONSTAN1-like or FLOWERING LOCUS C-like genes were found in blueberry, VcCOL5 and VcMAF2/VcMAF5 or VRN1 might be the major integrator(s) in the photoperiod- and vernalization-mediated flowering pathway, respectively. The major down-stream genes of VcFT, i.e., SUPPRESSOR of Overexpression of Constans 1-like (VcSOC1), LEAFY-like (VcLFY), APETALA1-like (VcAP1), CAULIFLOWER 1-like (VcCAL1), and FRUITFULL-like (VcFUL) genes were present and showed high similarity to their orthologues in herbaceous plants. Moreover, overexpression of VcFT promoted expression of all

Regulation of Adult CNS Axonal Regeneration by the Post-transcriptional Regulator Cpeb1

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Wilson Pak-Kin Lou

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Adult mammalian central nervous system (CNS neurons are unable to regenerate following axonal injury, leading to permanent functional impairments. Yet, the reasons underlying this regeneration failure are not fully understood. Here, we studied the transcriptome and translatome shortly after spinal cord injury. Profiling of the total and ribosome-bound RNA in injured and naïve spinal cords identified a substantial post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. In particular, transcripts associated with nervous system development were down-regulated in the total RNA fraction while remaining stably loaded onto ribosomes. Interestingly, motif association analysis of post-transcriptionally regulated transcripts identified the cytoplasmic polyadenylation element (CPE as enriched in a subset of these transcripts that was more resistant to injury-induced reduction at the transcriptome level. Modulation of these transcripts by overexpression of the CPE binding protein, Cpeb1, in mouse and Drosophila CNS neurons promoted axonal regeneration following injury. Our study uncovered a global evolutionarily conserved post-transcriptional mechanism enhancing regeneration of injured CNS axons.

Transcriptional profiling reveals molecular signatures associated with HIV permissiveness in Th1Th17 cells and identifies Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma as an intrinsic negative regulator of viral replication

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Background We previously demonstrated that primary Th1Th17 cells are highly permissive to HIV-1, whereas Th1 cells are relatively resistant. Molecular mechanisms underlying these differences remain unknown. Results Exposure to replication competent and single-round VSV-G pseudotyped HIV strains provide evidence that superior HIV replication in Th1Th17 vs. Th1 cells was regulated by mechanisms located at entry and post-entry levels. Genome-wide transcriptional profiling identified transcripts upregulated (n = 264) and downregulated (n = 235) in Th1Th17 vs. Th1 cells (p-value Th17 (nuclear receptors, trafficking, p38/MAPK, NF-κB, p53/Ras, IL-23) vs. Th1 cells (proteasome, interferon α/β). Differentially expressed genes were classified into biological categories using Gene Ontology. Th1Th17 cells expressed typical Th17 markers (IL-17A/F, IL-22, CCL20, RORC, IL-26, IL-23R, CCR6) and transcripts functionally linked to regulating cell trafficking (CEACAM1, MCAM), activation (CD28, CD40LG, TNFSF13B, TNFSF25, PTPN13, MAP3K4, LTB, CTSH), transcription (PPARγ, RUNX1, ATF5, ARNTL), apoptosis (FASLG), and HIV infection (CXCR6, FURIN). Differential expression of CXCR6, PPARγ, ARNTL, PTPN13, MAP3K4, CTSH, SERPINB6, PTK2, and ISG20 was validated by RT-PCR, flow cytometry and/or confocal microscopy. The nuclear receptor PPARγ was preferentially expressed by Th1Th17 cells. PPARγ RNA interference significantly increased HIV replication at levels post-entry and prior HIV-DNA integration. Finally, the activation of PPARγ pathway via the agonist Rosiglitazone induced the nuclear translocation of PPARγ and a robust inhibition of viral replication. Conclusions Thus, transcriptional profiling in Th1Th17 vs. Th1 cells demonstrated that HIV permissiveness is associated with a superior state of cellular activation and limited antiviral properties and identified PPARγ as an intrinsic negative regulator of viral replication. Therefore, triggering PPARγ pathway via non

Time course for tail regression during metamorphosis of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis.

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Matsunobu, Shohei; Sasakura, Yasunori

2015-09-01

In most ascidians, the tadpole-like swimming larvae dramatically change their body-plans during metamorphosis and develop into sessile adults. The mechanisms of ascidian metamorphosis have been researched and debated for many years. Until now information on the detailed time course of the initiation and completion of each metamorphic event has not been described. One dramatic and important event in ascidian metamorphosis is tail regression, in which ascidian larvae lose their tails to adjust themselves to sessile life. In the present study, we measured the time associated with tail regression in the ascidian Ciona intestinalis. Larvae are thought to acquire competency for each metamorphic event in certain developmental periods. We show that the timing with which the competence for tail regression is acquired is determined by the time since hatching, and this timing is not affected by the timing of post-hatching events such as adhesion. Because larvae need to adhere to substrates with their papillae to induce tail regression, we measured the duration for which larvae need to remain adhered in order to initiate tail regression and the time needed for the tail to regress. Larvae acquire the ability to adhere to substrates before they acquire tail regression competence. We found that when larvae adhered before they acquired tail regression competence, they were able to remember the experience of adhesion until they acquired the ability to undergo tail regression. The time course of the events associated with tail regression provides a valuable reference, upon which the cellular and molecular mechanisms of ascidian metamorphosis can be elucidated. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Genome-wide conserved consensus transcription factor binding motifs are hyper-methylated

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Down Thomas A

2010-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background DNA methylation can regulate gene expression by modulating the interaction between DNA and proteins or protein complexes. Conserved consensus motifs exist across the human genome ("predicted transcription factor binding sites": "predicted TFBS" but the large majority of these are proven by chromatin immunoprecipitation and high throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq not to be biological transcription factor binding sites ("empirical TFBS". We hypothesize that DNA methylation at conserved consensus motifs prevents promiscuous or disorderly transcription factor binding. Results Using genome-wide methylation maps of the human heart and sperm, we found that all conserved consensus motifs as well as the subset of those that reside outside CpG islands have an aggregate profile of hyper-methylation. In contrast, empirical TFBS with conserved consensus motifs have a profile of hypo-methylation. 40% of empirical TFBS with conserved consensus motifs resided in CpG islands whereas only 7% of all conserved consensus motifs were in CpG islands. Finally we further identified a minority subset of TF whose profiles are either hypo-methylated or neutral at their respective conserved consensus motifs implicating that these TF may be responsible for establishing or maintaining an un-methylated DNA state, or whose binding is not regulated by DNA methylation. Conclusions Our analysis supports the hypothesis that at least for a subset of TF, empirical binding to conserved consensus motifs genome-wide may be controlled by DNA methylation.

Discovery of transcription factors and regulatory regions driving in vivo tumor development by ATAC-seq and FAIRE-seq open chromatin profiling.

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Kristofer Davie

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Genomic enhancers regulate spatio-temporal gene expression by recruiting specific combinations of transcription factors (TFs. When TFs are bound to active regulatory regions, they displace canonical nucleosomes, making these regions biochemically detectable as nucleosome-depleted regions or accessible/open chromatin. Here we ask whether open chromatin profiling can be used to identify the entire repertoire of active promoters and enhancers underlying tissue-specific gene expression during normal development and oncogenesis in vivo. To this end, we first compare two different approaches to detect open chromatin in vivo using the Drosophila eye primordium as a model system: FAIRE-seq, based on physical separation of open versus closed chromatin; and ATAC-seq, based on preferential integration of a transposon into open chromatin. We find that both methods reproducibly capture the tissue-specific chromatin activity of regulatory regions, including promoters, enhancers, and insulators. Using both techniques, we screened for regulatory regions that become ectopically active during Ras-dependent oncogenesis, and identified 3778 regions that become (over-activated during tumor development. Next, we applied motif discovery to search for candidate transcription factors that could bind these regions and identified AP-1 and Stat92E as key regulators. We validated the importance of Stat92E in the development of the tumors by introducing a loss of function Stat92E mutant, which was sufficient to rescue the tumor phenotype. Additionally we tested if the predicted Stat92E responsive regulatory regions are genuine, using ectopic induction of JAK/STAT signaling in developing eye discs, and observed that similar chromatin changes indeed occurred. Finally, we determine that these are functionally significant regulatory changes, as nearby target genes are up- or down-regulated. In conclusion, we show that FAIRE-seq and ATAC-seq based open chromatin profiling

Transcriptome analysis of paired primary colorectal carcinoma and liver metastases reveals fusion transcripts and similar gene expression profiles in primary carcinoma and liver metastases

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Ja-Rang; Kwon, Chae Hwa; Choi, Yuri; Park, Hye Ji; Kim, Hyun Sung; Jo, Hong-Jae; Oh, Nahmgun; Park, Do Youn

2016-01-01

Despite the clinical significance of liver metastases, the difference between molecular and cellular changes in primary colorectal cancers (CRC) and matched liver metastases is poorly understood. In order to compare gene expression patterns and identify fusion genes in these two types of tumors, we performed high-throughput transcriptome sequencing of five sets of quadruple-matched tissues (primary CRC, liver metastases, normal colon, and liver). The gene expression patterns in normal colon and liver were successfully distinguished from those in CRCs; however, RNA sequencing revealed that the gene expression between primary CRCs and their matched liver metastases is highly similar. We identified 1895 genes that were differentially expressed in the primary carcinoma and liver metastases, than that in the normal colon tissues. A major proportion of the transcripts, identified by gene expression profiling as significantly enriched in the primary carcinoma and metastases, belonged to gene ontology categories involved in the cell cycle, mitosis, and cell division. Furthermore, we identified gene fusion events in primary carcinoma and metastases, and the fusion transcripts were experimentally confirmed. Among these, a chimeric transcript resulting from the fusion of RNF43 and SUPT4H1 was found to occur frequently in primary colorectal carcinoma. In addition, knockdown of the expression of this RNF43-SUPT4H1 chimeric transcript was found to have a growth-inhibitory effect in colorectal cancer cells. The present study reports a high concordance of gene expression in the primary carcinoma and liver metastases, and reveals potential new targets, such as fusion genes, against primary and metastatic colorectal carcinoma. The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12885-016-2596-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

The transcriptional profiling of human in vivo-generated plasma cells identifies selective imbalances in monoclonal gammopathies.

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Luis M Valor

Full Text Available Plasma cells (PC represent the heterogeneous final stage of the B cells (BC differentiation process. To characterize the transition of BC into PC, transcriptomes from human naïve BC were compared to those of three functionally-different subsets of human in vivo-generated PC: i tonsil PC, mainly consisting of early PC; ii PC released to the blood after a potent booster-immunization (mostly cycling plasmablasts; and, iii bone marrow CD138+ PC that represent highly mature PC and include the long-lived PC compartment. This transcriptional transition involves subsets of genes related to key processes for PC maturation: the already known protein processing, apoptosis and homeostasis, and of new discovery including histones, macromolecule assembly, zinc-finger transcription factors and neuromodulation. This human PC signature is partially reproduced in vitro and is conserved in mouse. Moreover, the present study identifies genes that define PC subtypes (e.g., proliferation-associated genes for circulating PC and transcriptional-related genes for tonsil and bone marrow PC and proposes some putative transcriptional regulators of the human PC signatures (e.g., OCT/POU, XBP1/CREB, E2F, among others. Finally, we also identified a restricted imbalance of the present PC transcriptional program in monoclonal gammopathies that correlated with PC malignancy.

The CNS connectome of a tadpole larva of Ciona intestinalis (L.) highlights sidedness in the brain of a chordate sibling.

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Ryan, Kerrianne; Lu, Zhiyuan; Meinertzhagen, Ian A

2016-12-06

Left-right asymmetries in brains are usually minor or cryptic. We report brain asymmetries in the tiny, dorsal tubular nervous system of the ascidian tadpole larva, Ciona intestinalis . Chordate in body plan and development, the larva provides an outstanding example of brain asymmetry. Although early neural development is well studied, detailed cellular organization of the swimming larva's CNS remains unreported. Using serial-section EM we document the synaptic connectome of the larva's 177 CNS neurons. These formed 6618 synapses including 1772 neuromuscular junctions, augmented by 1206 gap junctions. Neurons are unipolar with at most a single dendrite, and few synapses. Some synapses are unpolarised, others form reciprocal or serial motifs; 922 were polyadic. Axo-axonal synapses predominate. Most neurons have ciliary organelles, and many features lack structural specialization. Despite equal cell numbers on both sides, neuron identities and pathways differ left/right. Brain vesicle asymmetries include a right ocellus and left coronet cells.

High-density transcriptional initiation signals underline genomic islands in bacteria.

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Qianli Huang

Full Text Available Genomic islands (GIs, frequently associated with the pathogenicity of bacteria and having a substantial influence on bacterial evolution, are groups of "alien" elements which probably undergo special temporal-spatial regulation in the host genome. Are there particular hallmark transcriptional signals for these "exotic" regions? We here explore the potential transcriptional signals that underline the GIs beyond the conventional views on basic sequence composition, such as codon usage and GC property bias. It showed that there is a significant enrichment of the transcription start positions (TSPs in the GI regions compared to the whole genome of Salmonella enterica and Escherichia coli. There was up to a four-fold increase for the 70% GIs, implying high-density TSPs profile can potentially differentiate the GI regions. Based on this feature, we developed a new sliding window method GIST, Genomic-island Identification by Signals of Transcription, to identify these regions. Subsequently, we compared the known GI-associated features of the GIs detected by GIST and by the existing method Islandviewer to those of the whole genome. Our method demonstrates high sensitivity in detecting GIs harboring genes with biased GI-like function, preferred subcellular localization, skewed GC property, shorter gene length and biased "non-optimal" codon usage. The special transcriptional signals discovered here may contribute to the coordinate expression regulation of foreign genes. Finally, by using GIST, we detected many interesting GIs in the 2011 German E. coli O104:H4 outbreak strain TY-2482, including the microcin H47 system and gene cluster ycgXEFZ-ymgABC that activates the production of biofilm matrix. The aforesaid findings highlight the power of GIST to predict GIs with distinct intrinsic features to the genome. The heterogeneity of cumulative TSPs profiles may not only be a better identity for "alien" regions, but also provide hints to the special

Identification of a Transcription Factor Controlling pH-Dependent Organic Acid Response in Aspergillus niger

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Lars; Andersen, Mikael Rørdam; Lantz, Anna Eliasson

2012-01-01

exhibiting an oxalate overproducing phenotype were identified. The yield of oxalate was increased up to 158% compared to the wild type and the corresponding transcription factor was therefore entitled Oxalic Acid repression Factor, OafA. Detailed physiological characterization of one of the ΔoafA mutants......, compared to the wild type, showed that both strains produced substantial amounts of gluconic acid, but the mutant strain was more efficient in re-uptake of gluconic acid and converting it to oxalic acid, particularly at high pH (pH 5.0). Transcriptional profiles showed that 241 genes were differentially......Acid formation in Aspergillus niger is known to be subjected to tight regulation, and the acid production profiles are fine-tuned to respond to the ambient pH. Based on transcriptome data, putative trans-acting pH responding transcription factors were listed and through knock out studies, mutants...

Is gene transcription involved in seed dry after-ripening?

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Patrice Meimoun

Full Text Available Orthodox seeds are living organisms that survive anhydrobiosis and may display dormancy, an inability to germinate at harvest. Seed germination potential can be acquired during a prolonged period of dry storage called after-ripening. The aim of this work was to determine if gene transcription is an underlying regulatory mechanism for dormancy alleviation during after-ripening. To identify changes in gene transcription strictly associated with the acquisition of germination potential but not with storage, we used seed storage at low relative humidity that maintains dormancy as control. Transcriptome profiling was performed using DNA microarray to compare change in gene transcript abundance between dormant (D, after-ripened non-dormant (ND and after-ripened dormant seeds (control, C. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR was used to confirm gene expression. Comparison between D and ND showed the differential expression of 115 probesets at cut-off values of two-fold change (p<0.05. Comparisons between both D and C with ND in transcript abundance showed that only 13 transcripts, among 115, could be specific to dormancy alleviation. qPCR confirms the expression pattern of these transcripts but without significant variation between conditions. Here we show that sunflower seed dormancy alleviation in the dry state is not related to regulated changes in gene expression.

Transcriptional dysregulation in NIPBL and cohesin mutant human cells.

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Jinglan Liu

2009-05-01

Full Text Available Cohesin regulates sister chromatid cohesion during the mitotic cell cycle with Nipped-B-Like (NIPBL facilitating its loading and unloading. In addition to this canonical role, cohesin has also been demonstrated to play a critical role in regulation of gene expression in nondividing cells. Heterozygous mutations in the cohesin regulator NIPBL or cohesin structural components SMC1A and SMC3 result in the multisystem developmental disorder Cornelia de Lange Syndrome (CdLS. Genome-wide assessment of transcription in 16 mutant cell lines from severely affected CdLS probands has identified a unique profile of dysregulated gene expression that was validated in an additional 101 samples and correlates with phenotypic severity. This profile could serve as a diagnostic and classification tool. Cohesin binding analysis demonstrates a preference for intergenic regions suggesting a cis-regulatory function mimicking that of a boundary/insulator interacting protein. However, the binding sites are enriched within the promoter regions of the dysregulated genes and are significantly decreased in CdLS proband, indicating an alternative role of cohesin as a transcription factor.

FARNA: knowledgebase of inferred functions of non-coding RNA transcripts

KAUST Repository

Alam, Tanvir

2016-10-12

Non-coding RNA (ncRNA) genes play a major role in control of heterogeneous cellular behavior. Yet, their functions are largely uncharacterized. Current available databases lack in-depth information of ncRNA functions across spectrum of various cells/tissues. Here, we present FARNA, a knowledgebase of inferred functions of 10,289 human ncRNA transcripts (2,734 microRNA and 7,555 long ncRNA) in 119 tissues and 177 primary cells of human. Since transcription factors (TFs) and TF co-factors (TcoFs) are crucial components of regulatory machinery for activation of gene transcription, cellular processes and diseases in which TFs and TcoFs are involved suggest functions of the transcripts they regulate. In FARNA, functions of a transcript are inferred from TFs and TcoFs whose genes co-express with the transcript controlled by these TFs and TcoFs in a considered cell/tissue. Transcripts were annotated using statistically enriched GO terms, pathways and diseases across cells/tissues based on guilt-by-association principle. Expression profiles across cells/tissues based on Cap Analysis of Gene Expression (CAGE) are provided. FARNA, having the most comprehensive function annotation of considered ncRNAs across widest spectrum of human cells/tissues, has a potential to greatly contribute to our understanding of ncRNA roles and their regulatory mechanisms in human. FARNA can be accessed at: http://cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/farna

FARNA: knowledgebase of inferred functions of non-coding RNA transcripts

KAUST Repository

Alam, Tanvir; Uludag, Mahmut; Essack, Magbubah; Salhi, Adil; Ashoor, Haitham; Hanks, John B.; Kapfer, Craig Eric; Mineta, Katsuhiko; Gojobori, Takashi; Bajic, Vladimir B.

2016-01-01

Non-coding RNA (ncRNA) genes play a major role in control of heterogeneous cellular behavior. Yet, their functions are largely uncharacterized. Current available databases lack in-depth information of ncRNA functions across spectrum of various cells/tissues. Here, we present FARNA, a knowledgebase of inferred functions of 10,289 human ncRNA transcripts (2,734 microRNA and 7,555 long ncRNA) in 119 tissues and 177 primary cells of human. Since transcription factors (TFs) and TF co-factors (TcoFs) are crucial components of regulatory machinery for activation of gene transcription, cellular processes and diseases in which TFs and TcoFs are involved suggest functions of the transcripts they regulate. In FARNA, functions of a transcript are inferred from TFs and TcoFs whose genes co-express with the transcript controlled by these TFs and TcoFs in a considered cell/tissue. Transcripts were annotated using statistically enriched GO terms, pathways and diseases across cells/tissues based on guilt-by-association principle. Expression profiles across cells/tissues based on Cap Analysis of Gene Expression (CAGE) are provided. FARNA, having the most comprehensive function annotation of considered ncRNAs across widest spectrum of human cells/tissues, has a potential to greatly contribute to our understanding of ncRNA roles and their regulatory mechanisms in human. FARNA can be accessed at: http://cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/farna

Comparative analysis of regulatory elements between Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae by genome-wide transcription start site profiling.

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Donghyuk Kim

Full Text Available Genome-wide transcription start site (TSS profiles of the enterobacteria Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae were experimentally determined through modified 5' RACE followed by deep sequencing of intact primary mRNA. This identified 3,746 and 3,143 TSSs for E. coli and K. pneumoniae, respectively. Experimentally determined TSSs were then used to define promoter regions and 5' UTRs upstream of coding genes. Comparative analysis of these regulatory elements revealed the use of multiple TSSs, identical sequence motifs of promoter and Shine-Dalgarno sequence, reflecting conserved gene expression apparatuses between the two species. In both species, over 70% of primary transcripts were expressed from operons having orthologous genes during exponential growth. However, expressed orthologous genes in E. coli and K. pneumoniae showed a strikingly different organization of upstream regulatory regions with only 20% identical promoters with TSSs in both species. Over 40% of promoters had TSSs identified in only one species, despite conserved promoter sequences existing in the other species. 662 conserved promoters having TSSs in both species resulted in the same number of comparable 5' UTR pairs, and that regulatory element was found to be the most variant region in sequence among promoter, 5' UTR, and ORF. In K. pneumoniae, 48 sRNAs were predicted and 36 of them were expressed during exponential growth. Among them, 34 orthologous sRNAs between two species were analyzed in depth, and the analysis showed that many sRNAs of K. pneumoniae, including pleiotropic sRNAs such as rprA, arcZ, and sgrS, may work in the same way as in E. coli. These results reveal a new dimension of comparative genomics such that a comparison of two genomes needs to be comprehensive over all levels of genome organization.

Transcriptional Regulation and the Diversification of Metabolism in Wine Yeast Strains

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Rossouw, Debra; Jacobson, Dan; Bauer, Florian F.

2012-01-01

Transcription factors and their binding sites have been proposed as primary targets of evolutionary adaptation because changes to single transcription factors can lead to far-reaching changes in gene expression patterns. Nevertheless, there is very little concrete evidence for such evolutionary changes. Industrial wine yeast strains, of the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae, are a geno- and phenotypically diverse group of organisms that have adapted to the ecological niches of industrial winemaking environments and have been selected to produce specific styles of wine. Variation in transcriptional regulation among wine yeast strains may be responsible for many of the observed differences and specific adaptations to different fermentative conditions in the context of commercial winemaking. We analyzed gene expression profiles of wine yeast strains to assess the impact of transcription factor expression on metabolic networks. The data provide new insights into the molecular basis of variations in gene expression in industrial strains and their consequent effects on metabolic networks important to wine fermentation. We show that the metabolic phenotype of a strain can be shifted in a relatively predictable manner by changing expression levels of individual transcription factors, opening opportunities to modify transcription networks to achieve desirable outcomes. PMID:22042577

Comparative analysis of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and direct microscopy for the diagnosis of Giardia intestinalis in fecal samples

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Shipra Singhal

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Context: Giardiasis is one of the most common nonviral infections causing diarrheal illness worldwide. In this prospective cross-sectional study, we evaluated the RIDASCREEN ® Giardia kit for detection of Giardia intestinalis in stool samples and compared the results with direct microscopy. Materials and methods: A total of 360 fecal samples were collected. They were then processed by wet film, iodine preparation and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA kit to determine the presence of Giardia trophozoites and cysts. Statistical analysis was performed by sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy. Results and Conclusion: Of the 360 cases, 17.2% samples were positive for Giardia by direct microscopy and 23.6% were found to be positive by ELISA (sensitivity ~97%, but specificity was ~92% only. Because of less specificity, we need to perform ELISA in congruence with direct microscopy, etc. Further studies need to be performed on a larger sample size using other molecular tests in order to get more accurate estimations.

Using gene transcription to assess ecological and anthropological stressors in brown bears

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Bowen, Lizabeth; Miles, A. Keith; Waters, Shannon C.; Gustine, Dave; Joly, Kyle; Hilderbrand, Grant V.

