Total RNA was prepared using TRIzol reagent from the pancreata of eight week old male mice. The genotypes were Control: gastrin+/-, CFTR+/+; and CF: gastrin+/-, CFTR-/-. All mice were on 95% black6, 5% 129Sv background. Mice were fed Peptamen from age 10 days to prevent intestinal obstruction.
Acidic duodenal pH alters gene expression in the cystic fibrosis mouse pancreas.
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View SamplesVaccine research today is focused on using safer, highly purified or recombinant antigens with poor immunogenicity, which has created a need for potent adjuvants. Rational design of effective and safe mucosal adjuvants for human use necessitates a thorough understanding of the mode of action of successful candidate adjuvants.
Unraveling molecular signatures of immunostimulatory adjuvants in the female genital tract through systems biology.
Sex, Treatment
View SamplesSelective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as fluoxetine are the most common treatment for major depression. However, approximately 50% of depressed patients fail to achieve an effective treatment response. Understanding how gene expression systems relate to treatment responses may be critical for understanding antidepressant resistance. Transcriptome profiling allows for the simultaneous measurement of expression levels for thousands of genes and the opportunity to utilize this information to determine mechanisms underlying antidepressant treatment responses. However, the best way to relate this immense amount of information to treatment resistance remains unclear. We take a novel approach to this question by examining dentate gyrus transcriptomes from the perspective of a stereotyped fluoxetine-induced gene expression program. Expression programs usually represent stereotyped changes in expression levels that occur as cells transition phenotypes. Fluoxetine will shift transcriptomes so they lie somewhere between a baseline state and a full-response at the end of the program. The position along this fluoxetine-induced gene expression program (program status) was measured using principal components analysis (PCA). The same expression program was initiated in treatment-responsive and resistant mice but treatment response was associated with further progression along the fluoxetine-induced gene expression program. The study of treatment-related differences in gene expression program status represents a novel way to conceptualize differences in treatment responses at a transcriptome level. Understanding how antidepressant-induced gene expression program progression is modulated represents an important area for future research and could guide efforts to develop novel augmentation strategies for antidepressant treatment resistant individuals.
Global state measures of the dentate gyrus gene expression system predict antidepressant-sensitive behaviors.
Sex, Specimen part, Treatment
View SamplesComplement receptor 2negative (CR2/CD21) B cells have been found enriched in patients with autoimmune diseases and in common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) patients who are prone to autoimmunity. However, the physiology of CD21/lo B cells remains poorly characterized. We found that some rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients also display an increased frequency of CD21/lo B cells in their blood. A majority of CD21/lo B cells from RA and CVID patients expressed germline autoreactive antibodies, which recognized nuclear and cytoplasmic structures. In addition, these B cells were unable to induce calcium flux, become activated, or proliferate in response to B-cell receptor and/or CD40 triggering, suggesting that these autoreactive B cells may be anergic. Moreover, gene array analyses of CD21/lo B cells revealed molecules specifically expressed in these B cells and that are likely to induce their unresponsive stage. Thus, CD21/lo B cells contain mostly autoreactive unresponsive clones, which express a specific set of molecules that may represent new biomarkers to identify anergic B cells in humans.
Complement receptor 2/CD21- human naive B cells contain mostly autoreactive unresponsive clones.
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View SamplesThe roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans is a heme auxotroph that requires the coordinated actions of HRG-1 heme permeases to transport environmental heme into the intestine and HRG-3, a secreted protein, to deliver intestinal heme to other tissues including the embryo. Here we show that heme homeostasis in the extraintestinal hypodermal tissue is facilitated by the transmembrane protein HRG-2. Systemic heme deficiency upregulates hrg-2 mRNA expression over 200-fold in the main body hypodermal syncytium hyp 7. HRG-2 is a type I membrane protein which binds heme and localizes to the endoplasmic reticulum and apical plasma membrane. Cytochrome heme profiles are aberrant in HRG-2 deficient worms, a phenotype that is partially suppressed by heme supplementation. Heme-deficient yeast strain, ectopically expressing worm HRG-2, reveal significantly improved growth at submicromolar concentrations of exogenous heme. Taken together, our results implicate HRG-2 as a facilitator of heme utilization in the C. elegans hypodermis and provide a mechanism for regulation of heme homeostasis in an extraintestinal tissue.