2017-01-01

Increasingly, population- and ecosystem-level health assessments are performed using sophisticated molecular tools. Advances in molecular technology enable the identification of synergistic effects of multiple stressors on the individual physiology of different species. Brown bears (Ursus arctos) are an apex predator; thus, they are ideal candidates for detecting potentially ecosystem-level systemic perturbations using molecular-based tools. We used gene transcription to analyze 130 brown bear samples from three National Parks and Preserves in Alaska. Although the populations we studied are apparently stable in abundance and exist within protected and intact environments, differences in transcript profiles were noted. The most prevalent differences were among locations. The transcript patterns among groups reflect the influence of environmental factors, such as nutritional status, disease, and xenobiotic exposure. However, these profiles also likely represent baselines for each unique environment by which future measures can be made to identify early indication of population-level changes due to, for example, increasing Arctic temperatures. Some of those environmental changes are predicted to be potentially positive for brown bears, but other effects such as the manifestation of disease or indirect effects of oceanic acidification may produce negative impacts.

Transcriptional profile of Paracoccidioides induced by oenothein B, a potential antifungal agent from the Brazilian Cerrado plant Eugenia uniflora.

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Zambuzzi-Carvalho, Patrícia Fernanda; Tomazett, Patrícia Kott; Santos, Suzana Costa; Ferri, Pedro Henrique; Borges, Clayton Luiz; Martins, Wellington Santos; de Almeida Soares, Célia Maria; Pereira, Maristela

2013-10-12

The compound oenothein B (OenB), which is isolated from the leaves of Eugenia uniflora, a Brazilian Cerrado plant, interferes with Paracoccidioides yeast cell morphology and inhibits 1,3-β-D-glucan synthase (PbFKS1) transcript accumulation, which is involved in cell wall synthesis. In this work we examined the gene expression changes in Paracoccidioides yeast cells following OenB treatment in order to investigate the adaptive cellular responses to drug stress. We constructed differential gene expression libraries using Representational Difference Analysis (RDA) of Paracoccidioides yeast cells treated with OenB for 90 and 180 min. Treatment for 90 min resulted in the identification of 463 up-regulated expressed sequences tags (ESTs) and 104 down-regulated ESTs. For the 180 min treatment 301 up-regulated ESTs and 143 down-regulated were identified. Genes involved in the cell wall biosynthesis, such as GLN1, KRE6 and FKS1, were found to be regulated by OenB. Infection experiments in macrophages corroborated the in vitro results. Fluorescence microscopy showed increased levels of chitin in cells treated with OenB. The carbohydrate polymer content of the cell wall of the fungus was also evaluated, and the results corroborated with the transcriptional data. Several other genes, such as those involved in a variety of important cellular processes (i.e., membrane maintenance, stress and virulence) were found to be up-regulated in response to OenB treatment. The exposure of Paracoccidioides to OenB resulted in a complex altered gene expression profile. Some of the changes may represent specific adaptive responses to this compound in this important pathogenic fungus.

Gene expression profiling of a Zn-tolerant and a Zn-sensitive Suillus luteus isolate exposed to increased external zinc concentrations

OpenAIRE

MULLER, Ludo; Craciun, A. R.; RUYTINX, Joske; LAMBAERTS, Marc; Verbruggen, N.; VANGRONSVELD, Jaco; COLPAERT, Jan

2007-01-01

Complementary DNA (cDNA)-amplified fragment-length polymorphism (AFLP) was applied to analyze transcript profiles of a Zn-tolerant and a Zn-sensitive isolate of the ectomycorrhizal basidiomycete Suillus luteus, both cultured with and without increased external zinc concentrations. From the obtained transcript profiles that covered approximately 2% of the total expected complement of genes in S. luteus, 144 nonredundant, differentially expressed transcript-derived fragments (TDFs), falling in ...

Transcription Profiling of Bacillus subtilis Cells Infected with AR9, a Giant Phage Encoding Two Multisubunit RNA Polymerases.

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Lavysh, Daria; Sokolova, Maria; Slashcheva, Marina; Förstner, Konrad U; Severinov, Konstantin

2017-02-14

Bacteriophage AR9 is a recently sequenced jumbo phage that encodes two multisubunit RNA polymerases. Here we investigated the AR9 transcription strategy and the effect of AR9 infection on the transcription of its host, Bacillus subtilis Analysis of whole-genome transcription revealed early, late, and continuously expressed AR9 genes. Alignment of sequences upstream of the 5' ends of AR9 transcripts revealed consensus sequences that define early and late phage promoters. Continuously expressed AR9 genes have both early and late promoters in front of them. Early AR9 transcription is independent of protein synthesis and must be determined by virion RNA polymerase injected together with viral DNA. During infection, the overall amount of host mRNAs is significantly decreased. Analysis of relative amounts of host transcripts revealed notable differences in the levels of some mRNAs. The physiological significance of up- or downregulation of host genes for AR9 phage infection remains to be established. AR9 infection is significantly affected by rifampin, an inhibitor of host RNA polymerase transcription. The effect is likely caused by the antibiotic-induced killing of host cells, while phage genome transcription is solely performed by viral RNA polymerases. IMPORTANCE Phages regulate the timing of the expression of their own genes to coordinate processes in the infected cell and maximize the release of viral progeny. Phages also alter the levels of host transcripts. Here we present the results of a temporal analysis of the host and viral transcriptomes of Bacillus subtilis infected with a giant phage, AR9. We identify viral promoters recognized by two virus-encoded RNA polymerases that are a unique feature of the phiKZ-related group of phages to which AR9 belongs. Our results set the stage for future analyses of highly unusual RNA polymerases encoded by AR9 and other phiKZ-related phages. Copyright © 2017 Lavysh et al.

Transcriptional profiles of hybrid Eucalyptus genotypes with contrasting lignin content reveal that monolignol biosynthesis-related genes regulate wood composition

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Tomotaka eShinya

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Eucalyptus species constitutes the most widely planted hardwood trees in temperate and subtropical regions. In this study, we compared the transcript levels of genes involved in lignocellulose formation such as cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin biosynthesis in two selected three-year old hybrid Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus urophylla x E. grandis genotypes (AM063 and AM380 that have different lignin content. AM063 and AM380 had 20.2 and 35.5% of Klason lignin content and 59.0% and 48.2%, -cellulose contents, respectively. We investigated the correlation between wood properties and transcript levels of wood formation-related genes using RNA-seq with total RNAs extracted from developing xylem tissues at a breast height. Transcript levels of cell wall construction genes such as cellulose synthase (CesA and sucrose synthase (SUSY were almost the same in both genotypes. However, AM063 exhibited higher transcript levels of UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (UGP and xyloglucan endotransglucoxylase (XTH than those in AM380. Most monolignol biosynthesis- related isozyme genes showed higher transcript levels in AM380. These results indicate monolignol biosynthesis-related genes may regulate wood composition in Eucalyptus. Flavonoids contents were also observed at much higher levels in AM380 as a result of the elevated transcript levels of common phenylpropanoid pathway genes, phenylalanine ammonium lyase (PAL, cinnamate-4-hydroxylase (C4H and 4-coumarate-CoA ligase (4CL. Secondary plant cell wall formation is regulated by many transcription factors. We analyzed genes encoding NAC, WRKY, AP2/ERF and KNOX transcription factors and found higher transcript levels of these genes in AM380. We also observed increased transcription of some MYB and LIM domain transcription factors in AM380 compared to AM063. All these results show that genes related to monolignol biosynthesis may regulate the wood composition and help maintain the ratio of cellulose and lignin contents

Temporal dynamics and transcriptional control using single-cell gene expression analysis.

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Kouno, Tsukasa; de Hoon, Michiel; Mar, Jessica C; Tomaru, Yasuhiro; Kawano, Mitsuoki; Carninci, Piero; Suzuki, Harukazu; Hayashizaki, Yoshihide; Shin, Jay W

2013-01-01

Changes in environmental conditions lead to expression variation that manifest at the level of gene regulatory networks. Despite a strong understanding of the role noise plays in synthetic biological systems, it remains unclear how propagation of expression heterogeneity in an endogenous regulatory network is distributed and utilized by cells transitioning through a key developmental event. Here we investigate the temporal dynamics of a single-cell transcriptional network of 45 transcription factors in THP-1 human myeloid monocytic leukemia cells undergoing differentiation to macrophages. We systematically measure temporal regulation of expression and variation by profiling 120 single cells at eight distinct time points, and infer highly controlled regulatory modules through which signaling operates with stochastic effects. This reveals dynamic and specific rewiring as a cellular strategy for differentiation. The integration of both positive and negative co-expression networks further identifies the proto-oncogene MYB as a network hinge to modulate both the pro- and anti-differentiation pathways. Compared to averaged cell populations, temporal single-cell expression profiling provides a much more powerful technique to probe for mechanistic insights underlying cellular differentiation. We believe that our approach will form the basis of novel strategies to study the regulation of transcription at a single-cell level.

Quantitative multi-target RNA profiling in Epstein-Barr virus infected tumor cells.

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Greijer, A E; Ramayanti, O; Verkuijlen, S A W M; Novalić, Z; Juwana, H; Middeldorp, J M

2017-03-01

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is etiologically linked to multiple acute, chronic and malignant diseases. Detection of EBV-RNA transcripts in tissues or biofluids besides EBV-DNA can help in diagnosing EBV related syndromes. Sensitive EBV transcription profiling yields new insights on its pathogenic role and may be useful for monitoring virus targeted therapy. Here we describe a multi-gene quantitative RT-PCR profiling method that simultaneously detects a broad spectrum (n=16) of crucial latent and lytic EBV transcripts. These transcripts include (but are not restricted to), EBNA1, EBNA2, LMP1, LMP2, BARTs, EBER1, BARF1 and ZEBRA, Rta, BGLF4 (PK), BXLF1 (TK) and BFRF3 (VCAp18) all of which have been implicated in EBV-driven oncogenesis and viral replication. With this method we determine the amount of RNA copies per infected (tumor) cell in bulk populations of various origin. While we confirm the expected RNA profiles within classic EBV latency programs, this sensitive quantitative approach revealed the presence of rare cells undergoing lytic replication. Inducing lytic replication in EBV tumor cells supports apoptosis and is considered as therapeutic approach to treat EBV-driven malignancies. This sensitive multi-primed quantitative RT-PCR approach can provide broader understanding of transcriptional activity in latent and lytic EBV infection and is suitable for monitoring virus-specific therapy responses in patients with EBV associated cancers. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Methylation associated transcriptional repression of ELOVL5 in novel colorectal cancer cell lines.

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Arnoud Boot

Full Text Available Genetic and epigenetic alterations mark colorectal cancer (CRC. Global hypomethylation is observed in nearly all CRC, but a distinct subset of CRC show the CpG Island Methylator Phenotype (CIMP. These tumors show DNA hypermethylation of a specific subset of CpG islands, resulting in transcriptional downregulation of nearby genes. Recently we reported the establishment of novel CRC cell lines derived from primary and metastatic CRC tissues. In this study we describe the DNA methylation profiling of these low passage CRC cell lines. We generated global DNA methylation profiles with Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChips and analysed them in conjunction with matching gene expression profiles. Multidimensional scaling of the DNA methylation and gene expression datasets showed that BRAF mutated cell lines form a distinct group. In this group we investigated the 706 loci which we have previously identified to be hypermethylated in BRAF mutant CRC. We validated the significant findings in the The Cancer Genome Atlas colon adenocarcinoma dataset. Our analysis identified ELOVL5, FAM127B, MTERF1, ZNF606 to be subject to transcriptional downregulation through DNA hypermethylation in CRC. We further investigated ELOVL5 with qPCR and immunohistochemical staining, validating our results, but did not find a clear relation between ELOVL5 expression and tumor stage or relapse free survival. ELOVL5, FAM127B, MTERF1, ZNF606 are involved in important cellular processes such as apoptosis, lipogenesis and the downstream transcriptional effect of the MAPK-pathway. We have identified a DNA methylation profile regulating key cellular processes in CRC, resulting in a growth advantage to the tumor cells.

Transcriptional Profiling of Metabolic Transitions during Development and Diapause Preparation in the Copepod Calanus finmarchicus.

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Tarrant, Ann M; Baumgartner, Mark F; Lysiak, Nadine S J; Altin, Dag; Størseth, Trond R; Hansen, Bjørn Henrik

2016-12-01

Calanus finmarchicus, like many other copepods in the family Calanidae, can enter into a facultative diapause during the last juvenile phase (fifth copepodid, C5) to enable survival during unfavorable periods. Diapause is essential to the persistence of Calanus populations and profoundly impacts energy flow within oceanic ecosystems, yet regulation of diapause is not understood in these animals. Transcriptional profiling has begun to provide insight into metabolic changes occurring as C. finmarchicus prepares for and enters into diapause or skips diapause to prepare for the terminal molt. In particular, components of the glycolysis, pentose phosphate and lipid synthesis pathways are upregulated early in the C5 stage when lipid stores are low. Currently, our ability to identify metabolic patterns is limited by the incomplete functional annotation of the C. finmarchicus transcriptome. Such limitations are widespread among studies of non-model organisms and addressing them should be a priority for future research. In addition, integrating the results across multiple emerging complementary transcriptomic studies will provide a more complete picture of copepod physiology than isolated studies. Ultimately, identifying molecular markers of copepod physiology could enable robust identification of animals preparing to enter into diapause and ultimately lead to a greatly improved understanding of diapause regulation. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Transcriptional profiling of immune-related genes in Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) during ontogenesis.

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Quispe, Ruth L; Justino, Emily B; Vieira, Felipe N; Jaramillo, Michael L; Rosa, Rafael D; Perazzolo, Luciane M

2016-11-01

We have performed here a gene expression analysis to determine the developmental stage at the main genes involved in crustacean immune response begin to be expressed and their changes in mRNA abundance during shrimp development. By using a quantitative PCR-based approach, we have measured the mRNA abundance of 24 immune-related genes from different functional categories in twelve developmental stages ranging from fertilized eggs to larval and postlarval stages and also in juveniles. We showed for the first time that the main genes from the RNAi-based post-transcriptional pathway involved in shrimp antiviral immunity are transcribed in all developmental stages, but exhibit a diverse pattern of gene expression during shrimp ontogenesis. On the other hand, hemocyte-expressed genes mainly involved in antimicrobial defenses appeared to be transcribed in larval stages, indicating that hematopoiesis initiates early in development. Moreover, transcript levels of some genes were early detected in fertilized eggs at 0-4 h post-spawning, suggesting a maternal contribution of immune-related transcripts to shrimp progeny. Altogether, our results provide important clues regarding the ontogenesis of hemocytes as well the establishment of antiviral and antimicrobial defenses in shrimp. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Eimeria Transcript DB: an integrated resource for annotated transcripts of protozoan parasites of the genus Eimeria

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Rangel, Luiz Thibério; Novaes, Jeniffer; Durham, Alan M.; Madeira, Alda Maria B. N.; Gruber, Arthur

2013-01-01

Parasites of the genus Eimeria infect a wide range of vertebrate hosts, including chickens. We have recently reported a comparative analysis of the transcriptomes of Eimeria acervulina, Eimeria maxima and Eimeria tenella, integrating ORESTES data produced by our group and publicly available Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs). All cDNA reads have been assembled, and the reconstructed transcripts have been submitted to a comprehensive functional annotation pipeline. Additional studies included orthology assignment across apicomplexan parasites and clustering analyses of gene expression profiles among different developmental stages of the parasites. To make all this body of information publicly available, we constructed the Eimeria Transcript Database (EimeriaTDB), a web repository that provides access to sequence data, annotation and comparative analyses. Here, we describe the web interface, available sequence data sets and query tools implemented on the site. The main goal of this work is to offer a public repository of sequence and functional annotation data of reconstructed transcripts of parasites of the genus Eimeria. We believe that EimeriaTDB will represent a valuable and complementary resource for the Eimeria scientific community and for those researchers interested in comparative genomics of apicomplexan parasites. Database URL: http://www.coccidia.icb.usp.br/eimeriatdb/ PMID:23411718

Leaderless Transcripts and Small Proteins Are Common Features of the Mycobacterial Translational Landscape.

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Scarlet S Shell

2015-11-01

Full Text Available RNA-seq technologies have provided significant insight into the transcription networks of mycobacteria. However, such studies provide no definitive information on the translational landscape. Here, we use a combination of high-throughput transcriptome and proteome-profiling approaches to more rigorously understand protein expression in two mycobacterial species. RNA-seq and ribosome profiling in Mycobacterium smegmatis, and transcription start site (TSS mapping and N-terminal peptide mass spectrometry in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, provide complementary, empirical datasets to examine the congruence of transcription and translation in the Mycobacterium genus. We find that nearly one-quarter of mycobacterial transcripts are leaderless, lacking a 5' untranslated region (UTR and Shine-Dalgarno ribosome-binding site. Our data indicate that leaderless translation is a major feature of mycobacterial genomes and is comparably robust to leadered initiation. Using translational reporters to systematically probe the cis-sequence requirements of leaderless translation initiation in mycobacteria, we find that an ATG or GTG at the mRNA 5' end is both necessary and sufficient. This criterion, together with our ribosome occupancy data, suggests that mycobacteria encode hundreds of small, unannotated proteins at the 5' ends of transcripts. The conservation of small proteins in both mycobacterial species tested suggests that some play important roles in mycobacterial physiology. Our translational-reporter system further indicates that mycobacterial leadered translation initiation requires a Shine Dalgarno site in the 5' UTR and that ATG, GTG, TTG, and ATT codons can robustly initiate translation. Our combined approaches provide the first comprehensive view of mycobacterial gene structures and their non-canonical mechanisms of protein expression.

The family of DOF transcription factors in Brachypodium distachyon: phylogenetic comparison with rice and barley DOFs and expression profiling

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Hernando-Amado Sara

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Transcription factors (TFs are proteins that have played a central role both in evolution and in domestication, and are major regulators of development in living organisms. Plant genome sequences reveal that approximately 7% of all genes encode putative TFs. The DOF (DNA binding with One Finger TF family has been associated with vital processes exclusive to higher plants and to their close ancestors (algae, mosses and ferns. These are seed maturation and germination, light-mediated regulation, phytohormone and plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, etc. In Hordeum vulgare and Oryza sativa, 26 and 30 different Dof genes, respectively, have been annotated. Brachypodium distachyon has been the first Pooideae grass to be sequenced and, due to its genomic, morphological and physiological characteristics, has emerged as the model system for temperate cereals, such as wheat and barley. Results Through searches in the B. distachyon genome, 27 Dof genes have been identified and a phylogenetic comparison with the Oryza sativa and the Hordeum vulgare DOFs has been performed. To explore the evolutionary relationship among these DOF proteins, a combined phylogenetic tree has been constructed with the Brachypodium DOFs and those from rice and barley. This phylogenetic analysis has classified the DOF proteins into four Major Cluster of Orthologous Groups (MCOGs. Using RT-qPCR analysis the expression profiles of the annotated BdDof genes across four organs (leaves, roots, spikes and seeds has been investigated. These results have led to a classification of the BdDof genes into two groups, according to their expression levels. The genes highly or preferentially expressed in seeds have been subjected to a more detailed expression analysis (maturation, dry stage and germination. Conclusions Comparison of the expression profiles of the Brachypodium Dof genes with the published functions of closely related DOF sequences from the cereal

Integrating gene transcription-based biomarkers to understand desert tortoise and ecosystem health

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Bowen, Lizabeth; Miles, A. Keith; Drake, Karla K.; Waters, Shannon C.; Esque, Todd C.; Nussear, Kenneth E.

2015-01-01

Tortoises are susceptible to a wide variety of environmental stressors, and the influence of human disturbances on health and survival of tortoises is difficult to detect. As an addition to current diagnostic methods for desert tortoises, we have developed the first leukocyte gene transcription biomarker panel for the desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), enhancing the ability to identify specific environmental conditions potentially linked to declining animal health. Blood leukocyte transcript profiles have the potential to identify physiologically stressed animals in lieu of clinical signs. For desert tortoises, the gene transcript profile included a combination of immune or detoxification response genes with the potential to be modified by biological or physical injury and consequently provide information on the type and magnitude of stressors present in the animal’s habitat. Blood from 64 wild adult tortoises at three sites in Clark County, NV, and San Bernardino, CA, and from 19 captive tortoises in Clark County, NV, was collected and evaluated for genes indicative of physiological status. Statistical analysis using a priori groupings indicated significant differences among groups for several genes, while multidimensional scaling and cluster analyses of transcriptionC T values indicated strong differentiation of a large cluster and multiple outlying individual tortoises or small clusters in multidimensional space. These analyses highlight the effectiveness of the gene panel at detecting environmental perturbations as well as providing guidance in determining the health of the desert tortoise.

Pneumatosis Intestinalis as the Initial Presentation of Systemic Sclerosis: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

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Farshid Ejtehadi

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction. Pneumatosis intestinalis (PI is an uncommon pathology characterised by the presence of gas within the intestinal wall. It has been associated with various conditions, including connective tissue diseases. This is the first report of PI being the initial presentation of systemic sclerosis. Case Presentation. The patient, a 75-year-old female, presented with an 8-month history of worsening dysphagia and epigastric pain, as well as other nonspecific symptoms. Initial investigations with an oesophagogastroduodenoscopy diagnosed Candida oesophagitis and also identified an extrinsic compression of the gastric antrum. Subsequently a CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis showed moderately dilated small bowel loops and PI. Due to the patient’s stability, non-critical clinical condition, conservative management was instituted. More detailed investigations confirmed the diagnosis of systemic sclerosis with positive anticentromeric and antinuclear antibodies. The patient improved on methotrexate and was discharged with appropriate outpatient follow-up. Discussion. PI is a rare but well-documented pathology associated with connective tissue diseases, such as systemic sclerosis. In most cases, conservative management is preferable to surgical intervention, depending on the patient’s clinical presentation and progress. This is the first report of PI being the initial presentation of a patient with systemic sclerosis responsive to conservative management.

Pan-Cancer Mutational and Transcriptional Analysis of the Integrator Complex

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Antonio Federico

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The integrator complex has been recently identified as a key regulator of RNA Polymerase II-mediated transcription, with many functions including the processing of small nuclear RNAs, the pause-release and elongation of polymerase during the transcription of protein coding genes, and the biogenesis of enhancer derived transcripts. Moreover, some of its components also play a role in genome maintenance. Thus, it is reasonable to hypothesize that their functional impairment or altered expression can contribute to malignancies. Indeed, several studies have described the mutations or transcriptional alteration of some Integrator genes in different cancers. Here, to draw a comprehensive pan-cancer picture of the genomic and transcriptomic alterations for the members of the complex, we reanalyzed public data from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Somatic mutations affecting Integrator subunit genes and their transcriptional profiles have been investigated in about 11,000 patients and 31 tumor types. A general heterogeneity in the mutation frequencies was observed, mostly depending on tumor type. Despite the fact that we could not establish them as cancer drivers, INTS7 and INTS8 genes were highly mutated in specific cancers. A transcriptome analysis of paired (normal and tumor samples revealed that the transcription of INTS7, INTS8, and INTS13 is significantly altered in several cancers. Experimental validation performed on primary tumors confirmed these findings.

Identification of novel candidate genes involved in mineralization of dental enamel by genome-wide transcript profiling.

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Lacruz, Rodrigo S; Smith, Charles E; Bringas, Pablo; Chen, Yi-Bu; Smith, Susan M; Snead, Malcolm L; Kurtz, Ira; Hacia, Joseph G; Hubbard, Michael J; Paine, Michael L

2012-05-01

The gene repertoire regulating vertebrate biomineralization is poorly understood. Dental enamel, the most highly mineralized tissue in mammals, differs from other calcifying systems in that the formative cells (ameloblasts) lack remodeling activity and largely degrade and resorb the initial extracellular matrix. Enamel mineralization requires that ameloblasts undergo a profound functional switch from matrix-secreting to maturational (calcium transport, protein resorption) roles as mineralization progresses. During the maturation stage, extracellular pH decreases markedly, placing high demands on ameloblasts to regulate acidic environments present around the growing hydroxyapatite crystals. To identify the genetic events driving enamel mineralization, we conducted genome-wide transcript profiling of the developing enamel organ from rat incisors and highlight over 300 genes differentially expressed during maturation. Using multiple bioinformatics analyses, we identified groups of maturation-associated genes whose functions are linked to key mineralization processes including pH regulation, calcium handling, and matrix turnover. Subsequent qPCR and Western blot analyses revealed that a number of solute carrier (SLC) gene family members were up-regulated during maturation, including the novel protein Slc24a4 involved in calcium handling as well as other proteins of similar function (Stim1). By providing the first global overview of the cellular machinery required for enamel maturation, this study provide a strong foundation for improving basic understanding of biomineralization and its practical applications in healthcare. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Transcriptionally active LTR retrotransposons in Eucalyptus genus are differentially expressed and insertionally polymorphic.

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Marcon, Helena Sanches; Domingues, Douglas Silva; Silva, Juliana Costa; Borges, Rafael Junqueira; Matioli, Fábio Filippi; Fontes, Marcos Roberto de Mattos; Marino, Celso Luis

2015-08-14

In Eucalyptus genus, studies on genome composition and transposable elements (TEs) are particularly scarce. Nearly half of the recently released Eucalyptus grandis genome is composed by retrotransposons and this data provides an important opportunity to understand TE dynamics in Eucalyptus genome and transcriptome. We characterized nine families of transcriptionally active LTR retrotransposons from Copia and Gypsy superfamilies in Eucalyptus grandis genome and we depicted genomic distribution and copy number in two Eucalyptus species. We also evaluated genomic polymorphism and transcriptional profile in three organs of five Eucalyptus species. We observed contrasting genomic and transcriptional behavior in the same family among different species. RLC_egMax_1 was the most prevalent family and RLC_egAngela_1 was the family with the lowest copy number. Most families of both superfamilies have their insertions occurring Eucalyptus species. Using EST analysis and qRT-PCRs, we observed transcriptional activity in several tissues and in all evaluated species. In some families, osmotic stress increases transcript values. Our strategy was successful in isolating transcriptionally active retrotransposons in Eucalyptus, and each family has a particular genomic and transcriptional pattern. Overall, our results show that retrotransposon activity have differentially affected genome and transcriptome among Eucalyptus species.

Transcriptional regulation of gene expression clusters in motor neurons following spinal cord injury

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Westerdahl Ann-Charlotte

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Spinal cord injury leads to neurological dysfunctions affecting the motor, sensory as well as the autonomic systems. Increased excitability of motor neurons has been implicated in injury-induced spasticity, where the reappearance of self-sustained plateau potentials in the absence of modulatory inputs from the brain correlates with the development of spasticity. Results Here we examine the dynamic transcriptional response of motor neurons to spinal cord injury as it evolves over time to unravel common gene expression patterns and their underlying regulatory mechanisms. For this we use a rat-tail-model with complete spinal cord transection causing injury-induced spasticity, where gene expression profiles are obtained from labeled motor neurons extracted with laser microdissection 0, 2, 7, 21 and 60 days post injury. Consensus clustering identifies 12 gene clusters with distinct time expression profiles. Analysis of these gene clusters identifies early immunological/inflammatory and late developmental responses as well as a regulation of genes relating to neuron excitability that support the development of motor neuron hyper-excitability and the reappearance of plateau potentials in the late phase of the injury response. Transcription factor motif analysis identifies differentially expressed transcription factors involved in the regulation of each gene cluster, shaping the expression of the identified biological processes and their associated genes underlying the changes in motor neuron excitability. Conclusions This analysis provides important clues to the underlying mechanisms of transcriptional regulation responsible for the increased excitability observed in motor neurons in the late chronic phase of spinal cord injury suggesting alternative targets for treatment of spinal cord injury. Several transcription factors were identified as potential regulators of gene clusters containing elements related to motor neuron hyper

Transcriptional regulation of gene expression clusters in motor neurons following spinal cord injury.

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Ryge, Jesper; Winther, Ole; Wienecke, Jacob; Sandelin, Albin; Westerdahl, Ann-Charlotte; Hultborn, Hans; Kiehn, Ole

2010-06-09

Spinal cord injury leads to neurological dysfunctions affecting the motor, sensory as well as the autonomic systems. Increased excitability of motor neurons has been implicated in injury-induced spasticity, where the reappearance of self-sustained plateau potentials in the absence of modulatory inputs from the brain correlates with the development of spasticity. Here we examine the dynamic transcriptional response of motor neurons to spinal cord injury as it evolves over time to unravel common gene expression patterns and their underlying regulatory mechanisms. For this we use a rat-tail-model with complete spinal cord transection causing injury-induced spasticity, where gene expression profiles are obtained from labeled motor neurons extracted with laser microdissection 0, 2, 7, 21 and 60 days post injury. Consensus clustering identifies 12 gene clusters with distinct time expression profiles. Analysis of these gene clusters identifies early immunological/inflammatory and late developmental responses as well as a regulation of genes relating to neuron excitability that support the development of motor neuron hyper-excitability and the reappearance of plateau potentials in the late phase of the injury response. Transcription factor motif analysis identifies differentially expressed transcription factors involved in the regulation of each gene cluster, shaping the expression of the identified biological processes and their associated genes underlying the changes in motor neuron excitability. This analysis provides important clues to the underlying mechanisms of transcriptional regulation responsible for the increased excitability observed in motor neurons in the late chronic phase of spinal cord injury suggesting alternative targets for treatment of spinal cord injury. Several transcription factors were identified as potential regulators of gene clusters containing elements related to motor neuron hyper-excitability, the manipulation of which potentially could be

Transcript Profiling Distinguishes Complete Treatment Responders With Locally Advanced Cervical Cancer

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Jorge Fernandez-Retana

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Cervical cancer (CC mortality is a major public health concern since it is the second cause of cancer-related deaths among women. Patients diagnosed with locally advanced CC (LACC have an important rate of recurrence and treatment failure. Conventional treatment for LACC is based on chemotherapy and radiotherapy; however, up to 40% of patients will not respond to conventional treatment; hence, we searched for a prognostic gene signature able to discriminate patients who do not respond to the conventional treatment employed to treat LACC. Tumor biopsies were profiled with genome-wide high-density expression microarrays. Class prediction was performed in tumor tissues and the resultant gene signature was validated by quantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction. A 27-predictive gene profile was identified through its association with pathologic response. The 27-gene profile was validated in an independent set of patients and was able to distinguish between patients diagnosed as no response versus complete response. Gene expression analysis revealed two distinct groups of tumors diagnosed as LACC. Our findings could provide a strategy to select patients who would benefit from neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy-based treatment.

Sugarcane genes differentially expressed in response to Puccinia melanocephala infection: identification and transcript profiling.

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Oloriz, María I; Gil, Víctor; Rojas, Luis; Portal, Orelvis; Izquierdo, Yovanny; Jiménez, Elio; Höfte, Monica

2012-05-01

Brown rust caused by the fungus Puccinia melanocephala is a major disease of sugarcane (Saccharum spp.). A sugarcane mutant, obtained by chemical mutagenesis of the susceptible variety B4362, showed a post-haustorial hypersensitive response (HR)-mediated resistance to the pathogen and was used to identify genes differentially expressed in response to P. melanocephala via suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH). Tester cDNA was derived from the brown rust-resistant mutant after inoculation with P. melanocephala, while driver cDNAs were obtained from the non-inoculated resistant mutant and the inoculated susceptible donor variety B4362. Database comparisons of the sequences of the SSH recombinant clones revealed that, of a subset of 89 non-redundant sequences, 88% had similarity to known functional genes, while 12% were of unknown function. Thirteen genes were selected for transcript profiling in the resistant mutant and the susceptible donor variety. Genes involved in glycolysis and C4 carbon fixation were up-regulated in both interactions probably due to disturbance of sugarcane carbon metabolism by the pathogen. Genes related with the nascent polypeptide associated complex, post-translational proteome modulation and autophagy were transcribed at higher levels in the compatible interaction. Up-regulation of a putative L-isoaspartyl O-methyltransferase S-adenosylmethionine gene in the compatible interaction may point to fungal manipulation of the cytoplasmatic methionine cycle. Genes coding for a putative no apical meristem protein, S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase, non-specific lipid transfer protein, and GDP-L-galactose phosphorylase involved in ascorbic acid biosynthesis were up-regulated in the incompatible interaction at the onset of haustorium formation, and may contribute to the HR-mediated defense response in the rust-resistant mutant.

Comparative Analyses of Transcriptional Profiles in Mouse Organs Using a Pneumonic Plague Model after Infection with Wild-Type Yersinia pestis CO92 and Its Braun Lipoprotein Mutant

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Cristi L. Galindo

2009-01-01

Full Text Available We employed Murine GeneChips to delineate the global transcriptional profiles of the livers, lungs, and spleens in a mouse pneumonic plague infection model with wild-type (WT Y. pestis CO92 and its Braun lipoprotein (Δlpp mutant with reduced virulence. These organs showed differential transcriptional responses to infection with WT Y. pestis, but the overall host functional processes affected were similar across all three tissues. Gene expression alterations were found in inflammation, cytokine signaling, and apoptotic cell death-associated genes. Comparison of WT and Δlpp mutant-infected mice indicated significant overlap in lipopolysaccharide- (LPS- associated gene expression, but the absence of Lpp perturbed host cell signaling at critical regulatory junctions resulting in altered immune response and possibly host cell apoptosis. We generated a putative signaling pathway including major inflammatory components that could account for the synergistic action of LPS and Lpp and provided the mechanistic basis of attenuation caused by deletion of the lpp gene from Y. pestis in a mouse model of pneumonic plague.

Screening Driving Transcription Factors in the Processing of Gastric Cancer

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Guangzhong Xu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Background. Construction of the transcriptional regulatory network can provide additional clues on the regulatory mechanisms and therapeutic applications in gastric cancer. Methods. Gene expression profiles of gastric cancer were downloaded from GEO database for integrated analysis. All of DEGs were analyzed by GO enrichment and KEGG pathway enrichment. Transcription factors were further identified and then a global transcriptional regulatory network was constructed. Results. By integrated analysis of the six eligible datasets (340 cases and 43 controls, a bunch of 2327 DEGs were identified, including 2100 upregulated and 227 downregulated DEGs. Functional enrichment analysis of DEGs showed that digestion was a significantly enriched GO term for biological process. Moreover, there were two important enriched KEGG pathways: cell cycle and homologous recombination. Furthermore, a total of 70 differentially expressed TFs were identified and the transcriptional regulatory network was constructed, which consisted of 566 TF-target interactions. The top ten TFs regulating most downstream target genes were BRCA1, ARID3A, EHF, SOX10, ZNF263, FOXL1, FEV, GATA3, FOXC1, and FOXD1. Most of them were involved in the carcinogenesis of gastric cancer. Conclusion. The transcriptional regulatory network can help researchers to further clarify the underlying regulatory mechanisms of gastric cancer tumorigenesis.

Medusa structure of the gene regulatory network: dominance of transcription factors in cancer subtype classification.

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Guo, Yuchun; Feng, Ying; Trivedi, Niraj S; Huang, Sui

2011-05-01

Gene expression profiles consisting of ten thousands of transcripts are used for clustering of tissue, such as tumors, into subtypes, often without considering the underlying reason that the distinct patterns of expression arise because of constraints in the realization of gene expression profiles imposed by the gene regulatory network. The topology of this network has been suggested to consist of a regulatory core of genes represented most prominently by transcription factors (TFs) and microRNAs, that influence the expression of other genes, and of a periphery of 'enslaved' effector genes that are regulated but not regulating. This 'medusa' architecture implies that the core genes are much stronger determinants of the realized gene expression profiles. To test this hypothesis, we examined the clustering of gene expression profiles into known tumor types to quantitatively demonstrate that TFs, and even more pronounced, microRNAs, are much stronger discriminators of tumor type specific gene expression patterns than a same number of randomly selected or metabolic genes. These findings lend support to the hypothesis of a medusa architecture and of the canalizing nature of regulation by microRNAs. They also reveal the degree of freedom for the expression of peripheral genes that are less stringently associated with a tissue type specific global gene expression profile.

Transcriptional Profiling of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Reveals the Impact of Variation of a Single Transcription Factor on Differential Gene Expression in 4NQO, Fermentable, and Nonfermentable Carbon Sources

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Xiaoqing Rong-Mullins

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Cellular metabolism can change the potency of a chemical’s tumorigenicity. 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide (4NQO is a tumorigenic drug widely used on animal models for cancer research. Polymorphisms of the transcription factor Yrr1 confer different levels of resistance to 4NQO in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To study how different Yrr1 alleles regulate gene expression leading to resistance, transcriptomes of three isogenic S. cerevisiae strains carrying different Yrr1 alleles were profiled via RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq and chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with sequencing (ChIP-Seq in the presence and absence of 4NQO. In response to 4NQO, all alleles of Yrr1 drove the expression of SNQ2 (a multidrug transporter, which was highest in the presence of 4NQO resistance-conferring alleles, and overexpression of SNQ2 alone was sufficient to overcome 4NQO-sensitive growth. Using shape metrics to refine the ChIP-Seq peaks, Yrr1 strongly associated with three loci including SNQ2. In addition to a known Yrr1 target SNG1, Yrr1 also bound upstream of RPL35B; however, overexpression of these genes did not confer 4NQO resistance. RNA-Seq data also implicated nucleotide synthesis pathways including the de novo purine pathway, and the ribonuclease reductase pathways were downregulated in response to 4NQO. Conversion of a 4NQO-sensitive allele to a 4NQO-resistant allele by a single point mutation mimicked the 4NQO-resistant allele in phenotype, and while the 4NQO resistant allele increased the expression of the ADE genes in the de novo purine biosynthetic pathway, the mutant Yrr1 increased expression of ADE genes even in the absence of 4NQO. These same ADE genes were only increased in the wild-type alleles in the presence of 4NQO, indicating that the point mutation activated Yrr1 to upregulate a pathway normally only activated in response to stress. The various Yrr1 alleles also influenced growth on different carbon sources by altering the function of the mitochondria

E-cadherin acts as a regulator of transcripts associated with a wide range of cellular processes in mouse embryonic stem cells.

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Francesca Soncin

Full Text Available We have recently shown that expression of the cell adhesion molecule E-cadherin is required for LIF-dependent pluripotency of mouse embryonic stem (ES cells.In this study, we have assessed global transcript expression in E-cadherin null (Ecad-/- ES cells cultured in either the presence or absence of LIF and compared these to the parental cell line wtD3.We show that LIF has little effect on the transcript profile of Ecad-/- ES cells, with statistically significant transcript alterations observed only for Sp8 and Stat3. Comparison of Ecad-/- and wtD3 ES cells cultured in LIF demonstrated significant alterations in the transcript profile, with effects not only confined to cell adhesion and motility but also affecting, for example, primary metabolic processes, catabolism and genes associated with apoptosis. Ecad-/- ES cells share similar, although not identical, gene expression profiles to epiblast-derived pluripotent stem cells, suggesting that E-cadherin expression may inhibit inner cell mass to epiblast transition. We further show that Ecad-/- ES cells maintain a functional β-catenin pool that is able to induce β-catenin/TCF-mediated transactivation but, contrary to previous findings, do not display endogenous β-catenin/TCF-mediated transactivation. We conclude that loss of E-cadherin in mouse ES cells leads to significant transcript alterations independently of β-catenin/TCF transactivation.

Metazoan operons accelerate recovery from growth arrested states

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Zaslaver, Alon; Baugh, L. Ryan; Sternberg, Paul W.

2011-01-01

Summary Existing theories explain why operons are advantageous in prokaryotes, but their occurrence in metazoans is an enigma. Nematode operon genes, typically consisting of growth genes, are significantly up-regulated during recovery from growth-arrested states. This expression pattern is anti-correlated to non-operon genes consistent with a competition for transcriptional resources. We find that transcriptional resources are initially limiting during recovery, and that recovering animals are highly sensitive to any additional decrease in transcriptional resources. Operons become advantageous because by clustering growth genes into operons, fewer promoters compete for the limited transcriptional machinery, effectively increasing the concentration of transcriptional resources, and accelerating recovery. Mathematical modeling reveals how a moderate increase in transcriptional resources can substantially enhance transcription rate and recovery. This design principle occurs in different nematodes and the chordate C. intestinalis. As transition from arrest to rapid growth is shared by many metazoans, operons could have evolved to facilitate these processes. PMID:21663799

Deconstructing transcriptional heterogeneity in pluripotent stem cells

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Shalek, Alex K.; Satija, Rahul; DaleyKeyser, AJay; Li, Hu; Zhang, Jin; Pardee, Keith; Gennert, David; Trombetta, John J.; Ferrante, Thomas C.; Regev, Aviv; Daley, George Q.; Collins, James J.

2014-01-01

SUMMARY Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) are capable of dynamic interconversion between distinct substates, but the regulatory circuits specifying these states and enabling transitions between them are not well understood. We set out to characterize transcriptional heterogeneity in PSCs by single-cell expression profiling under different chemical and genetic perturbations. Signaling factors and developmental regulators show highly variable expression, with expression states for some variable genes heritable through multiple cell divisions. Expression variability and population heterogeneity can be influenced by perturbation of signaling pathways and chromatin regulators. Strikingly, either removal of mature miRNAs or pharmacologic blockage of signaling pathways drives PSCs into a low-noise ground state characterized by a reconfigured pluripotency network, enhanced self-renewal, and a distinct chromatin state, an effect mediated by opposing miRNA families acting on the c-myc / Lin28 / let-7 axis. These data illuminate the nature of transcriptional heterogeneity in PSCs. PMID:25471879

Using transcriptomic profiles in the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum to identify and prioritize stressors

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Osborn, Hannah L.; Hook, Sharon E.

2013-01-01

Highlights: •Exposure to stressors with different modes of action generated unique gene expression profiles in the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum. •The gene expression profile generated by a multiple stressor exposure reflected exposure to individual components of the mixture. •Quantitative PCR assays were generated that could be used to identify exposure to individual stressors. -- Abstract: The transcriptomic profile of the marine diatom, Phaeodactylum tricornutum, exposed to several ecologically relevant stressors, was used to develop toxicity identification evaluation (TIE)-like gene expression assays. Algal growth inhibition was measured by flow cytometry to determine exposure concentrations that elicited a sublethal toxic response. P. tricornutum was exposed to concentrations of copper (2 μg L −1 ), cadmium (5 μg L −1 ), silver (20 μg L −1 ), simazine (75 μg L −1 ), the water accommodated fraction (WAF) of weathered crude oil (5 mg L −1 ), 50 μg L −1 ammonia, a decreased salinity treatment (15‰), and a mixture exposure of ammonia, decreased salinity and cadmium (10 μg L −1 ). Analysis of the gene expression via microarray indicated that unique transcriptomic signals were generated for each of the individual treatments. Transcriptomic profiles of ammonia and the mixture treatment overlapped substantially. Photosynthesis related transcripts were altered in the simazine (herbicide) treatment. A transcript involved in degrading hydrocarbons, dioxygenase, had increased abundance after crude oil exposure. Overall, transcriptomic responses in the different treatments were associated with stress responses, membrane transport, transcription and translation and could be linked to contaminant mode of action. The transcriptomic profiles were used to design real-time (quantitative) polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays that would link changes in transcript abundance to a particular stressor in a TIE-based approach. At least one transcript

Using transcriptomic profiles in the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum to identify and prioritize stressors

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Osborn, Hannah L., E-mail: Hannah.Osborn@csiro.au; Hook, Sharon E., E-mail: Sharon.Hook@csiro.au

2013-08-15

Highlights: •Exposure to stressors with different modes of action generated unique gene expression profiles in the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum. •The gene expression profile generated by a multiple stressor exposure reflected exposure to individual components of the mixture. •Quantitative PCR assays were generated that could be used to identify exposure to individual stressors. -- Abstract: The transcriptomic profile of the marine diatom, Phaeodactylum tricornutum, exposed to several ecologically relevant stressors, was used to develop toxicity identification evaluation (TIE)-like gene expression assays. Algal growth inhibition was measured by flow cytometry to determine exposure concentrations that elicited a sublethal toxic response. P. tricornutum was exposed to concentrations of copper (2 μg L{sup −1}), cadmium (5 μg L{sup −1}), silver (20 μg L{sup −1}), simazine (75 μg L{sup −1}), the water accommodated fraction (WAF) of weathered crude oil (5 mg L{sup −1}), 50 μg L{sup −1} ammonia, a decreased salinity treatment (15‰), and a mixture exposure of ammonia, decreased salinity and cadmium (10 μg L{sup −1}). Analysis of the gene expression via microarray indicated that unique transcriptomic signals were generated for each of the individual treatments. Transcriptomic profiles of ammonia and the mixture treatment overlapped substantially. Photosynthesis related transcripts were altered in the simazine (herbicide) treatment. A transcript involved in degrading hydrocarbons, dioxygenase, had increased abundance after crude oil exposure. Overall, transcriptomic responses in the different treatments were associated with stress responses, membrane transport, transcription and translation and could be linked to contaminant mode of action. The transcriptomic profiles were used to design real-time (quantitative) polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays that would link changes in transcript abundance to a particular stressor in a TIE

Triptolide inhibits transcription of hTERT through down-regulation of transcription factor specificity protein 1 in primary effusion lymphoma cells

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Long, Cong; Wang, Jingchao [Department of Pathogen Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430071 (China); Guo, Wei [Department of Pathology and Physiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430071 (China); Wang, Huan; Wang, Chao; Liu, Yu [Department of Pathogen Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430071 (China); Sun, Xiaoping, E-mail: xsun6@whu.edu.cn [Department of Pathogen Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430071 (China); State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072 (China)

2016-01-01

Primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) is a rare and aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), a key component responsible for the regulation of telomerase activity, plays important roles in cellular immortalization and cancer development. Triptolide purified from Tripterygium extracts displays a broad-spectrum bioactivity profile, including immunosuppressive, anti-inflammatory, and anti-tumor. In this study, it is investigated whether triptolide reduces hTERT expression and suppresses its activity in PEL cells. The mRNA and protein levels of hTERT were examined by real time-PCR and Western blotting, respectively. The activity of hTERT promoter was determined by Dual luciferase reporter assay. Our results demonstrated that triptolide decreased expression of hTERT at both mRNA and protein levels. Further gene sequence analysis indicated that the activity of hTERT promoter was suppressed by triptolide. Triptolide also reduced the half-time of hTERT. Additionally, triptolide inhibited the expression of transcription factor specificity protein 1(Sp1) in PEL cells. Furthermore, knock-down of Sp1 by using specific shRNAs resulted in down-regulation of hTERT transcription and protein expression levels. Inhibition of Sp1 by specific shRNAs enhanced triptolide-induced cell growth inhibition and apoptosis. Collectively, our results demonstrate that the inhibitory effect of triptolide on hTERT transcription is possibly mediated by inhibition of transcription factor Sp1 in PEL cells. - Highlights: • Triptolide reduces expression of hTERT by decreasing its transcription level. • Triptolide reduces promoter activity and stability of hTERT. • Triptolide down-regulates expression of Sp1. • Special Sp1 shRNAs inhibit transcription and protein expression of hTERT. • Triptolide and Sp1 shRNA2 induce cell proliferation inhibition and apoptosis.

Gene transcription profiles, global DNA methylation and potential transgenerational epigenetic effects related to Zn exposure history in Daphnia magna

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Vandegehuchte, Michiel B.; De Coninck, Dieter; Vandenbrouck, Tine; De Coen, Wim M.; Janssen, Colin R.

2010-01-01

A reduced level of DNA methylation has recently been described in both Zn-exposed and non-exposed offspring of Daphnia magna exposed to Zn. The hypothesis examined in this study is that DNA hypomethylation has an effect on gene transcription. A second hypothesis is that accumulative epigenetic effects can affect gene transcription in non-exposed offspring from parents with an exposure history of more than one generation. Transcriptional gene regulation was studied with a cDNA microarray. In the exposed and non-exposed hypomethylated daphnids, a large proportion of common genes were similarly up- or down-regulated, indicating a possible effect of the DNA hypomethylation. Two of these genes can be mechanistically involved in DNA methylation reduction. The similar transcriptional regulation of two and three genes in the F 0 and F 1 exposed daphnids on one hand and their non-exposed offspring on the other hand, could be the result of a one-generation temporary transgenerational epigenetic effect, which was not accumulative. - Zn-induced DNA hypomethylation is related to gene transcription in Daphnia magna and Zn exposure potentially induced limited temporary transgenerational effects on gene transcription.

Novel structural components of the ventral disc and lateral crest in Giardia intestinalis.