Heme utilization in the Caenorhabditis elegans hypodermal cells is facilitated by heme-responsive gene-2.
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View Samplesthere is presently no methodology that adequately isolates pure MaSCs. Seeking new markers of MaSCs, we characterized the stem-like properties and expression signature of label-retaining cells from the mammary gland of mice expressing a controllable H2b-GFP transgene. According to their transcriptome profile, H2b-GFPh MaSCs are enriched for pathways thought to play important roles in adult stem cells.
Molecular hierarchy of mammary differentiation yields refined markers of mammary stem cells.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesWe have discovered frequent genetic inactivation of the STAG2 gene in diverse human cancers including glioblastoma, Ewing's sarcoma, and melanoma. STAG2 encodes a subunit of the sister chromatid cohesion complex called the "cohesin complex" that is responsible for the cohesion of sister chromatids following DNA replication and is cleaved at the metaphase to anaphase transition to enable chromosome segregation into daughter cells. Interestingly, the cohesin complex has also been implicated as a regulator of chromatin architecture and transcription. To determine the functional significance of STAG2 inactivation in cancer pathogenesis, we used somatic cell gene targeting to correct the endogenous mutations of STAG2 in two aneuploid human glioblastoma cell lines, H4 and 42MGBA. Similarly, somatic cell gene targeting was also used to introduce a nonsense mutation into codon 6 of the endogenous wild-type allele of STAG2 in HCT116 cells, a near-diploid human colorectal cancer cell line with stable karyotype. Expression profiling of these three paired sets of STAG2-proficient and deficient cells demonstrated that STAG2 does not play a global role in transcriptional regulation nor does it recurrently modulate the expression of specific tumor-promoting or suppressing genes.
Mutational inactivation of STAG2 causes aneuploidy in human cancer.
Specimen part, Cell line
View SamplesThe most recurrently mutated oncogene in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is NOTCH1. The core Notch complex consists of an ICN protein, a Maml cofactor, and the DNA binding factor Rbpj. The known direct cofactors of Notch appear to act nonselectively, homogeneously driving Notch gene expression functions. It is unclear whether there are direct cofactors of Notch that act selectively and heterogeneously regulate ICN. We discovered that Zmiz1, a Protein Inhibitor of Activated STAT (PIAS)-like coactivator, directly bound ICN1. ChIP-Seq showed that Zmiz1 selectively co-bound only a subset of Notch-regulated enhancers. This led to hypothesize that Zmiz1 regulates only a subset of Notch1 target genes. To investigate this, we performed RNA-Seq on four 8946 cell linesin which L1601P (activated Notch1) or Zmiz1 were expressed alone or in combination. Zmiz1 induced ~10% of Notch target genes. The Notch target gene that was most strongly induced by Zmiz1 was Myc. Our data suggest that Zmiz1 selectively amplifies a subset of Notch target genes with strong amplification of Myc. Overall design: RNA-Seq in a murine T-ALL cell line
The PIAS-like Coactivator Zmiz1 Is a Direct and Selective Cofactor of Notch1 in T Cell Development and Leukemia.
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View SamplesThe retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell line ARPE-19 provides a widely-used alternative to native RPE. However, retention of the native RPE phenotype becomes problematic after multiple passages. We wished to determine if suitable culture conditions and differentiation could restore RPE-appropriate gene expression to ARPE-19. ARPE-19 cells at passages p9 to p12, grown in DMEM containing high glucose and pyruvate with 1% fetal bovine serum, were differentiated for up to 4 months. Using RNA-Seq, we compared the transcriptome of ARPE-19 cells kept in long-term culture with those cultured for 4 days. The 4 month cells developed the classic native RPE phenotype with heavy pigmentation. RNA-Seq analysis provided a comprehensive view of the relative abundance and differential expression of genes in the 4 month cells. Of the 16,757 genes with detectable signals, nearly 2435 genes were upregulated, and 931 genes were down-regulated with a fold change differences of 2 or more. Genes characteristic of RPE, including RPE65, RDH5 and RDH10, were greatly increased in ARPE-19 cells maintained at confluence for 4 months. Comparison with microarray data sets from human primary cell lines revealed important overall similarities in expression of "signature" genes. The results of this study demonstrate that ARPE-19 cells can express genes specific to native human RPE cells when appropriately cultured, and thus, can provide a relevant system to study differentiated cellular functions of RPE in vitro. Overall design: RNA-Seq profiles of ARPE-19 cells grown for 4 days or 4 months; triplicate replicates were sequenced.