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Kari D Hagen

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Giardia intestinalis is a ubiquitous parasitic protist that is the causative agent of giardiasis, one of the most common protozoan diarrheal diseases in the world. Giardia trophozoites attach to the intestinal epithelium using a specialized and elaborate microtubule structure, the ventral disc. Surrounding the ventral disc is a less characterized putatively contractile structure, the lateral crest, which forms a continuous perimeter seal with the substrate. A better understanding of ventral disc and lateral crest structure, conformational dynamics, and biogenesis is critical for understanding the mechanism of giardial attachment to the host. To determine the components comprising the ventral disc and lateral crest, we used shotgun proteomics to identify proteins in a preparation of isolated ventral discs. Candidate disc-associated proteins, or DAPs, were GFP-tagged using a ligation-independent high-throughput cloning method. Based on disc localization, we identified eighteen novel DAPs, which more than doubles the number of known disc-associated proteins. Ten of the novel DAPs are associated with the lateral crest or outer edge of the disc, and are the first confirmed components of this structure. Using Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP with representative novel DAP::GFP strains we found that the newly identified DAPs tested did not recover after photobleaching and are therefore structural components of the ventral disc or lateral crest. Functional analyses of the novel DAPs will be central toward understanding the mechanism of ventral disc-mediated attachment and the mechanism of disc biogenesis during cell division. Since attachment of Giardia to the intestine via the ventral disc is essential for pathogenesis, it is possible that some proteins comprising the disc could be potential drug targets if their loss or disruption interfered with disc biogenesis or function, preventing attachment.

Ciona intestinalis Noto4 contains a phosphotyrosine interaction domain and is involved in the midline intercalation of notochord cells.

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Yamada, Shigehiro; Ueno, Naoto; Satoh, Nori; Takahashi, Hiroki

2011-01-01

Brachyury plays a pivotal role in the notochord formation in ascidian embryos. Ciona intestinalis Noto4 (Ci-Noto4) was isolated as a gene downstream of Ci-Bra. This gene encodes a 307 amino-acid protein with a C-terminal phosphotyrosine interaction domain (PTB/PID). Expression of Ci-Noto4 commences at the neural plate stage and is specific to notochord cells. Suppression of Ci-Noto4 levels with specific antisense morpholino oligonucleotides resulted in the formation of two rows of notochord cells owing to a lack of midline intercalation between the bilateral populations of progenitor cells. In contrast, overexpression of Ci-Noto4 by injection of a Ci-Bra(promoter):Ci-Noto4-EGFP construct into fertilized eggs disrupted the localization of notochord cells. Ci-Noto4 overexpression did not affect cellular differentiation in the notochord, muscle, mesenchyme, or nervous system. Analysis of Ci-Noto4 regions that are responsible for its function suggested significant roles for the PTB/PID and a central region, an area with no obvious sequence similarity to other known proteins. These results suggested that PTB/PID-containing Ci-Noto4 is essential for midline intercalation of notochord cells in chordate embryos.

Effects of Argentilactone on the Transcriptional Profile, Cell Wall and Oxidative Stress of Paracoccidioides spp.

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Araújo, Felipe Souto; Coelho, Luciene Melo; Silva, Lívia do Carmo; da Silva Neto, Benedito Rodrigues; Parente-Rocha, Juliana Alves; Bailão, Alexandre Melo; de Oliveira, Cecília Maria Alves; Fernandes, Gabriel da Rocha; Hernández, Orville; Ochoa, Juan Guillermo McEwen; Soares, Célia Maria de Almeida; Pereira, Maristela

2016-01-01

Paracoccidioides spp., a dimorphic pathogenic fungus, is the etiologic agent of paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM). PCM is an endemic disease that affects at least 10 million people in Latin America, causing severe public health problems. The drugs used against pathogenic fungi have various side effects and limited efficacy; therefore, there is an inevitable and urgent medical need for the development of new antifungal drugs. In the present study, we evaluated the transcriptional profile of Paracoccidioides lutzii exposed to argentilactone, a constituent of the essential oil of Hyptis ovalifolia. A total of 1,058 genes were identified, of which 208 were up-regulated and 850 were down-regulated. Cell rescue, defense and virulence, with a total of 26 genes, was a functional category with a large number of genes induced, including heat shock protein 90 (hsp90), cytochrome c peroxidase (ccp), the hemoglobin ligand RBT5 (rbt5) and superoxide dismutase (sod). Quantitative real-time PCR revealed an increase in the expression level of all of those genes. An enzymatic assay showed a significant increase in SOD activity. The reduced growth of Pbhsp90-aRNA, Pbccp-aRNA, Pbsod-aRNA and Pbrbt5-aRNA isolates in the presence of argentilactone indicates the importance of these genes in the response of Paracoccidioides spp. to argentilactone. The response of the P. lutzii cell wall to argentilactone treatment was also evaluated. The results showed that argentilactone caused a decrease in the levels of polymers in the cell wall. These results suggest that argentilactone is a potential candidate for antifungal therapy.

Effects of Argentilactone on the Transcriptional Profile, Cell Wall and Oxidative Stress of Paracoccidioides spp.

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Felipe Souto Araújo

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Paracoccidioides spp., a dimorphic pathogenic fungus, is the etiologic agent of paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM. PCM is an endemic disease that affects at least 10 million people in Latin America, causing severe public health problems. The drugs used against pathogenic fungi have various side effects and limited efficacy; therefore, there is an inevitable and urgent medical need for the development of new antifungal drugs. In the present study, we evaluated the transcriptional profile of Paracoccidioides lutzii exposed to argentilactone, a constituent of the essential oil of Hyptis ovalifolia. A total of 1,058 genes were identified, of which 208 were up-regulated and 850 were down-regulated. Cell rescue, defense and virulence, with a total of 26 genes, was a functional category with a large number of genes induced, including heat shock protein 90 (hsp90, cytochrome c peroxidase (ccp, the hemoglobin ligand RBT5 (rbt5 and superoxide dismutase (sod. Quantitative real-time PCR revealed an increase in the expression level of all of those genes. An enzymatic assay showed a significant increase in SOD activity. The reduced growth of Pbhsp90-aRNA, Pbccp-aRNA, Pbsod-aRNA and Pbrbt5-aRNA isolates in the presence of argentilactone indicates the importance of these genes in the response of Paracoccidioides spp. to argentilactone. The response of the P. lutzii cell wall to argentilactone treatment was also evaluated. The results showed that argentilactone caused a decrease in the levels of polymers in the cell wall. These results suggest that argentilactone is a potential candidate for antifungal therapy.

Using RNA-Seq for gene identification, polymorphism detection and transcript profiling in two alfalfa genotypes with divergent cell wall composition in stems

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background Alfalfa, [Medicago sativa (L.) sativa], a widely-grown perennial forage has potential for development as a cellulosic ethanol feedstock. However, the genomics of alfalfa, a non-model species, is still in its infancy. The recent advent of RNA-Seq, a massively parallel sequencing method for transcriptome analysis, provides an opportunity to expand the identification of alfalfa genes and polymorphisms, and conduct in-depth transcript profiling. Results Cell walls in stems of alfalfa genotype 708 have higher cellulose and lower lignin concentrations compared to cell walls in stems of genotype 773. Using the Illumina GA-II platform, a total of 198,861,304 expression sequence tags (ESTs, 76 bp in length) were generated from cDNA libraries derived from elongating stem (ES) and post-elongation stem (PES) internodes of 708 and 773. In addition, 341,984 ESTs were generated from ES and PES internodes of genotype 773 using the GS FLX Titanium platform. The first alfalfa (Medicago sativa) gene index (MSGI 1.0) was assembled using the Sanger ESTs available from GenBank, the GS FLX Titanium EST sequences, and the de novo assembled Illumina sequences. MSGI 1.0 contains 124,025 unique sequences including 22,729 tentative consensus sequences (TCs), 22,315 singletons and 78,981 pseudo-singletons. We identified a total of 1,294 simple sequence repeats (SSR) among the sequences in MSGI 1.0. In addition, a total of 10,826 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were predicted between the two genotypes. Out of 55 SNPs randomly selected for experimental validation, 47 (85%) were polymorphic between the two genotypes. We also identified numerous allelic variations within each genotype. Digital gene expression analysis identified numerous candidate genes that may play a role in stem development as well as candidate genes that may contribute to the differences in cell wall composition in stems of the two genotypes. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that RNA-Seq can be

Transcriptional profiling of human liver identifies sex-biased genes associated with polygenic dyslipidemia and coronary artery disease.

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Yijing Zhang

Full Text Available Sex-differences in human liver gene expression were characterized on a genome-wide scale using a large liver sample collection, allowing for detection of small expression differences with high statistical power. 1,249 sex-biased genes were identified, 70% showing higher expression in females. Chromosomal bias was apparent, with female-biased genes enriched on chrX and male-biased genes enriched on chrY and chr19, where 11 male-biased zinc-finger KRAB-repressor domain genes are distributed in six clusters. Top biological functions and diseases significantly enriched in sex-biased genes include transcription, chromatin organization and modification, sexual reproduction, lipid metabolism and cardiovascular disease. Notably, sex-biased genes are enriched at loci associated with polygenic dyslipidemia and coronary artery disease in genome-wide association studies. Moreover, of the 8 sex-biased genes at these loci, 4 have been directly linked to monogenic disorders of lipid metabolism and show an expression profile in females (elevated expression of ABCA1, APOA5 and LDLR; reduced expression of LIPC that is consistent with the lower female risk of coronary artery disease. Female-biased expression was also observed for CYP7A1, which is activated by drugs used to treat hypercholesterolemia. Several sex-biased drug-metabolizing enzyme genes were identified, including members of the CYP, UGT, GPX and ALDH families. Half of 879 mouse orthologs, including many genes of lipid metabolism and homeostasis, show growth hormone-regulated sex-biased expression in mouse liver, suggesting growth hormone might play a similar regulatory role in human liver. Finally, the evolutionary rate of protein coding regions for human-mouse orthologs, revealed by dN/dS ratio, is significantly higher for genes showing the same sex-bias in both species than for non-sex-biased genes. These findings establish that human hepatic sex differences are widespread and affect diverse cell

Temporal and spatial transcriptional fingerprints by antipsychotic or propsychotic drugs in mouse brain.

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Kensuke Sakuma

Full Text Available Various types of antipsychotics have been developed for the treatment of schizophrenia since the accidental discovery of the antipsychotic activity of chlorpromazine. Although all clinically effective antipsychotic agents have common properties to interact with the dopamine D2 receptor (D2R activation, their precise mechanisms of action remain elusive. Antipsychotics are well known to induce transcriptional changes of immediate early genes (IEGs, raising the possibility that gene expressions play an essential role to improve psychiatric symptoms. Here, we report that while different classes of antipsychotics have complex pharmacological profiles against D2R, they share common transcriptome fingerprint (TFP profile of IEGs in the murine brain in vivo by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR. Our data showed that various types of antipsychotics with a profound interaction of D2R including haloperidol (antagonist, olanzapine (antagonist, and aripiprazole (partial agonist all share common spatial TFPs closely homologous to those of D2R antagonist sulpiride, and elicited greater transcriptional responses in the striatum than in the nucleus accumbens. Meanwhile, D2R agonist quinpirole and propsychotic NMDA antagonists such as MK-801 and phencyclidine (PCP exhibited the contrasting TFP profiles. Clozapine and propsychotic drug methamphetamine (MAP displayed peculiar TFPs that reflect their unique pharmacological property. Our results suggest that transcriptional responses are conserved across various types of antipsychotics clinically effective in positive symptoms of schizophrenia and also show that temporal and spatial TFPs may reflect the pharmacological features of the drugs. Thus, we propose that a TFP approach is beneficial to evaluate novel drug candidates for antipsychotic development.

Repetitive Elements in Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae Transcriptional Regulation.

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Amanda Malvessi Cattani

Full Text Available Transcriptional regulation, a multiple-step process, is still poorly understood in the important pig pathogen Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae. Basic motifs like promoters and terminators have already been described, but no other cis-regulatory elements have been found. DNA repeat sequences have been shown to be an interesting potential source of cis-regulatory elements. In this work, a genome-wide search for tandem and palindromic repetitive elements was performed in the intergenic regions of all coding sequences from M. hyopneumoniae strain 7448. Computational analysis demonstrated the presence of 144 tandem repeats and 1,171 palindromic elements. The DNA repeat sequences were distributed within the 5' upstream regions of 86% of transcriptional units of M. hyopneumoniae strain 7448. Comparative analysis between distinct repetitive sequences found in related mycoplasma genomes demonstrated different percentages of conservation among pathogenic and nonpathogenic strains. qPCR assays revealed differential expression among genes showing variable numbers of repetitive elements. In addition, repeats found in 206 genes already described to be differentially regulated under different culture conditions of M. hyopneumoniae strain 232 showed almost 80% conservation in relation to M. hyopneumoniae strain 7448 repeats. Altogether, these findings suggest a potential regulatory role of tandem and palindromic DNA repeats in the M. hyopneumoniae transcriptional profile.

Repetitive Elements in Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae Transcriptional Regulation.

Science.gov (United States)

Cattani, Amanda Malvessi; Siqueira, Franciele Maboni; Guedes, Rafael Lucas Muniz; Schrank, Irene Silveira

2016-01-01

Transcriptional regulation, a multiple-step process, is still poorly understood in the important pig pathogen Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae. Basic motifs like promoters and terminators have already been described, but no other cis-regulatory elements have been found. DNA repeat sequences have been shown to be an interesting potential source of cis-regulatory elements. In this work, a genome-wide search for tandem and palindromic repetitive elements was performed in the intergenic regions of all coding sequences from M. hyopneumoniae strain 7448. Computational analysis demonstrated the presence of 144 tandem repeats and 1,171 palindromic elements. The DNA repeat sequences were distributed within the 5' upstream regions of 86% of transcriptional units of M. hyopneumoniae strain 7448. Comparative analysis between distinct repetitive sequences found in related mycoplasma genomes demonstrated different percentages of conservation among pathogenic and nonpathogenic strains. qPCR assays revealed differential expression among genes showing variable numbers of repetitive elements. In addition, repeats found in 206 genes already described to be differentially regulated under different culture conditions of M. hyopneumoniae strain 232 showed almost 80% conservation in relation to M. hyopneumoniae strain 7448 repeats. Altogether, these findings suggest a potential regulatory role of tandem and palindromic DNA repeats in the M. hyopneumoniae transcriptional profile.

The transcriptional landscape

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Henrik

2011-01-01

The application of new and less biased methods to study the transcriptional output from genomes, such as tiling arrays and deep sequencing, has revealed that most of the genome is transcribed and that there is substantial overlap of transcripts derived from the two strands of DNA. In protein coding...... regions, the map of transcripts is very complex due to small transcripts from the flanking ends of the transcription unit, the use of multiple start and stop sites for the main transcript, production of multiple functional RNA molecules from the same primary transcript, and RNA molecules made...... by independent transcription from within the unit. In genomic regions separating those that encode proteins or highly abundant RNA molecules with known function, transcripts are generally of low abundance and short-lived. In most of these cases, it is unclear to what extent a function is related to transcription...

Transcriptome profiling of mice testes following low dose irradiation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Belling, Kirstine C.; Tanaka, Masami; Dalgaard, Marlene Danner

2013-01-01

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Radiotherapy is used routinely to treat testicular cancer. Testicular cells vary in radio-sensitivity and the aim of this study was to investigate cellular and molecular changes caused by low dose irradiation of mice testis and to identify transcripts from different cell types...... in the adult testis. METHODS: Transcriptome profiling was performed on total RNA from testes sampled at various time points (n = 17) after 1 Gy of irradiation. Transcripts displaying large overall expression changes during the time series, but small expression changes between neighbouring time points were...... selected for further analysis. These transcripts were separated into clusters and their cellular origin was determined. Immunohistochemistry and in silico quantification was further used to study cellular changes post-irradiation (pi). RESULTS: We identified a subset of transcripts (n = 988) where changes...

Identification and molecular characterization of 48 kDa calcium binding protein as calreticulin from finger millet (Eleusine coracana) using peptide mass fingerprinting and transcript profiling.

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Manoj; Metwal, Mamta; Kumar, Vandana A; Kumar, Anil

2016-01-30

Attempts were made to identify and characterize the calcium binding proteins (CaBPs) in grain filling stages of finger millet using proteomics, bioinformatics and molecular approaches. A distinctly observed blue color band of 48 kDa stained by Stains-all was eluted and analyzed as calreticulin (CRT) using nano liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (nano LC-MS). Based on the top hits of peptide mass fingerprinting results, conserved primers were designed for isolation of the CRT gene from finger millet using calreticulin sequences of different cereals. The deduced nucleotide sequence analysis of 600 bp amplicon showed up to 91% similarity with CRT gene(s) of rice and other plant species and designated as EcCRT1. Transcript profiling of EcCRT1 showed different levels of relative expression at different stages of developing spikes. The higher expression of EcCRT1 transcripts and protein were observed in later stages of developing spikes which might be due to greater translational synthesis of EcCRT1 protein during seed maturation in finger millet. Preferentially higher synthesis of this CaBP during later stages of grain filling may be responsible for the sequestration of calcium in endoplasmic reticulum of finger millet grains. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry.

Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors Prolong Cardiac Repolarization through Transcriptional Mechanisms.

Science.gov (United States)

Spence, Stan; Deurinck, Mark; Ju, Haisong; Traebert, Martin; McLean, LeeAnne; Marlowe, Jennifer; Emotte, Corinne; Tritto, Elaine; Tseng, Min; Shultz, Michael; Friedrichs, Gregory S

2016-09-01

Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are an emerging class of anticancer agents that modify gene expression by altering the acetylation status of lysine residues of histone proteins, thereby inducing transcription, cell cycle arrest, differentiation, and cell death or apoptosis of cancer cells. In the clinical setting, treatment with HDAC inhibitors has been associated with delayed cardiac repolarization and in rare instances a lethal ventricular tachyarrhythmia known as torsades de pointes. The mechanism(s) of HDAC inhibitor-induced effects on cardiac repolarization is unknown. We demonstrate that administration of structurally diverse HDAC inhibitors to dogs causes delayed but persistent increases in the heart rate corrected QT interval (QTc), an in vivo measure of cardiac repolarization, at timepoints far removed from the Tmax for parent drug and metabolites. Transcriptional profiling of ventricular myocardium from dogs treated with various HDAC inhibitors demonstrated effects on genes involved in protein trafficking, scaffolding and insertion of various ion channels into the cell membrane as well as genes for specific ion channel subunits involved in cardiac repolarization. Extensive in vitro ion channel profiling of various structural classes of HDAC inhibitors (and their major metabolites) by binding and acute patch clamp assays failed to show any consistent correlations with direct ion channel blockade. Drug-induced rescue of an intracellular trafficking-deficient mutant potassium ion channel, hERG (G601S), and decreased maturation (glycosylation) of wild-type hERG expressed by CHO cells in vitro correlated with prolongation of QTc intervals observed in vivo The results suggest that HDAC inhibitor-induced prolongation of cardiac repolarization may be mediated in part by transcriptional changes of genes required for ion channel trafficking and localization to the sarcolemma. These data have broad implications for the development of these drug classes and

The transcriptional regulatory network mediated by banana (Musa acuminata) dehydration-responsive element binding (MaDREB) transcription factors in fruit ripening.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuang, Jian-Fei; Chen, Jian-Ye; Liu, Xun-Cheng; Han, Yan-Chao; Xiao, Yun-Yi; Shan, Wei; Tang, Yang; Wu, Ke-Qiang; He, Jun-Xian; Lu, Wang-Jin

2017-04-01

Fruit ripening is a complex, genetically programmed process involving the action of critical transcription factors (TFs). Despite the established significance of dehydration-responsive element binding (DREB) TFs in plant abiotic stress responses, the involvement of DREBs in fruit ripening is yet to be determined. Here, we identified four genes encoding ripening-regulated DREB TFs in banana (Musa acuminata), MaDREB1, MaDREB2, MaDREB3, and MaDREB4, and demonstrated that they play regulatory roles in fruit ripening. We showed that MaDREB1-MaDREB4 are nucleus-localized, induced by ethylene and encompass transcriptional activation activities. We performed a genome-wide chromatin immunoprecipitation and high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-Seq) experiment for MaDREB2 and identified 697 genomic regions as potential targets of MaDREB2. MaDREB2 binds to hundreds of loci with diverse functions and its binding sites are distributed in the promoter regions proximal to the transcriptional start site (TSS). Most of the MaDREB2-binding targets contain the conserved (A/G)CC(G/C)AC motif and MaDREB2 appears to directly regulate the expression of a number of genes involved in fruit ripening. In combination with transcriptome profiling (RNA sequencing) data, our results indicate that MaDREB2 may serve as both transcriptional activator and repressor during banana fruit ripening. In conclusion, our study suggests a hierarchical regulatory model of fruit ripening in banana and that the MaDREB TFs may act as transcriptional regulators in the regulatory network. © 2017 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2017 New Phytologist Trust.

Transcriptional program of ciliated epithelial cells reveals new cilium and centrosome components and links to human disease.

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Ramona A Hoh

Full Text Available Defects in the centrosome and cilium are associated with a set of human diseases having diverse phenotypes. To further characterize the components that define the function of these organelles we determined the transcriptional profile of multiciliated tracheal epithelial cells. Cultures of mouse tracheal epithelial cells undergoing differentiation in vitro were derived from mice expressing GFP from the ciliated-cell specific FOXJ1 promoter (FOXJ1:GFP. The transcriptional profile of ciliating GFP+ cells from these cultures was defined at an early and a late time point during differentiation and was refined by subtraction of the profile of the non-ciliated GFP- cells. We identified 649 genes upregulated early, when most cells were forming basal bodies, and 73 genes genes upregulated late, when most cells were fully ciliated. Most, but not all, of known centrosome proteins are transcriptionally upregulated early, particularly Plk4, a master regulator of centriole formation. We found that three genes associated with human disease states, Mdm1, Mlf1, and Dyx1c1, are upregulated during ciliogenesis and localize to centrioles and cilia. This transcriptome for mammalian multiciliated epithelial cells identifies new candidate centrosome and cilia proteins, highlights similarities between components of motile and primary cilia, and identifies new links between cilia proteins and human disease.

Characterisation of CDKL5 Transcript Isoforms in Human and Mouse.

Science.gov (United States)

Hector, Ralph D; Dando, Owen; Landsberger, Nicoletta; Kilstrup-Nielsen, Charlotte; Kind, Peter C; Bailey, Mark E S; Cobb, Stuart R

2016-01-01

Mutations in the X-linked Cyclin-Dependent Kinase-Like 5 gene (CDKL5) cause early onset infantile spasms and subsequent severe developmental delay in affected children. Deleterious mutations have been reported to occur throughout the CDKL5 coding region. Several studies point to a complex CDKL5 gene structure in terms of exon usage and transcript expression. Improvements in molecular diagnosis and more extensive research into the neurobiology of CDKL5 and pathophysiology of CDKL5 disorders necessitate an updated analysis of the gene. In this study, we have analysed human and mouse CDKL5 transcript patterns both bioinformatically and experimentally. We have characterised the predominant brain isoform of CDKL5, a 9.7 kb transcript comprised of 18 exons with a large 6.6 kb 3'-untranslated region (UTR), which we name hCDKL5_1. In addition we describe new exonic regions and a range of novel splice and UTR isoforms. This has enabled the description of an updated gene model in both species and a standardised nomenclature system for CDKL5 transcripts. Profiling revealed tissue- and brain development stage-specific differences in expression between transcript isoforms. These findings provide an essential backdrop for the diagnosis of CDKL5-related disorders, for investigations into the basic biology of this gene and its protein products, and for the rational design of gene-based and molecular therapies for these disorders.

Global transcriptional profiling of the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium fundyense using Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anderson Donald M

2006-04-01

duplication in dinoflagellates, which would contribute to the transcriptional complexity of these organisms. The MPSS data also demonstrate that a significant number of dinoflagellate mRNAs are transcriptionally regulated, indicating that dinoflagellates commonly employ transcriptional gene regulation along with the post-transcriptional regulation that has been well documented in these organisms.

CAR and PXR-dependent transcriptional changes in the mouse liver after exposure to propiconazole

Science.gov (United States)

Exposure to the conazoles propiconazole and triadimefon but not myclobutanilled to tumors in mice after 2 years. Transcript profiling studies in the livers ofwild-type mice after short-term exposure to the conazoles revealed signatures indicating the involvement ofthe nuclear rec...

Gene Structures, Evolution and Transcriptional Profiling of the WRKY Gene Family in Castor Bean (Ricinus communis L.).

Science.gov (United States)

Zou, Zhi; Yang, Lifu; Wang, Danhua; Huang, Qixing; Mo, Yeyong; Xie, Guishui

2016-01-01

WRKY proteins comprise one of the largest transcription factor families in plants and form key regulators of many plant processes. This study presents the characterization of 58 WRKY genes from the castor bean (Ricinus communis L., Euphorbiaceae) genome. Compared with the automatic genome annotation, one more WRKY-encoding locus was identified and 20 out of the 57 predicted gene models were manually corrected. All RcWRKY genes were shown to contain at least one intron in their coding sequences. According to the structural features of the present WRKY domains, the identified RcWRKY genes were assigned to three previously defined groups (I-III). Although castor bean underwent no recent whole-genome duplication event like physic nut (Jatropha curcas L., Euphorbiaceae), comparative genomics analysis indicated that one gene loss, one intron loss and one recent proximal duplication occurred in the RcWRKY gene family. The expression of all 58 RcWRKY genes was supported by ESTs and/or RNA sequencing reads derived from roots, leaves, flowers, seeds and endosperms. Further global expression profiles with RNA sequencing data revealed diverse expression patterns among various tissues. Results obtained from this study not only provide valuable information for future functional analysis and utilization of the castor bean WRKY genes, but also provide a useful reference to investigate the gene family expansion and evolution in Euphorbiaceus plants.

Two new xylanases with different substrate specificities from the human gut bacterium Bacteroides intestinalis DSM 17393.

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Pei-Ying; Iakiviak, Michael; Dodd, Dylan; Zhang, Meiling; Mackie, Roderick I; Cann, Isaac

2014-04-01

Xylan is an abundant plant cell wall polysaccharide and is a dominant component of dietary fiber. Bacteria in the distal human gastrointestinal tract produce xylanase enzymes to initiate the degradation of this complex heteropolymer. These xylanases typically derive from glycoside hydrolase (GH) families 10 and 11; however, analysis of the genome sequence of the xylan-degrading human gut bacterium Bacteroides intestinalis DSM 17393 revealed the presence of two putative GH8 xylanases. In the current study, we demonstrate that the two genes encode enzymes that differ in activity. The xyn8A gene encodes an endoxylanase (Xyn8A), and rex8A encodes a reducing-end xylose-releasing exo-oligoxylanase (Rex8A). Xyn8A hydrolyzed both xylopentaose (X5) and xylohexaose (X6) to a mixture of xylobiose (X2) and xylotriose (X3), while Rex8A hydrolyzed X3 through X6 to a mixture of xylose (X1) and X2. Moreover, rex8A is located downstream of a GH3 gene (xyl3A) that was demonstrated to exhibit β-xylosidase activity and would be able to further hydrolyze X2 to X1. Mutational analyses of putative active site residues of both Xyn8A and Rex8A confirm their importance in catalysis by these enzymes. Recent genome sequences of gut bacteria reveal an increase in GH8 Rex enzymes, especially among the Bacteroidetes, indicating that these genes contribute to xylan utilization in the human gut.

Two New Xylanases with Different Substrate Specificities from the Human Gut Bacterium Bacteroides intestinalis DSM 17393

KAUST Repository

Hong, Pei-Ying

2014-01-24

Xylan is an abundant plant cell wall polysaccharide and is a dominant component of dietary fiber. Bacteria in the distal human gastrointestinal tract produce xylanase enzymes to initiate the degradation of this complex heteropolymer. These xylanases typically derive from glycoside hydrolase (GH) families 10 and 11; however, analysis of the genome sequence of the xylan-degrading human gut bacterium Bacteroides intestinalis DSM 17393 revealed the presence of two putative GH8 xylanases. In the current study, we demonstrate that the two genes encode enzymes that differ in activity. The xyn8A gene encodes an endoxylanase (Xyn8A), and rex8A encodes a reducing-end xylose-releasing exo-oligoxylanase (Rex8A). Xyn8A hydrolyzed both xylopentaose (X5) and xylohexaose (X6) to a mixture of xylobiose (X2) and xylotriose (X3), while Rex8A hydrolyzed X3 through X6 to a mixture of xylose (X1) and X2. Moreover, rex8A is located downstream of a GH3 gene (xyl3A) that was demonstrated to exhibit β-xylosidase activity and would be able to further hydrolyze X2 to X1. Mutational analyses of putative active site residues of both Xyn8A and Rex8A confirm their importance in catalysis by these enzymes. Recent genome sequences of gut bacteria reveal an increase in GH8 Rex enzymes, especially among the Bacteroidetes, indicating that these genes contribute to xylan utilization in the human gut.

Two New Xylanases with Different Substrate Specificities from the Human Gut Bacterium Bacteroides intestinalis DSM 17393

KAUST Repository

Hong, Pei-Ying; Iakiviak, M.; Dodd, D.; Zhang, M.; Mackie, R. I.; Cann, I.

2014-01-01

Xylan is an abundant plant cell wall polysaccharide and is a dominant component of dietary fiber. Bacteria in the distal human gastrointestinal tract produce xylanase enzymes to initiate the degradation of this complex heteropolymer. These xylanases typically derive from glycoside hydrolase (GH) families 10 and 11; however, analysis of the genome sequence of the xylan-degrading human gut bacterium Bacteroides intestinalis DSM 17393 revealed the presence of two putative GH8 xylanases. In the current study, we demonstrate that the two genes encode enzymes that differ in activity. The xyn8A gene encodes an endoxylanase (Xyn8A), and rex8A encodes a reducing-end xylose-releasing exo-oligoxylanase (Rex8A). Xyn8A hydrolyzed both xylopentaose (X5) and xylohexaose (X6) to a mixture of xylobiose (X2) and xylotriose (X3), while Rex8A hydrolyzed X3 through X6 to a mixture of xylose (X1) and X2. Moreover, rex8A is located downstream of a GH3 gene (xyl3A) that was demonstrated to exhibit β-xylosidase activity and would be able to further hydrolyze X2 to X1. Mutational analyses of putative active site residues of both Xyn8A and Rex8A confirm their importance in catalysis by these enzymes. Recent genome sequences of gut bacteria reveal an increase in GH8 Rex enzymes, especially among the Bacteroidetes, indicating that these genes contribute to xylan utilization in the human gut.

Redefining the transcriptional regulatory dynamics of classically and alternatively activated macrophages by deepCAGE transcriptomics

KAUST Repository

Roy, S.

2015-06-27

Classically or alternatively activated macrophages (M1 and M2, respectively) play distinct and important roles for microbiocidal activity, regulation of inflammation and tissue homeostasis. Despite this, their transcriptional regulatory dynamics are poorly understood. Using promoter-level expression profiling by non-biased deepCAGE we have studied the transcriptional dynamics of classically and alternatively activated macrophages. Transcription factor (TF) binding motif activity analysis revealed four motifs, NFKB1_REL_RELA, IRF1,2, IRF7 and TBP that are commonly activated but have distinct activity dynamics in M1 and M2 activation. We observe matching changes in the expression profiles of the corresponding TFs and show that only a restricted set of TFs change expression. There is an overall drastic and transient up-regulation in M1 and a weaker and more sustainable up-regulation in M2. Novel TFs, such as Thap6, Maff, (M1) and Hivep1, Nfil3, Prdm1, (M2) among others, were suggested to be involved in the activation processes. Additionally, 52 (M1) and 67 (M2) novel differentially expressed genes and, for the first time, several differentially expressed long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) transcriptome markers were identified. In conclusion, the finding of novel motifs, TFs and protein-coding and lncRNA genes is an important step forward to fully understand the transcriptional machinery of macrophage activation.

Genome-wide screening and transcriptional profile analysis of desaturase genes in the European corn borer moth

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Bingye Xue; Alejandro P. Rooney; Wendell L. Roelofs

2012-01-01

Acyl-coenzyme A (Acyl-CoA) desaturases play a key role in the biosynthesis of female moth sex pheromones.Desaturase genes are encoded by a large multigene family,and they have been divided into five subgroups on the basis of biochemical functionality and phylogenetic affinity.In this study both copy numbers and transcriptional levels of desaturase genes in the European corn borer (ECB),Ostrinia nubilalis,were investigated.The results from genome-wide screening of ECB bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC)library indicated there are many copies of some desaturase genes in the genome.An open reading frame (ORF) has been isolated for the novel desaturase gene ECB ezi-△11β from ECB gland complementary DNA and its functionality has been analyzed by two yeast expression systems.No functional activities have been detected for it.The expression levels of the four desaturase genes both in the pheromone gland and fat body of ECB and Asian corn borer (ACB),O.furnacalis,were determined by real-time polymerase chain reaction.In the ECB gland,△ 11 is the most abundant,although the amount of △14 is also considerable.In the ACB gland,△14 is the most abundant and is 100 times more abundant than all the other three combined.The results from the analysis of evolution of desaturase gene transcription in the ECB,ACB and other moths indicate that the pattern of △ 11 gene transcription is significantly different from the transcriptional patterns of other desaturase genes and this difference is tied to the underlying nucleotide composition bias of the genome.

Pervasive transcription read-through promotes aberrant expression of oncogenes and RNA chimeras in renal carcinoma

Science.gov (United States)

Grosso, Ana R; Leite, Ana P; Carvalho, Sílvia; Matos, Mafalda R; Martins, Filipa B; Vítor, Alexandra C; Desterro, Joana MP; Carmo-Fonseca, Maria; de Almeida, Sérgio F

2015-01-01

Aberrant expression of cancer genes and non-canonical RNA species is a hallmark of cancer. However, the mechanisms driving such atypical gene expression programs are incompletely understood. Here, our transcriptional profiling of a cohort of 50 primary clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) reveals that transcription read-through beyond the termination site is a source of transcriptome diversity in cancer cells. Amongst the genes most frequently mutated in ccRCC, we identified SETD2 inactivation as a potent enhancer of transcription read-through. We further show that invasion of neighbouring genes and generation of RNA chimeras are functional outcomes of transcription read-through. We identified the BCL2 oncogene as one of such invaded genes and detected a novel chimera, the CTSC-RAB38, in 20% of ccRCC samples. Collectively, our data highlight a novel link between transcription read-through and aberrant expression of oncogenes and chimeric transcripts that is prevalent in cancer. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.09214.001 PMID:26575290

Reconstruction of the core and extended regulons of global transcription factors.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yann S Dufour

2010-07-01

Full Text Available The processes underlying the evolution of regulatory networks are unclear. To address this question, we used a comparative genomics approach that takes advantage of the large number of sequenced bacterial genomes to predict conserved and variable members of transcriptional regulatory networks across phylogenetically related organisms. Specifically, we developed a computational method to predict the conserved regulons of transcription factors across alpha-proteobacteria. We focused on the CRP/FNR super-family of transcription factors because it contains several well-characterized members, such as FNR, FixK, and DNR. While FNR, FixK, and DNR are each proposed to regulate different aspects of anaerobic metabolism, they are predicted to recognize very similar DNA target sequences, and they occur in various combinations among individual alpha-proteobacterial species. In this study, the composition of the respective FNR, FixK, or DNR conserved regulons across 87 alpha-proteobacterial species was predicted by comparing the phylogenetic profiles of the regulators with the profiles of putative target genes. The utility of our predictions was evaluated by experimentally characterizing the FnrL regulon (a FNR-type regulator in the alpha-proteobacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides. Our results show that this approach correctly predicted many regulon members, provided new insights into the biological functions of the respective regulons for these regulators, and suggested models for the evolution of the corresponding transcriptional networks. Our findings also predict that, at least for the FNR-type regulators, there is a core set of target genes conserved across many species. In addition, the members of the so-called extended regulons for the FNR-type regulators vary even among closely related species, possibly reflecting species-specific adaptation to environmental and other factors. The comparative genomics approach we developed is readily applicable to other

Transcriptional correlates of disease outcome in anticoagulant-treated non-human primates infected with ebolavirus.

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Sara Garamszegi

Full Text Available Ebola virus (EBOV infection in humans and non-human primates (NHPs is highly lethal, and there is limited understanding of the mechanisms associated with pathogenesis and survival. Here, we describe a transcriptomic analysis of NHPs that survived lethal EBOV infection, compared to NHPs that did not survive. It has been previously demonstrated that anticoagulant therapeutics increase the survival rate in EBOV-infected NHPs, and that the characteristic transcriptional profile of immune response changes in anticoagulant-treated NHPs. In order to identify transcriptional signatures that correlate with survival following EBOV infection, we compared the mRNA expression profile in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from EBOV-infected NHPs that received anticoagulant treatment, to those that did not receive treatment. We identified a small set of 20 genes that are highly confident predictors and can accurately distinguish between surviving and non-surviving animals. In addition, we identified a larger predictive signature of 238 genes that correlated with disease outcome and treatment; this latter signature was associated with a variety of host responses, such as the inflammatory response, T cell death, and inhibition of viral replication. Notably, among survival-associated genes were subsets of genes that are transcriptionally regulated by (1 CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein alpha, (2 tumor protein 53, and (3 megakaryoblastic leukemia 1 and myocardin-like protein 2. These pathways merit further investigation as potential transcriptional signatures of host immune response to EBOV infection.

High resolution analysis of the human transcriptome: detection of extensive alternative splicing independent of transcriptional activity

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Rouet Fabien

2009-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Commercially available microarrays have been used in many settings to generate expression profiles for a variety of applications, including target selection for disease detection, classification, profiling for pharmacogenomic response to therapeutics, and potential disease staging. However, many commercially available microarray platforms fail to capture transcript diversity produced by alternative splicing, a major mechanism for driving proteomic diversity through transcript heterogeneity. Results The human Genome-Wide SpliceArray™ (GWSA, a novel microarray platform, utilizes an existing probe design concept to monitor such transcript diversity on a genome scale. The human GWSA allows the detection of alternatively spliced events within the human genome through the use of exon body and exon junction probes to provide a direct measure of each transcript, through simple calculations derived from expression data. This report focuses on the performance and validation of the array when measured against standards recently published by the Microarray Quality Control (MAQC Project. The array was shown to be highly quantitative, and displayed greater than 85% correlation with the HG-U133 Plus 2.0 array at the gene level while providing more extensive coverage of each gene. Almost 60% of splice events among genes demonstrating differential expression of greater than 3 fold also contained extensive splicing alterations. Importantly, almost 10% of splice events within the gene set displaying constant overall expression values had evidence of transcript diversity. Two examples illustrate the types of events identified: LIM domain 7 showed no differential expression at the gene level, but demonstrated deregulation of an exon skip event, while erythrocyte membrane protein band 4.1 -like 3 was differentially expressed and also displayed deregulation of a skipped exon isoform. Conclusion Significant changes were detected independent of

Ciona intestinalis as a Marine Model System to Study Some Key Developmental Genes Targeted by the Diatom-Derived Aldehyde Decadienal

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Anna Lettieri

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The anti-proliferative effects of diatoms, described for the first time in copepods, have also been demonstrated in benthic invertebrates such as polychaetes, sea urchins and tunicates. In these organisms PUAs (polyunsaturated aldehydes induce the disruption of gametogenesis, gamete functionality, fertilization, embryonic mitosis, and larval fitness and competence. These inhibitory effects are due to the PUAs, produced by diatoms in response to physical damage as occurs during copepod grazing. The cell targets of these compounds remain largely unknown. Here we identify some of the genes targeted by the diatom PUA 2-trans-4-trans-decadienal (DD using the tunicate Ciona intestinalis. The tools, techniques and genomic resources available for Ciona, as well as the suitability of Ciona embryos for medium-to high-throughput strategies, are key to their employment as model organisms in different fields, including the investigation of toxic agents that could interfere with developmental processes. We demonstrate that DD can induce developmental aberrations in Ciona larvae in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, through a preliminary analysis, DD is shown to affect the expression level of genes involved in stress response and developmental processes.

Increased frequency of single base substitutions in a population of transcripts expressed in cancer cells

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Bianchetti Laurent

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Single Base Substitutions (SBS that alter transcripts expressed in cancer originate from somatic mutations. However, recent studies report SBS in transcripts that are not supported by the genomic DNA of tumor cells. Methods We used sequence based whole genome expression profiling, namely Long-SAGE (L-SAGE and Tag-seq (a combination of L-SAGE and deep sequencing, and computational methods to identify transcripts with greater SBS frequencies in cancer. Millions of tags produced by 40 healthy and 47 cancer L-SAGE experiments were compared to 1,959 Reference Tags (RT, i.e. tags matching the human genome exactly once. Similarly, tens of millions of tags produced by 7 healthy and 8 cancer Tag-seq experiments were compared to 8,572 RT. For each transcript, SBS frequencies in healthy and cancer cells were statistically tested for equality. Results In the L-SAGE and Tag-seq experiments, 372 and 4,289 transcripts respectively, showed greater SBS frequencies in cancer. Increased SBS frequencies could not be attributed to known Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP, catalogued somatic mutations or RNA-editing enzymes. Hypothesizing that Single Tags (ST, i.e. tags sequenced only once, were indicators of SBS, we observed that ST proportions were heterogeneously distributed across Embryonic Stem Cells (ESC, healthy differentiated and cancer cells. ESC had the lowest ST proportions, whereas cancer cells had the greatest. Finally, in a series of experiments carried out on a single patient at 1 healthy and 3 consecutive tumor stages, we could show that SBS frequencies increased during cancer progression. Conclusion If the mechanisms generating the base substitutions could be known, increased SBS frequency in transcripts would be a new useful biomarker of cancer. With the reduction of sequencing cost, sequence based whole genome expression profiling could be used to characterize increased SBS frequency in patient’s tumor and aid diagnostic.

Increased frequency of single base substitutions in a population of transcripts expressed in cancer cells

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Bianchetti, Laurent; Kieffer, David; Féderkeil, Rémi; Poch, Olivier

2012-01-01

Single Base Substitutions (SBS) that alter transcripts expressed in cancer originate from somatic mutations. However, recent studies report SBS in transcripts that are not supported by the genomic DNA of tumor cells. We used sequence based whole genome expression profiling, namely Long-SAGE (L-SAGE) and Tag-seq (a combination of L-SAGE and deep sequencing), and computational methods to identify transcripts with greater SBS frequencies in cancer. Millions of tags produced by 40 healthy and 47 cancer L-SAGE experiments were compared to 1,959 Reference Tags (RT), i.e. tags matching the human genome exactly once. Similarly, tens of millions of tags produced by 7 healthy and 8 cancer Tag-seq experiments were compared to 8,572 RT. For each transcript, SBS frequencies in healthy and cancer cells were statistically tested for equality. In the L-SAGE and Tag-seq experiments, 372 and 4,289 transcripts respectively, showed greater SBS frequencies in cancer. Increased SBS frequencies could not be attributed to known Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP), catalogued somatic mutations or RNA-editing enzymes. Hypothesizing that Single Tags (ST), i.e. tags sequenced only once, were indicators of SBS, we observed that ST proportions were heterogeneously distributed across Embryonic Stem Cells (ESC), healthy differentiated and cancer cells. ESC had the lowest ST proportions, whereas cancer cells had the greatest. Finally, in a series of experiments carried out on a single patient at 1 healthy and 3 consecutive tumor stages, we could show that SBS frequencies increased during cancer progression. If the mechanisms generating the base substitutions could be known, increased SBS frequency in transcripts would be a new useful biomarker of cancer. With the reduction of sequencing cost, sequence based whole genome expression profiling could be used to characterize increased SBS frequency in patient’s tumor and aid diagnostic

Evaluation of genome damage and transcription profile of DNA damage/repair response genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells exposed to low dose radiation

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Soren, D.C.; Saini, Divyalakshmi; Das, Birajalaxmi

2016-01-01

Humans are exposed to various physical and chemical mutagens in their life time. Physical mutagens, like ionizing radiation (IR), may induce adverse effect at high acute dose exposures in human cells. However, there are inconsistent results on the effect of low dose radiation exposure in human cells. There are a variety of DNA damage endpoints to evaluate the effect of low dose radiation in human cells. DNA damage response (DDR) may lead to changes in expression profile of many genes. In the present study, an attempt has been made to evaluate genome damage at low dose IR exposure in human blood lymphocytes. Cytochalasin blocked micronuclei (CBMN) assay has been used to determine the frequency of micronuclei in binucleated cells in PBMCs exposed to IR. Transcription profile of ATM, P53, GADD45A, CDKN1A, TRF1 and TRF2 genes was studied using real time quantitative PCR. Venous blood samples collected from 10 random healthy donors were irradiated with different doses of γ-radiation ( 137 Cs) along with sham irradiated control. Whole blood culture was set up using microculture technique. Blood samples were stimulated with phytohemagglutinin, and CBMN assay was performed. An average of 2,500 binucleated cells was scored for each dose point. For gene expression analysis, total RNA was isolated, cDNA was prepared, and gene expression analysis for ATM, P53, CDKN1A, GADD45A, TRF1 and TRF2 was done using real time PCR. Our results revealed no significant increase in the frequency of MN up to 100 mGy as compared to control. However, no significant alteration in gene expression profile was observed. In conclusion, no significant dose response was observed at the frequency of MN as well as the expression profile of DDR/repair genes, suggesting low dose radiation did not induce significant DNA damage at these acute dose exposures. (author)

Modulation of transcription factors by curcumin.

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Shishodia, Shishir; Singh, Tulika; Chaturvedi, Madan M

2007-01-01

Curcumin is the active ingredient of turmeric that has been consumed as a dietary spice for ages. Turmeric is widely used in traditional Indian medicine to cure biliary disorders, anorexia, cough, diabetic wounds, hepatic disorders, rheumatism, and sinusitis. Extensive investigation over the last five decades has indicated that curcumin reduces blood cholesterol, prevents low-density lipoprotein oxidation, inhibits platelet aggregation, suppresses thrombosis and myocardial infarction, suppresses symptoms associated with type II diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease, inhibits HIV replication, enhances wound healing, protects from liver injury, increases bile secretion, protects from cataract formation, and protects from pulmonary toxicity and fibrosis. Evidence indicates that the divergent effects of curcumin are dependent on its pleiotropic molecular effects. These include the regulation of signal transduction pathways and direct modulation of several enzymatic activities. Most of these signaling cascades lead to the activation of transcription factors. Curcumin has been found to modulate the activity of several key transcription factors and, in turn, the cellular expression profiles. Curcumin has been shown to elicit vital cellular responses such as cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, and differentiation by activating a cascade of molecular events. In this chapter, we briefly review the effects of curcumin on transcription factors NF-KB, AP-1, Egr-1, STATs, PPAR-gamma, beta-catenin, nrf2, EpRE, p53, CBP, and androgen receptor (AR) and AR-related cofactors giving major emphasis to the molecular mechanisms of its action.

Gene expression profiling via LongSAGE in a non-model plant species: a case study in seeds of Brassica napus

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Friedt Wolfgang

2009-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Serial analysis of gene expression (LongSAGE was applied for gene expression profiling in seeds of oilseed rape (Brassica napus ssp. napus. The usefulness of this technique for detailed expression profiling in a non-model organism was demonstrated for the highly complex, neither fully sequenced nor annotated genome of B. napus by applying a tag-to-gene matching strategy based on Brassica ESTs and the annotated proteome of the closely related model crucifer A. thaliana. Results Transcripts from 3,094 genes were detected at two time-points of seed development, 23 days and 35 days after pollination (DAP. Differential expression showed a shift from gene expression involved in diverse developmental processes including cell proliferation and seed coat formation at 23 DAP to more focussed metabolic processes including storage protein accumulation and lipid deposition at 35 DAP. The most abundant transcripts at 23 DAP were coding for diverse protease inhibitor proteins and proteases, including cysteine proteases involved in seed coat formation and a number of lipid transfer proteins involved in embryo pattern formation. At 35 DAP, transcripts encoding napin, cruciferin and oleosin storage proteins were most abundant. Over both time-points, 18.6% of the detected genes were matched by Brassica ESTs identified by LongSAGE tags in antisense orientation. This suggests a strong involvement of antisense transcript expression in regulatory processes during B. napus seed development. Conclusion This study underlines the potential of transcript tagging approaches for gene expression profiling in Brassica crop species via EST matching to annotated A. thaliana genes. Limits of tag detection for low-abundance transcripts can today be overcome by ultra-high throughput sequencing approaches, so that tag-based gene expression profiling may soon become the method of choice for global expression profiling in non-model species.

Exploring the utility of organo-polyoxometalate hybrids to inhibit SOX transcription factors.