Appropriately differentiated ARPE-19 cells regain phenotype and gene expression profiles similar to those of native RPE cells.
Specimen part, Cell line, Subject
View SamplesPurpose: The goal of this study is to understand how dbl-1, which is made primarily in neurons, and hrg-7, which is exclusively made in the intestine, contribute to systemic heme homeostasis. Methods: mRNA profiles of late L4 dbl-1(nk3) and hrg-7(tm6801) mutant C. elegans fed OP50 E. coli or OP50 + 50µM heme were compared to mRNA profiles from wildtype (WT) broodmates. Profiles were generated with single-end 50 base reads obtained using Illumina’s HiSeq 2500. Bioinformatics quality control was performed followed by alignment of reads to the ce10 reference genome using Tophat2, version 2.1.0. We found differentially expressed genes using Cufflinks 2, version 2.2.1 with a cutoff of 0.05 on False Discovery Rate (FDR). Results: We found a substantial overlap of genes regulated by both dbl-1 and hrg-7, including 49 heme-responsive genes (hrgs) in low heme (OP50) and 11 hrgs in high heme (OP50 + 50µM). Additionally, our data indicate crosstalk between dbl-1 and hrg-7 signaling. dbl-1 directly regulates hrg-7 expression, while hrg-7 regulates three components of the dbl-1 signaling pathway. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that communication between the neuron and intestine is essential for heme homeostasis. Specifically, we report that HRG-7 functions as a secreted signaling factor which communicates intestinal heme status with extraintestinal tissues by integrating a DBL-1/BMP -dependent response from the neurons to transcriptionally regulate genes involved in heme homeostasis. Cellular requirements for heme are fulfilled by a cell’s internal capacity to synthesize its own heme in a cell-autonomous manner. However, growing evidence in vertebrates predicts that cellular heme levels in animals are not only maintained by heme synthesis, but also by distally located proteins that could signal systemic heme requirements to an inter-organ heme trafficking network through cell-nonautonomous regulation. Using C. elegans, a genetically and optically amenable animal model for visualizing heme-dependent signaling, we show that HRG-7, an aspartic protease homolog, mediates inter-organ signaling between the intestine and neuron. Loss of hrg-7 results in robust expression of intestinal heme importers and, remarkably, this occurs even under heme replete conditions when such transporters are not normally expressed. HRG-7 functions as a secreted signaling factor, independent of a functional enzymatic active site, and communicates intestinal heme status with extraintestinal tissues by integrating a DBL-1/BMP -dependent response from the neurons to transcriptionally regulate intestinal heme homeostasis. Given the evidence indicating that mechanisms of heme transport are conserved across metazoa, it is conceivable that the cell-nonautonomous signaling framework that we uncovered in C. elegans may have functional relevance for inter-organ regulation of iron and heme metabolism in humans. Overall design: Comparison of mRNA profiles from dbl-1(nk3) mutant C. elegans vs. wildtype (WT) broodmates and hrg-7(tm6801) mutants vs (WT) broomates fed OP50 E. coli or OP50 + 50µM heme. Biological duplicates were analyzed for dbl-1(nk3) mutants and (WT) broodmates. Biological triplicates were analyzed for hrg-7(tm6801) mutants and (WT) broodmates.
Inter-organ signalling by HRG-7 promotes systemic haem homeostasis.
Cell line, Subject
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