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Narasimhan, Kamesh; Micoine, Kevin; Lacôte, Emmanuel; Thorimbert, Serge; Cheung, Edwin; Hasenknopf, Bernold; Jauch, Ralf

2014-01-01

SOX transcription factors constitute an attractive target class for intervention with small molecules as they play a prominent role in the field of regenerative biomedicine and cancer biology. However, rationally engineering specific inhibitors that interfere with transcription factor DNA interfaces continues to be a monumental challenge in the field of transcription factor chemical biology. Polyoxometalates (POMs) are inorganic compounds that were previously shown to target the high-mobility group (HMG) of SOX proteins at nanomolar concentrations. In continuation of this work, we carried out an assessment of the selectivity of a panel of newly synthesized organo-polyoxometalate hybrids in targeting different transcription factor families to enable the usage of polyoxometalates as specific SOX transcription factor drugs. The residual DNA-binding activities of 15 different transcription factors were measured after treatment with a panel of diverse polyoxometalates. Polyoxometalates belonging to the Dawson structural class were found to be more potent inhibitors than the Keggin class. Further, organically modified Dawson polyoxometalates were found to be the most potent in inhibiting transcription factor DNA binding activity. The size of the polyoxometalates and its derivitization were found to be the key determinants of their potency. Polyoxometalates are highly potent, nanomolar range inhibitors of the DNA binding activity of the Sox-HMG family. However, binding assays involving a limited subset of structurally diverse polyoxometalates revealed a low selectivity profile against different transcription factor families. Further progress in achieving selectivity and deciphering structure-activity relationship of POMs require the identification of POM binding sites on transcription factors using elaborate approaches like X-ray crystallography and multidimensional NMR. In summary, our report reaffirms that transcription factors are challenging molecular architectures

Global transcriptional responses of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans Wenelen under different sulfide minerals.

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Latorre, Mauricio; Ehrenfeld, Nicole; Cortés, María Paz; Travisany, Dante; Budinich, Marko; Aravena, Andrés; González, Mauricio; Bobadilla-Fazzini, Roberto A; Parada, Pilar; Maass, Alejandro

2016-01-01

In order to provide new information about the adaptation of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans during the bioleaching process, the current analysis presents the first report of the global transcriptional response of the native copper mine strain Wenelen (DSM 16786) oxidized under different sulfide minerals. Microarrays were used to measure the response of At. ferrooxidans Wenelen to shifts from iron supplemented liquid cultures (reference state) to the addition of solid substrates enriched in pyrite or chalcopyrite. Genes encoding for energy metabolism showed a similar transcriptional profile for the two sulfide minerals. Interestingly, four operons related to sulfur metabolism were over-expressed during growth on a reduced sulfur source. Genes associated with metal tolerance (RND and ATPases type P) were up-regulated in the presence of pyrite or chalcopyrite. These results suggest that At. ferrooxidans Wenelen presents an efficient transcriptional system developed to respond to environmental conditions, namely the ability to withstand high copper concentrations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Transcription profiling of the model cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7002 by NextGen (SOLiD™ Sequencing of cDNA

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Marcus eLudwig

2011-03-01

Full Text Available The genome of the unicellular, euryhaline cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 encodes about 3200 proteins. Transcripts were detected for nearly all annotated open reading frames by a global transcriptomic analysis by Next-Generation (SOLiDTM sequencing of cDNA. In the cDNA samples sequenced, ~90% of the mapped sequences were derived from the 16S and 23S ribosomal RNAs and ~10% of the sequences were derived from mRNAs. In cells grown photoautotrophically under standard conditions (38 °C, 1% (v/v CO2 in air, 250 µmol photons m-2 s-1, the highest transcript levels (up to 2% of the total mRNA for the most abundantly transcribed genes (e. g., cpcAB, psbA, psaA were generally derived from genes encoding structural components of the photosynthetic apparatus. High light exposure for one hour caused changes in transcript levels for genes encoding proteins of the photosynthetic apparatus, Type-1 NADH dehydrogenase complex and ATP synthase, whereas dark incubation for one hour resulted in a global decrease in transcript levels for photosynthesis-related genes and an increase in transcript levels for genes involved in carbohydrate degradation. Transcript levels for pyruvate kinase and the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex decreased sharply in cells incubated in the dark. Under dark anoxic (fermentative conditions, transcript changes indicated a global decrease in transcripts for respiratory proteins and suggested that cells employ an alternative phosphoenolpyruvate degradation pathway via phosphoenolpyruvate synthase (ppsA and the pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase (nifJ. Finally, the data suggested that an apparent operon involved in tetrapyrrole biosynthesis and fatty acid desaturation, acsF2-ho2-hemN2-desF, may be regulated by oxygen concentration.

Transcriptional profiling of five isolated size-matched stages of human preantral follicles

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Kristensen, Stine Gry; Ebbesen, Pernille; Andersen, Claus Yding

2015-01-01

Little is known of the early stages of human follicular development and the complex processes that regulate follicular growth. To identify genes of potential importance, we analysed follicle-related transcripts in five populations of isolated size-matched human preantral follicles by microarray...... factors of NOTCH signalling, IGF2, orphan nuclear receptor LRH-1, and homeobox gene HOXA7, indicating potentially important regulatory roles for these genes during early human folliculogenesis. We also found that FSHR mRNA and protein were present in the earliest stages of preantral follicles, whereas LHR...

Genomic profiling of neutrophil transcripts in Asian Qigong practitioners: a pilot study in gene regulation by mind-body interaction.

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Li, Quan-Zhen; Li, Ping; Garcia, Gabriela E; Johnson, Richard J; Feng, Lili

2005-02-01

The great similarity of the genomes of humans and other species stimulated us to search for genes regulated by elements associated with human uniqueness, such as the mind-body interaction. DNA microarray technology offers the advantage of analyzing thousands of genes simultaneously, with the potential to determine healthy phenotypic changes in gene expression. The aim of this study was to determine the genomic profile and function of neutrophils in Falun Gong (FLG, an ancient Chinese Qigong) practitioners, with healthy subjects as controls. Six (6) Asian FLG practitioners and 6 Asian normal healthy controls were recruited for our study. The practitioners have practiced FLG for at least 1 year (range, 1-5 years). The practice includes daily reading of FLG books and daily practice of exercises lasting 1-2 hours. Selected normal healthy controls did not perform Qigong, yoga, t'ai chi, or any other type of mind-body practice, and had not followed any conventional physical exercise program for at least 1 year. Neutrophils were isolated from fresh blood and assayed for gene expression, using microarrays and RNase protection assay (RPA), as well as for function (phagocytosis) and survival (apoptosis). The changes in gene expression of FLG practitioners in contrast to normal healthy controls were characterized by enhanced immunity, downregulation of cellular metabolism, and alteration of apoptotic genes in favor of a rapid resolution of inflammation. The lifespan of normal neutrophils was prolonged, while the inflammatory neutrophils displayed accelerated cell death in FLG practitioners as determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Correlating with enhanced immunity reflected by microarray data, neutrophil phagocytosis was significantly increased in Qigong practitioners. Some of the altered genes observed by microarray were confirmed by RPA. Qigong practice may regulate immunity, metabolic rate, and cell death, possibly at the transcriptional level. Our pilot study

Transcriptional regulation by competing transcription factor modules.

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Rutger Hermsen

2006-12-01

Full Text Available Gene regulatory networks lie at the heart of cellular computation. In these networks, intracellular and extracellular signals are integrated by transcription factors, which control the expression of transcription units by binding to cis-regulatory regions on the DNA. The designs of both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cis-regulatory regions are usually highly complex. They frequently consist of both repetitive and overlapping transcription factor binding sites. To unravel the design principles of these promoter architectures, we have designed in silico prokaryotic transcriptional logic gates with predefined input-output relations using an evolutionary algorithm. The resulting cis-regulatory designs are often composed of modules that consist of tandem arrays of binding sites to which the transcription factors bind cooperatively. Moreover, these modules often overlap with each other, leading to competition between them. Our analysis thus identifies a new signal integration motif that is based upon the interplay between intramodular cooperativity and intermodular competition. We show that this signal integration mechanism drastically enhances the capacity of cis-regulatory domains to integrate signals. Our results provide a possible explanation for the complexity of promoter architectures and could be used for the rational design of synthetic gene circuits.

A relative contribution of carbon from green tide algae Cladophora glomerata and Ulva intestinalis in the coastal food webs in the Neva Estuary (Baltic Sea).

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Golubkov, Sergey M; Berezina, Nadezhda A; Gubelit, Yulia I; Demchuk, Anna S; Golubkov, Mikhail S; Tiunov, Alexei V

2018-01-01

We analyzed stable isotope composition of carbon and nitrogen of suspended organic matter (seston) and tissues of macroalgae, macroinvertebrates and fish from the coastal area of the highly eutrophic Neva Estuary to test a hypothesis that organic carbon of macroalgae Cladophora glomerata and Ulva intestinalis produced during green tides may be among primary sources supporting coastal food webs. The Stable Isotope Bayesian mixing model (SIAR) showed that consumers poorly use organic carbon produced by macroalgae. According to the results of SIAR modeling, benthic macroinvertebrates and fish mostly rely on pelagic derived carbon as a basal resource for their production. Only some species of macroinvertebrates consumed macroalgae. Fish used this resource directly consuming zooplankton or indirectly via benthic macroinvertebrates. This was consistent with the results of the gut content analysis, which revealed a high proportion of zooplankton in the guts of non-predatory fish. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Identification and Expression Profiles of Six Transcripts Encoding Carboxylesterase Protein in Vitis flexuosa Infected with Pathogens

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Md. Zaherul Islam

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Plants protect themselves from pathogen attacks via several mechanisms, including hypersensitive cell death. Recognition of pathogen attack by the plant resistance gene triggers expression of carboxylesterase genes associated with hypersensitive response. We identified six transcripts of carboxylesterase genes, Vitis flexuosa carboxylesterase 5585 (VfCXE5585, VfCXE12827, VfCXE13132, VfCXE17159, VfCXE18231, and VfCXE47674, which showed different expression patterns upon transcriptome analysis of V. flexuosa inoculated with Elsinoe ampelina. The lengths of genes ranged from 1,098 to 1,629 bp, and their encoded proteins consisted of 309 to 335 amino acids. The predicted amino acid sequences showed hydrolase like domains in all six transcripts and contained two conserved motifs, GXSXG of serine hydrolase characteristics and HGGGF related to the carboxylesterase family. The deduced amino acid sequence also contained a potential catalytic triad consisted of serine, aspartic acid and histidine. Of the six transcripts, VfCXE12827 showed upregulated expression against E. ampelina at all time points. Three genes (VfCXE5585, VfCXE12827, and VfCXE13132 showed upregulation, while others (VfCXE17159, VfCXE18231, and VfCXE47674 were down regulated in grapevines infected with Botrytis cinerea. All transcripts showed upregulated expression against Rhizobium vitis at early and later time points except VfCXE12827, and were downregulated for up to 48 hours post inoculation (hpi after upregulation at 1 hpi in response to R. vitis infection. All tested genes showed high and differential expression in response to pathogens, indicating that they all may play a role in defense pathways during pathogen infection in grapevines.

Transcriptome profiling of Curcuma longa L. cv. Suvarna

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Ambika Sahoo

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Turmeric is an economically valued crop, because of its utility in the food, pharmaceutical industries and Ayurvedic medicine, attracts the attention in many areas of research work. In the present study, we executed resequencing through transcriptome assembly of the turmeric cultivar Suvarna (CL_Suv_10. Resequencing of Suvarna variety has generated 5 Gbases raw data with 75 bp paired-end sequence. The raw data has been submitted to SRA database of NCBI with accession number SRR4042181. Reads were assembled using Cufflinks-2.2.1 tool which ended up with 42994 numbers of transcripts. The length of transcripts ranged from 83 to15565, with a N50 value 1216 and median transcript length 773. The transcripts were annotated through number of databases. For the first time transcriptome profiling of cultivar Suvarna has been done, which could help towards identification of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs between Suvarna and other turmeric cultivars for its authentic identification.

Prevalence of Cryptosporidium spp., Enterocytozoon bieneusi, Encephalitozoon spp. and Giardia intestinalis in Wild, Semi-Wild and Captive Orangutans (Pongo abelii and Pongo pygmaeus) on Sumatra and Borneo, Indonesia.

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Mynářová, Anna; Foitová, Ivona; Kváč, Martin; Květoňová, Dana; Rost, Michael; Morrogh-Bernard, Helen; Nurcahyo, Wisnu; Nguyen, Cathleen; Supriyadi, Supriyadi; Sak, Bohumil

2016-01-01

Orangutans are critically endangered primarily due to loss and fragmentation of their natural habitat. This could bring them into closer contact with humans and increase the risk of zoonotic pathogen transmission. To describe the prevalence and diversity of Cryptosporidium spp., microsporidia and Giardia intestinalis in orangutans at seven sites on Sumatra and Kalimantan, and to evaluate the impact of orangutans' habituation and location on the occurrence of these zoonotic protists. The overall prevalence of parasites in 298 examined animals was 11.1%. The most prevalent microsporidia was Encephalitozoon cuniculi genotype II, found in 21 animals (7.0%). Enterocytozoon bieneusi genotype D (n = 5) and novel genotype Pongo 2 were detected only in six individuals (2.0%). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of these parasites in orangutans. Eight animals were positive for Cryptosporidium spp. (2.7%), including C. parvum (n = 2) and C. muris (n = 6). Giardia intestinalis assemblage B, subtype MB6, was identified in a single individual. While no significant differences between the different human contact level groups (p = 0.479-0.670) or between the different islands (p = 0.992) were reported in case of E. bieneusi or E. cuniculi, Cryptosporidium spp. was significantly less frequently detected in wild individuals (p < 2×10-16) and was significantly more prevalent in orangutans on Kalimantan than on Sumatra (p < 2×10-16). Our results revealed that wild orangutans are significantly less frequently infected by Cryptosporidium spp. than captive and semi-wild animals. In addition, this parasite was more frequently detected at localities on Kalimantan. In contrast, we did not detect any significant difference in the prevalence of microsporidia between the studied groups of animals. The sources and transmission modes of infections were not determined, as this would require repeated sampling of individuals, examination of water sources, and sampling of humans

Prevalence of Cryptosporidium spp., Enterocytozoon bieneusi, Encephalitozoon spp. and Giardia intestinalis in Wild, Semi-Wild and Captive Orangutans (Pongo abelii and Pongo pygmaeus on Sumatra and Borneo, Indonesia.

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Anna Mynářová

Full Text Available Orangutans are critically endangered primarily due to loss and fragmentation of their natural habitat. This could bring them into closer contact with humans and increase the risk of zoonotic pathogen transmission.To describe the prevalence and diversity of Cryptosporidium spp., microsporidia and Giardia intestinalis in orangutans at seven sites on Sumatra and Kalimantan, and to evaluate the impact of orangutans' habituation and location on the occurrence of these zoonotic protists.The overall prevalence of parasites in 298 examined animals was 11.1%. The most prevalent microsporidia was Encephalitozoon cuniculi genotype II, found in 21 animals (7.0%. Enterocytozoon bieneusi genotype D (n = 5 and novel genotype Pongo 2 were detected only in six individuals (2.0%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of these parasites in orangutans. Eight animals were positive for Cryptosporidium spp. (2.7%, including C. parvum (n = 2 and C. muris (n = 6. Giardia intestinalis assemblage B, subtype MB6, was identified in a single individual. While no significant differences between the different human contact level groups (p = 0.479-0.670 or between the different islands (p = 0.992 were reported in case of E. bieneusi or E. cuniculi, Cryptosporidium spp. was significantly less frequently detected in wild individuals (p < 2×10-16 and was significantly more prevalent in orangutans on Kalimantan than on Sumatra (p < 2×10-16.Our results revealed that wild orangutans are significantly less frequently infected by Cryptosporidium spp. than captive and semi-wild animals. In addition, this parasite was more frequently detected at localities on Kalimantan. In contrast, we did not detect any significant difference in the prevalence of microsporidia between the studied groups of animals. The sources and transmission modes of infections were not determined, as this would require repeated sampling of individuals, examination of water sources, and sampling of

Characterisation of CDKL5 Transcript Isoforms in Human and Mouse.

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Ralph D Hector

Full Text Available Mutations in the X-linked Cyclin-Dependent Kinase-Like 5 gene (CDKL5 cause early onset infantile spasms and subsequent severe developmental delay in affected children. Deleterious mutations have been reported to occur throughout the CDKL5 coding region. Several studies point to a complex CDKL5 gene structure in terms of exon usage and transcript expression. Improvements in molecular diagnosis and more extensive research into the neurobiology of CDKL5 and pathophysiology of CDKL5 disorders necessitate an updated analysis of the gene. In this study, we have analysed human and mouse CDKL5 transcript patterns both bioinformatically and experimentally. We have characterised the predominant brain isoform of CDKL5, a 9.7 kb transcript comprised of 18 exons with a large 6.6 kb 3'-untranslated region (UTR, which we name hCDKL5_1. In addition we describe new exonic regions and a range of novel splice and UTR isoforms. This has enabled the description of an updated gene model in both species and a standardised nomenclature system for CDKL5 transcripts. Profiling revealed tissue- and brain development stage-specific differences in expression between transcript isoforms. These findings provide an essential backdrop for the diagnosis of CDKL5-related disorders, for investigations into the basic biology of this gene and its protein products, and for the rational design of gene-based and molecular therapies for these disorders.

Gene transcription in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from disparate populations

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Bowen, Lizabeth; Miles, A. Keith; Waters, Shannon C.; Meyerson, Randi; Rode, Karyn D.; Atwood, Todd C.

2015-01-01

Polar bears in the Beaufort (SB) and Chukchi (CS) Seas experience different environments due primarily to a longer history of sea ice loss in the Beaufort Sea. Ecological differences have been identified as a possible reason for the generally poorer body condition and reproduction of Beaufort polar bears compared to those from the Chukchi, but the influence of exposure to other stressors remains unknown. We use molecular technology, quantitative PCR, to identify gene transcription differences among polar bears from the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas as well as captive healthy polar bears. We identified significant transcriptional differences among a priori groups (i.e., captive bears, SB 2012, SB 2013, CS 2013) for ten of the 14 genes of interest (i.e., CaM, HSP70, CCR3, TGFβ, COX2, THRα, T-bet, Gata3, CD69, and IL17); transcription levels of DRβ, IL1β, AHR, and Mx1 did not differ among groups. Multivariate analysis also demonstrated separation among the groups of polar bears. Specifically, we detected transcript profiles consistent with immune function impairment in polar bears from the Beaufort Sea, when compared with Chukchi and captive polar bears. Although there is no strong indication of differential exposure to contaminants or pathogens between CS and SB bears, there are clearly differences in important transcriptional responses between populations. Further investigation is warranted to refine interpretation of potential effects of described stress-related conditions for the SB population.

Transcript structure and domain display: a customizable transcript visualization tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Watanabe, Kenneth A; Ma, Kaiwang; Homayouni, Arielle; Rushton, Paul J; Shen, Qingxi J

2016-07-01

Transcript Structure and Domain Display (TSDD) is a publicly available, web-based program that provides publication quality images of transcript structures and domains. TSDD is capable of producing transcript structures from GFF/GFF3 and BED files. Alternatively, the GFF files of several model organisms have been pre-loaded so that users only needs to enter the locus IDs of the transcripts to be displayed. Visualization of transcripts provides many benefits to researchers, ranging from evolutionary analysis of DNA-binding domains to predictive function modeling. TSDD is freely available for non-commercial users at http://shenlab.sols.unlv.edu/shenlab/software/TSD/transcript_display.html : jeffery.shen@unlv.nevada.edu. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

LocExpress: a web server for efficiently estimating expression of novel transcripts.

Science.gov (United States)

Hou, Mei; Tian, Feng; Jiang, Shuai; Kong, Lei; Yang, Dechang; Gao, Ge

2016-12-22

The temporal and spatial-specific expression pattern of a transcript in multiple tissues and cell types can indicate key clues about its function. While several gene atlas available online as pre-computed databases for known gene models, it's still challenging to get expression profile for previously uncharacterized (i.e. novel) transcripts efficiently. Here we developed LocExpress, a web server for efficiently estimating expression of novel transcripts across multiple tissues and cell types in human (20 normal tissues/cells types and 14 cell lines) as well as in mouse (24 normal tissues/cell types and nine cell lines). As a wrapper to RNA-Seq quantification algorithm, LocExpress efficiently reduces the time cost by making abundance estimation calls increasingly within the minimum spanning bundle region of input transcripts. For a given novel gene model, such local context-oriented strategy allows LocExpress to estimate its FPKMs in hundreds of samples within minutes on a standard Linux box, making an online web server possible. To the best of our knowledge, LocExpress is the only web server to provide nearly real-time expression estimation for novel transcripts in common tissues and cell types. The server is publicly available at http://loc-express.cbi.pku.edu.cn .

Coevolution within a transcriptional network by compensatory trans and cis mutations

KAUST Repository

Kuo, D.

2010-10-26

Transcriptional networks have been shown to evolve very rapidly, prompting questions as to how such changes arise and are tolerated. Recent comparisons of transcriptional networks across species have implicated variations in the cis-acting DNA sequences near genes as the main cause of divergence. What is less clear is how these changes interact with trans-acting changes occurring elsewhere in the genetic circuit. Here, we report the discovery of a system of compensatory trans and cis mutations in the yeast AP-1 transcriptional network that allows for conserved transcriptional regulation despite continued genetic change. We pinpoint a single species, the fungal pathogen Candida glabrata, in which a trans mutation has occurred very recently in a single AP-1 family member, distinguishing it from its Saccharomyces ortholog. Comparison of chromatin immunoprecipitation profiles between Candida and Saccharomyces shows that, despite their different DNA-binding domains, the AP-1 orthologs regulate a conserved block of genes. This conservation is enabled by concomitant changes in the cis-regulatory motifs upstream of each gene. Thus, both trans and cis mutations have perturbed the yeast AP-1 regulatory system in such a way as to compensate for one another. This demonstrates an example of “coevolution” between a DNA-binding transcription factor and its cis-regulatory site, reminiscent of the coevolution of protein binding partners.

Rapid Genome-wide Recruitment of RNA Polymerase II Drives Transcription, Splicing, and Translation Events during T Cell Responses

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Kathrin Davari

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Summary: Activation of immune cells results in rapid functional changes, but how such fast changes are accomplished remains enigmatic. By combining time courses of 4sU-seq, RNA-seq, ribosome profiling (RP, and RNA polymerase II (RNA Pol II ChIP-seq during T cell activation, we illustrate genome-wide temporal dynamics for ∼10,000 genes. This approach reveals not only immediate-early and posttranscriptionally regulated genes but also coupled changes in transcription and translation for >90% of genes. Recruitment, rather than release of paused RNA Pol II, primarily mediates transcriptional changes. This coincides with a genome-wide temporary slowdown in cotranscriptional splicing, even for polyadenylated mRNAs that are localized at the chromatin. Subsequent splicing optimization correlates with increasing Ser-2 phosphorylation of the RNA Pol II carboxy-terminal domain (CTD and activation of the positive transcription elongation factor (pTEFb. Thus, rapid de novo recruitment of RNA Pol II dictates the course of events during T cell activation, particularly transcription, splicing, and consequently translation. : Davari et al. visualize global changes in RNA Pol II binding, transcription, splicing, and translation. T cells change their functional program by rapid de novo recruitment of RNA Pol II and coupled changes in transcription and translation. This coincides with fluctuations in RNA Pol II phosphorylation and a temporary reduction in cotranscriptional splicing. Keywords: RNA Pol II, cotranscriptional splicing, T cell activation, ribosome profiling, 4sU, H3K36, Ser-5 RNA Pol II, Ser-2 RNA Pol II, immune response, immediate-early genes

Genome-wide expression profiling shows transcriptional reprogramming in Fusarium graminearum by Fusarium graminearum virus 1-DK21 infection

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Cho Won

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Fusarium graminearum virus 1 strain-DK21 (FgV1-DK21 is a mycovirus that confers hypovirulence to F. graminearum, which is the primary phytopathogenic fungus that causes Fusarium head blight (FHB disease in many cereals. Understanding the interaction between mycoviruses and plant pathogenic fungi is necessary for preventing damage caused by F. graminearum. Therefore, we investigated important cellular regulatory processes in a host containing FgV1-DK21 as compared to an uninfected parent using a transcriptional approach. Results Using a 3′-tiling microarray covering all known F. graminearum genes, we carried out genome-wide expression analyses of F. graminearum at two different time points. At the early point of growth of an infected strain as compared to an uninfected strain, genes associated with protein synthesis, including ribosome assembly, nucleolus, and ribosomal RNA processing, were significantly up-regulated. In addition, genes required for transcription and signal transduction, including fungal-specific transcription factors and cAMP signaling, respectively, were actively up-regulated. In contrast, genes involved in various metabolic pathways, particularly in producing carboxylic acids, aromatic amino acids, nitrogen compounds, and polyamines, showed dramatic down-regulation at the early time point. Moreover, genes associated with transport systems localizing to transmembranes were down-regulated at both time points. Conclusion This is the first report of global change in the prominent cellular pathways in the Fusarium host containing FgV1-DK21. The significant increase in transcripts for transcription and translation machinery in fungal host cells seems to be related to virus replication. In addition, significant down-regulation of genes required for metabolism and transporting systems in a fungal host containing the virus appears to be related to the host defense mechanism and fungal virulence. Taken together

Erythroid-specific transcriptional changes in PBMCs from pulmonary hypertension patients.

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Chris Cheadle

Full Text Available Gene expression profiling of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs is a powerful tool for the identification of surrogate markers involved in disease processes. The hypothesis tested in this study was that chronic exposure of PBMCs to a hypertensive environment in remodeled pulmonary vessels would be reflected by specific transcriptional changes in these cells.The transcript profiles of PBMCs from 30 idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension patients (IPAH, 19 patients with systemic sclerosis without pulmonary hypertension (SSc, 42 scleroderma-associated pulmonary arterial hypertensio patients (SSc-PAH, and 8 patients with SSc complicated by interstitial lung disease and pulmonary hypertension (SSc-PH-ILD were compared to the gene expression profiles of PBMCs from 41 healthy individuals. Multiple gene expression signatures were identified which could distinguish various disease groups from controls. One of these signatures, specific for erythrocyte maturation, is enriched specifically in patients with PH. This association was validated in multiple published datasets. The erythropoiesis signature was strongly correlated with hemodynamic measures of increasing disease severity in IPAH patients. No significant correlation of the same type was noted for SSc-PAH patients, this despite a clear signature enrichment within this group overall. These findings suggest an association of the erythropoiesis signature in PBMCs from patients with PH with a variable presentation among different subtypes of disease.In PH, the expansion of immature red blood cell precursors may constitute a response to the increasingly hypoxic conditions prevalent in this syndrome. A correlation of this erythrocyte signature with more severe hypertension cases may provide an important biomarker of disease progression.

Identification of a transcription factor controlling pH-dependent organic acid response in Aspergillus niger.

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Lars Poulsen

Full Text Available Acid formation in Aspergillus niger is known to be subjected to tight regulation, and the acid production profiles are fine-tuned to respond to the ambient pH. Based on transcriptome data, putative trans-acting pH responding transcription factors were listed and through knock out studies, mutants exhibiting an oxalate overproducing phenotype were identified. The yield of oxalate was increased up to 158% compared to the wild type and the corresponding transcription factor was therefore entitled Oxalic Acid repression Factor, OafA. Detailed physiological characterization of one of the ΔoafA mutants, compared to the wild type, showed that both strains produced substantial amounts of gluconic acid, but the mutant strain was more efficient in re-uptake of gluconic acid and converting it to oxalic acid, particularly at high pH (pH 5.0. Transcriptional profiles showed that 241 genes were differentially expressed due to the deletion of oafA and this supported the argument of OafA being a trans-acting transcription factor. Furthermore, expression of two phosphoketolases was down-regulated in the ΔoafA mutant, one of which has not previously been described in fungi. It was argued that the observed oxalate overproducing phenotype was a consequence of the efficient re-uptake of gluconic acid and thereby a higher flux through glycolysis. This results in a lower flux through the pentose phosphate pathway, demonstrated by the down-regulation of the phosphoketolases. Finally, the physiological data, in terms of the specific oxygen consumption, indicated a connection between the oxidative phosphorylation and oxalate production and this was further substantiated through transcription analysis.

The Transcription Profile of Tax-3 Is More Similar to Tax-1 than Tax-2: Insights into HTLV-3 Potential Leukemogenic Properties

Science.gov (United States)

Chevalier, Sébastien A.; Durand, Stéphanie; Dasgupta, Arindam; Radonovich, Michael; Cimarelli, Andrea; Brady, John N.

2012-01-01

Human T-cell Lymphotropic Viruses type 1 (HTLV-1) is the etiological agent of Adult T-cell Leukemia/Lymphoma. Although associated with lymphocytosis, HTLV-2 infection is not associated with any malignant hematological disease. Similarly, no infection-related symptom has been detected in HTLV-3-infected individuals studied so far. Differences in individual Tax transcriptional activity might account for these distinct physiopathological outcomes. Tax-1 and Tax-3 possess a PDZ binding motif in their sequence. Interestingly, this motif, which is critical for Tax-1 transforming activity, is absent from Tax-2. We used the DNA microarray technology to analyze and compare the global gene expression profiles of different T- and non T-cell types expressing Tax-1, Tax-2 or Tax-3 viral transactivators. In a T-cell line, this analysis allowed us to identify 48 genes whose expression is commonly affected by all Tax proteins and are hence characteristic of the HTLV infection, independently of the virus type. Importantly, we also identified a subset of genes (n = 70) which are specifically up-regulated by Tax-1 and Tax-3, while Tax-1 and Tax-2 shared only 1 gene and Tax-2 and Tax-3 shared 8 genes. These results demonstrate that Tax-3 and Tax-1 are closely related in terms of cellular gene deregulation. Analysis of the molecular interactions existing between those Tax-1/Tax-3 deregulated genes then allowed us to highlight biological networks of genes characteristic of HTLV-1 and HTLV-3 infection. The majority of those up-regulated genes are functionally linked in biological processes characteristic of HTLV-1-infected T-cells expressing Tax such as regulation of transcription and apoptosis, activation of the NF-κB cascade, T-cell mediated immunity and induction of cell proliferation and differentiation. In conclusion, our results demonstrate for the first time that, in T- and non T-cells types, Tax-3 is a functional analogue of Tax-1 in terms of transcriptional activation and

Transcriptional profiling of the host cell response to feline immunodeficiency virus infection.

Science.gov (United States)

Ertl, Reinhard; Klein, Dieter

2014-03-19

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is a widespread pathogen of the domestic cat and an important animal model for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) research. In contrast to HIV, only limited information is available on the transcriptional host cell response to FIV infections. This study aims to identify FIV-induced gene expression changes in feline T-cells during the early phase of the infection. Illumina RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) was used identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) at 24 h after FIV infection. After removal of low-quality reads, the remaining sequencing data were mapped against the cat genome and the numbers of mapping reads were counted for each gene. Regulated genes were identified through the comparison of FIV and mock-infected data sets. After statistical analysis and the removal of genes with insufficient coverage, we detected a total of 69 significantly DEGs (44 up- and 25 down-regulated genes) upon FIV infection. The results obtained by RNA-seq were validated by reverse transcription qPCR analysis for 10 genes. Out of the most distinct DEGs identified in this study, several genes are already known to interact with HIV in humans, indicating comparable effects of both viruses on the host cell gene expression and furthermore, highlighting the importance of FIV as a model system for HIV. In addition, a set of new genes not previously linked to virus infections could be identified. The provided list of virus-induced genes may represent useful information for future studies focusing on the molecular mechanisms of virus-host interactions in FIV pathogenesis.

Transcriptional reprogramming in yeast using dCas9 and combinatorial gRNA strategies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Damgaard Jensen, Emil; Ferreira, Raphael; Jakociunas, Tadas

2017-01-01

on developing synthetic biology tools for orthogonal control of transcription. Most recently, the nuclease-deficient Cas9 (dCas9) has emerged as a flexible tool for controlling activation and repression of target genes, by the simple RNA-guided positioning of dCas9 in the vicinity of the target gene...... transcription start site. In this study we compared two different systems of dCas9-mediated transcriptional reprogramming, and applied them to genes controlling two biosynthetic pathways for biobased production of isoprenoids and triacylglycerols (TAGs) in baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. By testing 101...... production and increases in TAG. Taken together, we show similar performance for a constitutive and an inducible dCas9 approach, and identify multiplex gRNA designs that can significantly perturb isoprenoid production and TAG profiles in yeast without editing the genomic context of the target genes. We also...

The Transcriptional Signature of Active Tuberculosis Reflects Symptom Status in Extra-Pulmonary and Pulmonary Tuberculosis.

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Simon Blankley

Full Text Available Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is a leading cause of infectious death worldwide. Gene-expression microarray studies profiling the blood transcriptional response of tuberculosis (TB patients have been undertaken in order to better understand the host immune response as well as to identify potential biomarkers of disease. To date most of these studies have focused on pulmonary TB patients with gene-expression profiles of extra-pulmonary TB patients yet to be compared to those of patients with pulmonary TB or sarcoidosis.A novel cohort of patients with extra-pulmonary TB and sarcoidosis was recruited and the transcriptional response of these patients compared to those with pulmonary TB using a variety of transcriptomic approaches including testing a previously defined 380 gene meta-signature of active TB.The 380 meta-signature broadly differentiated active TB from healthy controls in this new dataset consisting of pulmonary and extra-pulmonary TB. The top 15 genes from this meta-signature had a lower sensitivity for differentiating extra-pulmonary TB from healthy controls as compared to pulmonary TB. We found the blood transcriptional responses in pulmonary and extra-pulmonary TB to be heterogeneous and to reflect the extent of symptoms of disease.The transcriptional signature in extra-pulmonary TB demonstrated heterogeneity of gene expression reflective of symptom status, while the signature of pulmonary TB was distinct, based on a higher proportion of symptomatic individuals. These findings are of importance for the rational design and implementation of mRNA based TB diagnostics.

A comprehensive collection of experimentally validated primers for Polymerase Chain Reaction quantitation of murine transcript abundance

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Wang Xiaowei

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR is a widely applied analytical method for the accurate determination of transcript abundance. Primers for QPCR have been designed on a genomic scale but non-specific amplification of non-target genes has frequently been a problem. Although several online databases have been created for the storage and retrieval of experimentally validated primers, only a few thousand primer pairs are currently present in existing databases and the primers are not designed for use under a common PCR thermal profile. Results We previously reported the implementation of an algorithm to predict PCR primers for most known human and mouse genes. We now report the use of that resource to identify 17483 pairs of primers that have been experimentally verified to amplify unique sequences corresponding to distinct murine transcripts. The primer pairs have been validated by gel electrophoresis, DNA sequence analysis and thermal denaturation profile. In addition to the validation studies, we have determined the uniformity of amplification using the primers and the technical reproducibility of the QPCR reaction using the popular and inexpensive SYBR Green I detection method. Conclusion We have identified an experimentally validated collection of murine primer pairs for PCR and QPCR which can be used under a common PCR thermal profile, allowing the evaluation of transcript abundance of a large number of genes in parallel. This feature is increasingly attractive for confirming and/or making more precise data trends observed from experiments performed with DNA microarrays.

Using RNA-seq to determine the transcriptional landscape and the hypoxic response of the pathogenic yeast Candida parapsilosis

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Guida, Alessandro

2011-12-22

Abstract Background Candida parapsilosis is one of the most common causes of Candida infection worldwide. However, the genome sequence annotation was made without experimental validation and little is known about the transcriptional landscape. The transcriptional response of C. parapsilosis to hypoxic (low oxygen) conditions, such as those encountered in the host, is also relatively unexplored. Results We used next generation sequencing (RNA-seq) to determine the transcriptional profile of C. parapsilosis growing in several conditions including different media, temperatures and oxygen concentrations. We identified 395 novel protein-coding sequences that had not previously been annotated. We removed > 300 unsupported gene models, and corrected approximately 900. We mapped the 5\\' and 3\\' UTR for thousands of genes. We also identified 422 introns, including two introns in the 3\\' UTR of one gene. This is the first report of 3\\' UTR introns in the Saccharomycotina. Comparing the introns in coding sequences with other species shows that small numbers have been gained and lost throughout evolution. Our analysis also identified a number of novel transcriptional active regions (nTARs). We used both RNA-seq and microarray analysis to determine the transcriptional profile of cells grown in normoxic and hypoxic conditions in rich media, and we showed that there was a high correlation between the approaches. We also generated a knockout of the UPC2 transcriptional regulator, and we found that similar to C. albicans, Upc2 is required for conferring resistance to azole drugs, and for regulation of expression of the ergosterol pathway in hypoxia. Conclusion We provide the first detailed annotation of the C. parapsilosis genome, based on gene predictions and transcriptional analysis. We identified a number of novel ORFs and other transcribed regions, and detected transcripts from approximately 90% of the annotated protein coding genes. We found that the transcription factor

Cell type-specific termination of transcription by transposable element sequences.

Science.gov (United States)

Conley, Andrew B; Jordan, I King

2012-09-30

Transposable elements (TEs) encode sequences necessary for their own transposition, including signals required for the termination of transcription. TE sequences within the introns of human genes show an antisense orientation bias, which has been proposed to reflect selection against TE sequences in the sense orientation owing to their ability to terminate the transcription of host gene transcripts. While there is evidence in support of this model for some elements, the extent to which TE sequences actually terminate transcription of human gene across the genome remains an open question. Using high-throughput sequencing data, we have characterized over 9,000 distinct TE-derived sequences that provide transcription termination sites for 5,747 human genes across eight different cell types. Rarefaction curve analysis suggests that there may be twice as many TE-derived termination sites (TE-TTS) genome-wide among all human cell types. The local chromatin environment for these TE-TTS is similar to that seen for 3' UTR canonical TTS and distinct from the chromatin environment of other intragenic TE sequences. However, those TE-TTS located within the introns of human genes were found to be far more cell type-specific than the canonical TTS. TE-TTS were much more likely to be found in the sense orientation than other intragenic TE sequences of the same TE family and TE-TTS in the sense orientation terminate transcription more efficiently than those found in the antisense orientation. Alu sequences were found to provide a large number of relatively weak TTS, whereas LTR elements provided a smaller number of much stronger TTS. TE sequences provide numerous termination sites to human genes, and TE-derived TTS are particularly cell type-specific. Thus, TE sequences provide a powerful mechanism for the diversification of transcriptional profiles between cell types and among evolutionary lineages, since most TE-TTS are evolutionarily young. The extent of transcription

Natural variation in monoterpene synthesis in kiwifruit: transcriptional regulation of terpene synthases by NAC and ETHYLENE-INSENSITIVE3-like transcription factors.

Science.gov (United States)

Nieuwenhuizen, Niels J; Chen, Xiuyin; Wang, Mindy Y; Matich, Adam J; Perez, Ramon Lopez; Allan, Andrew C; Green, Sol A; Atkinson, Ross G

2015-04-01

Two kiwifruit (Actinidia) species with contrasting terpene profiles were compared to understand the regulation of fruit monoterpene production. High rates of terpinolene production in ripe Actinidia arguta fruit were correlated with increasing gene and protein expression of A. arguta terpene synthase1 (AaTPS1) and correlated with an increase in transcript levels of the 2-C-methyl-D-erythritol 4-phosphate pathway enzyme 1-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate synthase (DXS). Actinidia chinensis terpene synthase1 (AcTPS1) was identified as part of an array of eight tandemly duplicated genes, and AcTPS1 expression and terpene production were observed only at low levels in developing fruit. Transient overexpression of DXS in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves elevated monoterpene synthesis by AaTPS1 more than 100-fold, indicating that DXS is likely to be the key step in regulating 2-C-methyl-D-erythritol 4-phosphate substrate flux in kiwifruit. Comparative promoter analysis identified potential NAC (for no apical meristem [NAM], Arabidopsis transcription activation factor [ATAF], and cup-shaped cotyledon [CUC])-domain transcription factor) and ETHYLENE-INSENSITIVE3-like transcription factor (TF) binding sites in the AaTPS1 promoter, and cloned members of both TF classes were able to activate the AaTPS1 promoter in transient assays. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed that AaNAC2, AaNAC3, and AaNAC4 bind a 28-bp fragment of the proximal NAC binding site in the AaTPS1 promoter but not the A. chinensis AcTPS1 promoter, where the NAC binding site was mutated. Activation could be restored by reintroducing multiple repeats of the 12-bp NAC core-binding motif. The absence of NAC transcriptional activation in ripe A. chinensis fruit can account for the low accumulation of AcTPS1 transcript, protein, and monoterpene volatiles in this species. These results indicate the importance of NAC TFs in controlling monoterpene production and other traits in ripening fruits. © 2015 American

Global transcript profiles of fat in monozygotic twins discordant for BMI: pathways behind acquired obesity.

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Kirsi H Pietiläinen

2008-03-01

Full Text Available The acquired component of complex traits is difficult to dissect in humans. Obesity represents such a trait, in which the metabolic and molecular consequences emerge from complex interactions of genes and environment. With the substantial morbidity associated with obesity, a deeper understanding of the concurrent metabolic changes is of considerable importance. The goal of this study was to investigate this important acquired component and expose obesity-induced changes in biological pathways in an identical genetic background.We used a special study design of "clonal controls," rare monozygotic twins discordant for obesity identified through a national registry of 2,453 young, healthy twin pairs. A total of 14 pairs were studied (eight male, six female; white, with a mean +/- standard deviation (SD age 25.8 +/- 1.4 y and a body mass index (BMI difference 5.2 +/- 1.8 kg/m(2. Sequence analyses of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA in subcutaneous fat and peripheral leukocytes revealed no aberrant heteroplasmy between the co-twins. However, mtDNA copy number was reduced by 47% in the obese co-twin's fat. In addition, novel pathway analyses of the adipose tissue transcription profiles exposed significant down-regulation of mitochondrial branched-chain amino acid (BCAA catabolism (p < 0.0001. In line with this finding, serum levels of insulin secretion-enhancing BCAAs were increased in obese male co-twins (9% increase, p = 0.025. Lending clinical relevance to the findings, in both sexes the observed aberrations in mitochondrial amino acid metabolism pathways in fat correlated closely with liver fat accumulation, insulin resistance, and hyperinsulinemia, early aberrations of acquired obesity in these healthy young adults.Our findings emphasize a substantial role of mitochondrial energy- and amino acid metabolism in obesity and development of insulin resistance.

cisMEP: an integrated repository of genomic epigenetic profiles and cis-regulatory modules in Drosophila.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Tzu-Hsien; Wang, Chung-Ching; Hung, Po-Cheng; Wu, Wei-Sheng

2014-01-01

Cis-regulatory modules (CRMs), or the DNA sequences required for regulating gene expression, play the central role in biological researches on transcriptional regulation in metazoan species. Nowadays, the systematic understanding of CRMs still mainly resorts to computational methods due to the time-consuming and small-scale nature of experimental methods. But the accuracy and reliability of different CRM prediction tools are still unclear. Without comparative cross-analysis of the results and combinatorial consideration with extra experimental information, there is no easy way to assess the confidence of the predicted CRMs. This limits the genome-wide understanding of CRMs. It is known that transcription factor binding and epigenetic profiles tend to determine functions of CRMs in gene transcriptional regulation. Thus integration of the genome-wide epigenetic profiles with systematically predicted CRMs can greatly help researchers evaluate and decipher the prediction confidence and possible transcriptional regulatory functions of these potential CRMs. However, these data are still fragmentary in the literatures. Here we performed the computational genome-wide screening for potential CRMs using different prediction tools and constructed the pioneer database, cisMEP (cis-regulatory module epigenetic profile database), to integrate these computationally identified CRMs with genomic epigenetic profile data. cisMEP collects the literature-curated TFBS location data and nine genres of epigenetic data for assessing the confidence of these potential CRMs and deciphering the possible CRM functionality. cisMEP aims to provide a user-friendly interface for researchers to assess the confidence of different potential CRMs and to understand the functions of CRMs through experimentally-identified epigenetic profiles. The deposited potential CRMs and experimental epigenetic profiles for confidence assessment provide experimentally testable hypotheses for the molecular mechanisms

Genomic profiling in Down syndrome acute lymphoblastic leukemia identifies histone gene deletions associated with altered methylation profiles

Science.gov (United States)

Loudin, Michael G.; Wang, Jinhua; Leung, Hon-Chiu Eastwood; Gurusiddappa, Sivashankarappa; Meyer, Julia; Condos, Gregory; Morrison, Debra; Tsimelzon, Anna; Devidas, Meenakshi; Heerema, Nyla A.; Carroll, Andrew J.; Plon, Sharon E.; Hunger, Stephen P.; Basso, Giuseppe; Pession, Andrea; Bhojwani, Deepa; Carroll, William L.; Rabin, Karen R.

2014-01-01

Patients with Down syndrome (DS) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have distinct clinical and biological features. Whereas most DS-ALL cases lack the sentinel cytogenetic lesions that guide risk assignment in childhood ALL, JAK2 mutations and CRLF2 overexpression are highly enriched. To further characterize the unique biology of DS-ALL, we performed genome-wide profiling of 58 DS-ALL and 68 non-Down syndrome (NDS) ALL cases by DNA copy number, loss of heterozygosity, gene expression, and methylation analyses. We report a novel deletion within the 6p22 histone gene cluster as significantly more frequent in DS-ALL, occurring in 11 DS (22%) and only two NDS cases (3.1%) (Fisher’s exact p = 0.002). Homozygous deletions yielded significantly lower histone expression levels, and were associated with higher methylation levels, distinct spatial localization of methylated promoters, and enrichment of highly methylated genes for specific pathways and transcription factor binding motifs. Gene expression profiling demonstrated heterogeneity of DS-ALL cases overall, with supervised analysis defining a 45-transcript signature associated with CRLF2 overexpression. Further characterization of pathways associated with histone deletions may identify opportunities for novel targeted interventions. PMID:21647151

Unveiling the transcriptional features associated with coccolithovirus infection of natural Emiliania huxleyi blooms.

Science.gov (United States)

Pagarete, António; Le Corguillé, Gildas; Tiwari, Bela; Ogata, Hiroyuki; de Vargas, Colomban; Wilson, William H; Allen, Michael J

2011-12-01

Lytic viruses have been implicated in the massive cellular lysis observed during algal blooms, through which they assume a prominent role in oceanic carbon and nutrient flows. Despite their impact on biogeochemical cycling, the transcriptional dynamics of these important oceanic events is still poorly understood. Here, we employ an oligonucleotide microarray to monitor host (Emiliania huxleyi) and virus (coccolithovirus) transcriptomic features during the course of E. huxleyi blooms induced in seawater-based mesocosm enclosures. Host bloom development and subsequent coccolithovirus infection was associated with a major shift in transcriptional profile. In addition to the expected metabolic requirements typically associated with viral infection (amino acid and nucleotide metabolism, as well as transcription- and replication-associated functions), the results strongly suggest that the manipulation of lipid metabolism plays a fundamental role during host-virus interaction. The results herein reveal the scale, so far massively underestimated, of the transcriptional domination that occurs during coccolithovirus infection in the natural environment. © 2011 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.

A randomized clinical trial in vitamin D-deficient adults comparing replenishment with oral vitamin D3 with narrow-band UV type B light: effects on cholesterol and the transcriptional profiles of skin and blood.

Science.gov (United States)

Ponda, Manish P; Liang, Yupu; Kim, Jaehwan; Hutt, Richard; Dowd, Kathleen; Gilleaudeau, Patricia; Sullivan-Whalen, Mary M; Rodrick, Tori; Kim, Dong Joo; Barash, Irina; Lowes, Michelle A; Breslow, Jan L

2017-05-01

Background: Vitamin D deficiency, defined as a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentration light. Objective: We tested the hypothesis that, in vitamin D-deficient adults, the replenishment of vitamin D with UVB exposure would lower LDL-cholesterol concentrations compared with the effect of oral vitamin D 3 supplementation. Design: We performed a randomized clinical trial in vitamin D-deficient adults and compared vitamin D replenishment between subjects who received oral vitamin D 3 ( n = 60) and those who received narrow-band UVB exposure ( n = 58) ≤6 mo. Results: There was no difference in the change from baseline LDL-cholesterol concentrations between oral vitamin D 3 and UVB groups (difference in median of oral vitamin D 3 minus that of UVB: 1.5 mg/dL; 95% CI: -5.0, 7.0 mg/dL). There were also no differences within groups or between groups for changes in total or HDL cholesterol or triglycerides. Transcriptional profiling of skin and blood, however, revealed significant upregulation of immune pathway signaling with oral vitamin D 3 but significant downregulation with UVB. Conclusions: Correcting vitamin D deficiency with either oral vitamin D 3 or UVB does not improve the lipid profile. Beyond cholesterol, these 2 modalities of raising 25(OH)D have disparate effects on gene transcription. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01688102. © 2017 American Society for Nutrition.

Genome-wide analysis and expression profiling of the ERF transcription factor family in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.).

Science.gov (United States)

Charfeddine, Mariam; Saïdi, Mohamed Najib; Charfeddine, Safa; Hammami, Asma; Gargouri Bouzid, Radhia

2015-04-01

The ERF transcription factors belong to the AP2/ERF superfamily, one of the largest transcription factor families in plants. They play important roles in plant development processes, as well as in the response to biotic, abiotic, and hormone signaling. In the present study, 155 putative ERF transcription factor genes were identified from the potato (Solanum tuberosum) genome database, and compared with those from Arabidopsis thaliana. The StERF proteins are divided into ten phylogenetic groups. Expression analyses of five StERFs were carried out by semi-quantitative RT-PCR and compared with published RNA-seq data. These latter analyses were used to distinguish tissue-specific, biotic, and abiotic stress genes as well as hormone-responsive StERF genes. The results are of interest to better understand the role of the AP2/ERF genes in response to diverse types of stress in potatoes. A comprehensive analysis of the physiological functions and biological roles of the ERF family genes in S. tuberosum is required to understand crop stress tolerance mechanisms.

Robust stratification of breast cancer subtypes using differential patterns of transcript isoform expression.

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Thomas P Stricker

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death of women worldwide, is a heterogenous disease with multiple different subtypes. These subtypes carry important implications for prognosis and therapy. Interestingly, it is known that these different subtypes not only have different biological behaviors, but also have distinct gene expression profiles. However, it has not been rigorously explored whether particular transcriptional isoforms are also differentially expressed among breast cancer subtypes, or whether transcript isoforms from the same sets of genes can be used to differentiate subtypes. To address these questions, we analyzed the patterns of transcript isoform expression using a small set of RNA-sequencing data for eleven Estrogen Receptor positive (ER+ subtype and fourteen triple negative (TN subtype tumors. We identified specific sets of isoforms that distinguish these tumor subtypes with higher fidelity than standard mRNA expression profiles. We found that alternate promoter usage, alternative splicing, and alternate 3'UTR usage are differentially regulated in breast cancer subtypes. Profiling of isoform expression in a second, independent cohort of 68 tumors confirmed that expression of splice isoforms differentiates breast cancer subtypes. Furthermore, analysis of RNAseq data from 594 cases from the TCGA cohort confirmed the ability of isoform usage to distinguish breast cancer subtypes. Also using our expression data, we identified several RNA processing factors that were differentially expressed between tumor subtypes and/or regulated by estrogen receptor, including YBX1, YBX2, MAGOH, MAGOHB, and PCBP2. RNAi knock-down of these RNA processing factors in MCF7 cells altered isoform expression. These results indicate that global dysregulation of splicing in breast cancer occurs in a subtype-specific and reproducible manner and is driven by specific differentially expressed RNA processing factors.

Impacts of different exposure scenarios on transcript abundances in Danio rerio embryos when investigating the toxicological burden of riverine sediments.

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Kerstin Bluhm

Full Text Available PURPOSE: Recently, a proof-of-concept study revealed the suitability of transcriptome analyses to obtain and assess changes in the abundance of transcripts in zebrafish (Danio rerio embryos after exposure to organic sediment extracts. The present study investigated changes in the transcript abundance in zebrafish embryos exposed to whole sediment samples and corresponding organic extracts in order to identify the impact of different exposure pathways on sediment toxicity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Danio rerio embryos were exposed to sublethal concentrations of three sediment samples from the Danube River, Germany. The sediment samples were investigated both as freeze-dried samples and as organic extracts. Silica dust and a process control of the extraction procedure were used as references. After exposure, mRNA was isolated and changes in profiles of gene expression levels were examined by an oligonucleotide microarray. The microarray results were compared with bioassays, chemical analysis of the sediments and profiles of gene expression levels induced by several single substances. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The microarray approach elucidated significant changes in the abundance of transcripts in exposed zebrafish embryos compared to the references. Generally, results could be related to Ah-receptor-mediated effects as confirmed by bioassays and chemical analysis of dioxin-like contaminants, as well as to exposure to stress-inducing compounds. Furthermore, the results indicated that mixtures of chemicals, as present in sediment and extract samples, result in complex changes of gene expression level profiles difficult to compare with profiles induced by single chemical substances. Specifically, patterns of transcript abundances were less influenced by the chemical composition at the sampling site compared t the method of exposure (sediment/extract. This effect might be related to different bioavailability of chemicals. CONCLUSIONS: The apparent

Global transcriptional responses of Bacillus subtilis to xenocoumacin 1.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, T; Zeng, H; Qiu, D; Yang, X; Wang, B; Chen, M; Guo, L; Wang, S

2011-09-01

To determine the global transcriptional response of Bacillus subtilis to an antimicrobial agent, xenocoumacin 1 (Xcn1). Subinhibitory concentration of Xcn1 applied to B. subtilis was measured according to Hutter's method for determining optimal concentrations. cDNA microarray technology was used to study the global transcriptional response of B. subtilis to Xcn1. Real-time RT-PCR was employed to verify alterations in the transcript levels of six genes. The subinhibitory concentration was determined to be 1 μg ml(-1). The microarray data demonstrated that Xcn1 treatment of B. subtilis led to more than a 2.0-fold up-regulation of 480 genes and more than a 2.0-fold down-regulation of 479 genes (q ≤ 0.05). The transcriptional responses of B. subtilis to Xcn1 were determined, and several processes were affected by Xcn1. Additionally, cluster analysis of gene expression profiles after treatment with Xcn1 or 37 previously studied antibiotics indicated that Xcn1 has similar mechanisms of action to protein synthesis inhibitors. These microarray data showed alterations of gene expression in B. subtilis after exposure to Xcn1. From the results, we identified various processes affected by Xcn1. This study provides a whole-genome perspective to elucidate the action of Xcn1 as a potential antimicrobial agent. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Applied Microbiology © 2011 The Society for Applied Microbiology.

Correlations of carotenoid content and transcript abundances for fibrillin and carotenogenic enzymes in Capsicum annum fruit pericarp.

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Kilcrease, James; Rodriguez-Uribe, Laura; Richins, Richard D; Arcos, Juan Manuel Garcia; Victorino, Jesus; O'Connell, Mary A

2015-03-01

The fruits of Capsicum spp. are especially rich sites for carotenoid synthesis and accumulation, with cultivar-specific carotenoid accumulation profiles. Differences in chromoplast structure as well as carotenoid biosynthesis are correlated with distinct carotenoid accumulations and fruit color. In the present study, the inheritance of chromoplast shape, carotenoid accumulation profiles, and transcript levels of four genes were measured. Comparisons of these traits were conducted using fruit from contrasting variants, Costeño Amarillo versus Costeño Red, and from F1 hybrids; crosses between parental lines with novel versions of these traits. Intermediate chromoplast shapes were observed in the F1, but no association between specific carotenoid accumulation and chromoplast shape was detected. Increased total carotenoid content was associated with increased β-carotene and violaxanthin content. Transcript levels for phytoene synthase (Psy) and β-carotene hydroxylase (CrtZ-2) were positively correlated with increased levels of specific carotenoids. No correlation was detected between transcript levels of capsanthin/capsorubin synthase (Ccs) and carotenoid composition or chromoplast shape. Transcript levels of fibrillin, were differentially correlated with specific carotenoids, negatively correlated with accumulation of capsanthin, and positively correlated with violaxanthin. The regulation of carotenoid accumulation in chromoplasts in Capsicum fruit continues to be a complex process with multiple steps for control. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Comprehensive genome-wide survey, genomic constitution and expression profiling of the NAC transcription factor family in foxtail millet (Setaria italica L..

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Swati Puranik

Full Text Available The NAC proteins represent a major plant-specific transcription factor family that has established enormously diverse roles in various plant processes. Aided by the availability of complete genomes, several members of this family have been identified in Arabidopsis, rice, soybean and poplar. However, no comprehensive investigation has been presented for the recently sequenced, naturally stress tolerant crop, Setaria italica (foxtail millet that is famed as a model crop for bioenergy research. In this study, we identified 147 putative NAC domain-encoding genes from foxtail millet by systematic sequence analysis and physically mapped them onto nine chromosomes. Genomic organization suggested that inter-chromosomal duplications may have been responsible for expansion of this gene family in foxtail millet. Phylogenetically, they were arranged into 11 distinct sub-families (I-XI, with duplicated genes fitting into one cluster and possessing conserved motif compositions. Comparative mapping with other grass species revealed some orthologous relationships and chromosomal rearrangements including duplication, inversion and deletion of genes. The evolutionary significance as duplication and divergence of NAC genes based on their amino acid substitution rates was understood. Expression profiling against various stresses and phytohormones provides novel insights into specific and/or overlapping expression patterns of SiNAC genes, which may be responsible for functional divergence among individual members in this crop. Further, we performed structure modeling and molecular simulation of a stress-responsive protein, SiNAC128, proffering an initial framework for understanding its molecular function. Taken together, this genome-wide identification and expression profiling unlocks new avenues for systematic functional analysis of novel NAC gene family candidates which may be applied for improvising stress adaption in plants.

Comprehensive genome-wide survey, genomic constitution and expression profiling of the NAC transcription factor family in foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.).

Science.gov (United States)

Puranik, Swati; Sahu, Pranav Pankaj; Mandal, Sambhu Nath; B, Venkata Suresh; Parida, Swarup Kumar; Prasad, Manoj

2013-01-01

The NAC proteins represent a major plant-specific transcription factor family that has established enormously diverse roles in various plant processes. Aided by the availability of complete genomes, several members of this family have been identified in Arabidopsis, rice, soybean and poplar. However, no comprehensive investigation has been presented for the recently sequenced, naturally stress tolerant crop, Setaria italica (foxtail millet) that is famed as a model crop for bioenergy research. In this study, we identified 147 putative NAC domain-encoding genes from foxtail millet by systematic sequence analysis and physically mapped them onto nine chromosomes. Genomic organization suggested that inter-chromosomal duplications may have been responsible for expansion of this gene family in foxtail millet. Phylogenetically, they were arranged into 11 distinct sub-families (I-XI), with duplicated genes fitting into one cluster and possessing conserved motif compositions. Comparative mapping with other grass species revealed some orthologous relationships and chromosomal rearrangements including duplication, inversion and deletion of genes. The evolutionary significance as duplication and divergence of NAC genes based on their amino acid substitution rates was understood. Expression profiling against various stresses and phytohormones provides novel insights into specific and/or overlapping expression patterns of SiNAC genes, which may be responsible for functional divergence among individual members in this crop. Further, we performed structure modeling and molecular simulation of a stress-responsive protein, SiNAC128, proffering an initial framework for understanding its molecular function. Taken together, this genome-wide identification and expression profiling unlocks new avenues for systematic functional analysis of novel NAC gene family candidates which may be applied for improvising stress adaption in plants.

Mood stabilizing drugs regulate transcription of immune, neuronal and metabolic pathway genes in Drosophila.

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Herteleer, L; Zwarts, L; Hens, K; Forero, D; Del-Favero, J; Callaerts, P

2016-05-01

Lithium and valproate (VPA) are drugs used in the management of bipolar disorder. Even though they reportedly act on various pathways, the transcriptional targets relevant for disease mechanism and therapeutic effect remain unclear. Furthermore, multiple studies used lymphoblasts of bipolar patients as a cellular proxy, but it remains unclear whether peripheral cells provide a good readout for the effects of these drugs in the brain. We used Drosophila culture cells and adult flies to analyze the transcriptional effects of lithium and VPA and define mechanistic pathways. Transcriptional profiles were determined for Drosophila S2-cells and adult fly heads following lithium or VPA treatment. Gene ontology categories were identified using the DAVID functional annotation tool with a cut-off of p neuronal development, neuronal function, and metabolism. (i) Transcriptional effects of lithium and VPA in Drosophila S2 cells and heads show significant overlap. (ii) The overlap between transcriptional alterations in peripheral versus neuronal cells at the single gene level is negligible, but at the gene ontology and pathway level considerable overlap can be found. (iii) Lithium and VPA act on evolutionarily conserved pathways in Drosophila and mammalian models.

TIMP-1 expression in human colorectal cancer is associated with TGF-B1, LOXL2, INHBA1, TNF-AIP6 and TIMP-2 transcript profiles

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Offenberg, Hanne Kjær; Brunner, Nils; Mansilla, Francisco

2008-01-01

colorectal cancer (CRC) and the other TIMPs 2-4, which have also been associated with the progression of colorectal cancer. Genome-wide expression profiling of 172 CRC and normal mucosa samples was used to identify transcript changes for the genes under investigation. We found that TIMP-1 was up...... with the synthesis of extracellullar matrix, genes involved in the TGF-beta signalling pathway, and genes that are likely transcribed by the tumour cells. These insights add to the complex picture emerging about the regulation of TIMPs in colorectal cancer....... that colorectal cancer patients have increased plasma levels of the tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1), and that high plasma TIMP-1 levels are associated with short colorectal cancer patient survival. However, although TIMP-1 has been extensively studied in cancer, very little is known about how...

Comparative Analysis of the Brassica napus Root and Leaf Transcript Profiling in Response to Drought Stress

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Chunqing Liu

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Drought stress is one of the major abiotic factors affecting Brassica napus (B. napus productivity. In order to identify genes of potential importance to drought stress and obtain a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms regarding the responses of B. napus to dehydration stress, we performed large-scale transcriptome sequencing of B. napus plants under dehydration stress using the Illumina sequencing technology. In this work, a relatively drought tolerant B. napus line, Q2, identified in our previous study, was used. Four cDNA libraries constructed from mRNAs of control and dehydration-treated root and leaf were sequenced by Illumina technology. A total of 6018 and 5377 differentially expressed genes (DEGs were identified in root and leaf. In addition, 1745 genes exhibited a coordinated expression profile between the two tissues under drought stress, 1289 (approximately 74% of which showed an inverse relationship, demonstrating different regulation patterns between the root and leaf. The gene ontology (GO enrichment test indicated that up-regulated genes in root were mostly involved in “stimulus” “stress” biological process, and activated genes in leaf mainly functioned in “cell” “cell part” components. Furthermore, a comparative network related to plant hormone signal transduction and AREB/ABF, AP2/EREBP, NAC, WRKY and MYC/MYB transcription factors (TFs provided a view of different stress tolerance mechanisms between root and leaf. Some of the DEGs identified may be candidates for future research aimed at detecting drought-responsive genes and will be useful for understanding the molecular mechanisms of drought tolerance in root and leaf of B. napus.

Transcript and Protein Profiling Analysis of the Destruxin A-Induced Response in Larvae of Plutella xylostella

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Dong, Xiaolin; Fan, Jiqiao; Qiu, Baoli; Ren, Shunxiang

2013-01-01

Background Destruxins (dtxs) are the mycotoxin produced by certain entomopathogenic fungi, such as Metarhizium anisopliae, Aschersonia sp, Alternaria brassicae and Ophiosphaerella herpotrichae. It can affect a wide variety of biological processes in insects, including innate immune, Ca2+ channel in cells, and apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. Dtxs have been used as biological control agent for a long time, however, their molecular mechanism of action is still unknown. Principal Findings In this study, both digital gene expression (DGE) and two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) approaches were adopted to examine the effects of dtx A on Plutella xyllostella (L.) larvae. By using DGE and 2-DE analyses, 1584 genes and 42 protein points were identified as being up- or down regulated at least 2-fold in response to dtx A. Firstly, injection of dtx A to larvae accelerated the increase of peptidoglycan recognition protein (PGRP), which could activate the Toll signal pathway inducing production of antibacterial substances such as cecropin and gloverin. Dtx A also stimulated prophenoloxidase (proPO) system which plays an important role in innate immunity and leads to melanization of external organisms. Secondly, dtx A suppressed the expression of genes related to the Toll pathway, and induced expression of serine proteinase inhibitors (serpins), especially the serpin 2 that blocked process of the proPO system. Finally, other physiological process like xenobiotics detoxification, apoptosis, calcium signaling pathway and insect hormone biosynthesis, were also mediated in response to dtx A toxicity. Conclusions Transcript and protein profiling analyses will provide an insight into the potential molecular mechanism of action in P. xylostella larvae in response to dtx A. PMID:23585848

SignalSpider: Probabilistic pattern discovery on multiple normalized ChIP-Seq signal profiles

KAUST Repository

Wong, Kachun

2014-09-05

Motivation: Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) followed by high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-Seq) measures the genome-wide occupancy of transcription factors in vivo. Different combinations of DNA-binding protein occupancies may result in a gene being expressed in different tissues or at different developmental stages. To fully understand the functions of genes, it is essential to develop probabilistic models on multiple ChIP-Seq profiles to decipher the combinatorial regulatory mechanisms by multiple transcription factors. Results: In this work, we describe a probabilistic model (SignalSpider) to decipher the combinatorial binding events of multiple transcription factors. Comparing with similar existing methods, we found SignalSpider performs better in clustering promoter and enhancer regions. Notably, SignalSpider can learn higher-order combinatorial patterns from multiple ChIP-Seq profiles. We have applied SignalSpider on the normalized ChIP-Seq profiles from the ENCODE consortium and learned model instances. We observed different higher-order enrichment and depletion patterns across sets of proteins. Those clustering patterns are supported by Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment, evolutionary conservation and chromatin interaction enrichment, offering biological insights for further focused studies. We also proposed a specific enrichment map visualization method to reveal the genome-wide transcription factor combinatorial patterns from the models built, which extend our existing fine-scale knowledge on gene regulation to a genome-wide level. Availability and implementation: The matrix-algebra-optimized executables and source codes are available at the authors\\' websites: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/∼wkc/SignalSpider. Contact: Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Natural Variation in Monoterpene Synthesis in Kiwifruit: Transcriptional Regulation of Terpene Synthases by NAC and ETHYLENE-INSENSITIVE3-Like Transcription Factors1

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Nieuwenhuizen, Niels J.; Chen, Xiuyin; Wang, Mindy Y.; Matich, Adam J.; Perez, Ramon Lopez; Allan, Andrew C.; Green, Sol A.; Atkinson, Ross G.

2015-01-01

Two kiwifruit (Actinidia) species with contrasting terpene profiles were compared to understand the regulation of fruit monoterpene production. High rates of terpinolene production in ripe Actinidia arguta fruit were correlated with increasing gene and protein expression of A. arguta terpene synthase1 (AaTPS1) and correlated with an increase in transcript levels of the 2-C-methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate pathway enzyme 1-deoxy-d-xylulose-5-phosphate synthase (DXS). Actinidia chinensis terpene synthase1 (AcTPS1) was identified as part of an array of eight tandemly duplicated genes, and AcTPS1 expression and terpene production were observed only at low levels in developing fruit. Transient overexpression of DXS in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves elevated monoterpene synthesis by AaTPS1 more than 100-fold, indicating that DXS is likely to be the key step in regulating 2-C-methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate substrate flux in kiwifruit. Comparative promoter analysis identified potential NAC (for no apical meristem [NAM], Arabidopsis transcription activation factor [ATAF], and cup-shaped cotyledon [CUC])-domain transcription factor) and ETHYLENE-INSENSITIVE3-like transcription factor (TF) binding sites in the AaTPS1 promoter, and cloned members of both TF classes were able to activate the AaTPS1 promoter in transient assays. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed that AaNAC2, AaNAC3, and AaNAC4 bind a 28-bp fragment of the proximal NAC binding site in the AaTPS1 promoter but not the A. chinensis AcTPS1 promoter, where the NAC binding site was mutated. Activation could be restored by reintroducing multiple repeats of the 12-bp NAC core-binding motif. The absence of NAC transcriptional activation in ripe A. chinensis fruit can account for the low accumulation of AcTPS1 transcript, protein, and monoterpene volatiles in this species. These results indicate the importance of NAC TFs in controlling monoterpene production and other traits in ripening fruits. PMID:25649633

Gibberellin-regulated gene in the basal region of rice leaf sheath encodes basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor.

Science.gov (United States)

Komatsu, Setsuko; Takasaki, Hironori

2009-07-01

Genes regulated by gibberellin (GA) during leaf sheath elongation in rice seedlings were identified using the transcriptome approach. mRNA from the basal regions of leaf sheaths treated with GA3 was analyzed by high-coverage gene expression profiling. 33,004 peaks were detected, and 30 transcripts showed significant changes in the presence of GA3. Among these, basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor (AK073385) was significantly upregulated. Quantitative PCR analysis confirmed that expression of AK073385 was controlled by GA3 in a time- and dose-dependent manner. Basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor (AK073385) is therefore involved in the regulation of gene expression by GA3.

Unique inflammatory RNA profiles of microglia in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

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Baker, Christopher A.; Manuelidis, Laura

2003-01-01

Previous studies in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) have shown that myeloid cells in the periphery as well as derivative microglial cells in the brain are infectious. Microglia can show an activated phenotype before prion protein (PrP) pathology is detectable in brain, and isolated infectious microglia contain very little PrP. To find whether a set of inflammatory genes are significantly induced or suppressed with infection, we analyzed RNA from isolated microglia with relevant cDNA arrays, and identified 30 transcripts not previously examined in any transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. This CJD expression profile contrasted with that of uninfected microglia exposed to prototypic inflammatory stimuli such as lipopolysaccharide and IFN-, as well as PrP amyloid. These findings underscore inflammatory pathways evoked by the infectious agent in brain. Transcript profiles unique for CJD microglia and other myeloid cells provide opportunities for more sensitive preclinical diagnoses of infectious and noninfectious neurodegenerative diseases.

Role of the GRAS transcription factor ATA/RAM1 in the transcriptional reprogramming of arbuscular mycorrhiza in Petunia hybrida.

Science.gov (United States)

Rich, Mélanie K; Courty, Pierre-Emmanuel; Roux, Christophe; Reinhardt, Didier

2017-08-08

Development of arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) requires a fundamental reprogramming of root cells for symbiosis. This involves the induction of hundreds of genes in the host. A recently identified GRAS-type transcription factor in Petunia hybrida, ATA/RAM1, is required for the induction of host genes during AM, and for morphogenesis of the fungal endosymbiont. To better understand the role of RAM1 in symbiosis, we set out to identify all genes that depend on activation by RAM1 in mycorrhizal roots. We have carried out a transcript profiling experiment by RNAseq of mycorrhizal plants vs. non-mycorrhizal controls in wild type and ram1 mutants. The results show that the expression of early genes required for AM, such as the strigolactone biosynthetic genes and the common symbiosis signalling genes, is independent of RAM1. In contrast, genes that are involved at later stages of symbiosis, for example for nutrient exchange in cortex cells, require RAM1 for induction. RAM1 itself is highly induced in mycorrhizal roots together with many other transcription factors, in particular GRAS proteins. Since RAM1 has previously been shown to be directly activated by the common symbiosis signalling pathway through CYCLOPS, we conclude that it acts as an early transcriptional switch that induces many AM-related genes, among them genes that are essential for the development of arbuscules, such as STR, STR2, RAM2, and PT4, besides hundreds of additional RAM1-dependent genes the role of which in symbiosis remains to be explored. Taken together, these results indicate that the defect in the morphogenesis of the fungal arbuscules in ram1 mutants may be an indirect consequence of functional defects in the host, which interfere with nutrient exchange and possibly other functions on which the fungus depends.

Nuclear adaptor Ldb1 regulates a transcriptional program essential for the maintenance of hematopoietic stem cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, LiQi; Jothi, Raja; Cui, Kairong; Lee, Jan Y; Cohen, Tsadok; Gorivodsky, Marat; Tzchori, Itai; Zhao, Yangu; Hayes, Sandra M; Bresnick, Emery H; Zhao, Keji; Westphal, Heiner; Love, Paul E

2011-02-01

The nuclear adaptor Ldb1 functions as a core component of multiprotein transcription complexes that regulate differentiation in diverse cell types. In the hematopoietic lineage, Ldb1 forms a complex with the non-DNA-binding adaptor Lmo2 and the transcription factors E2A, Scl and GATA-1 (or GATA-2). Here we demonstrate a critical and continuous requirement for Ldb1 in the maintenance of both fetal and adult mouse hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Deletion of Ldb1 in hematopoietic progenitors resulted in the downregulation of many transcripts required for HSC maintenance. Genome-wide profiling by chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-Seq) identified Ldb1 complex-binding sites at highly conserved regions in the promoters of genes involved in HSC maintenance. Our results identify a central role for Ldb1 in regulating the transcriptional program responsible for the maintenance of HSCs.