Early life stress in fathers impairs synaptic plasticity in the offspring - brain collected after acute swim stress
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: We show that traumatic stress experienced by males in early postnatal life impairs memory in their offspring, blocks long-term potentiation (LTP) and favors long-term depression (LTD). These effects are accompanied by suppression of key molecular pathways involved in neuronal plasticity both at rest and after acute stress. Male mice were exposed to chronic traumatic stress in early postnatal life and were later bred to naM-CM-/ve females to produce second-generation offspring. Memory performance was evaluated in the offspring, and synaptic plasticity was examined in the hippocampus and the amygdala, brain areas important for memory formation. The two groups tested were 1: offspring of fathers which were stressed (MSUS - maternal separation unpredictable stress) and 2: offspring of non-stressed fathers (control). Genome-wide gene expression in hippocampus of these two groups was assessed at rest and after acute stress (this study).
Project description:We show that traumatic stress experienced by males in early postnatal life impairs memory in their offspring, blocks long-term potentiation (LTP) and favors long-term depression (LTD). These effects are accompanied by suppression of key molecular pathways involved in neuronal plasticity both at rest and after acute stress. Male mice were exposed to chronic traumatic stress in early postnatal life and were later bred to naM-CM-/ve females to produce second-generation offspring. Memory performance was evaluated in the offspring, and synaptic plasticity was examined in the hippocampus and the amygdala, brain areas important for memory formation. The two groups tested were 1: offspring of fathers which were stressed (MSUS - maternal separation unpredictable stress) and 2: offspring of non-stressed fathers (control). Genome-wide gene expression in hippocampus of these two groups was assessed at rest (this study) and after acute stress.
Project description:The global prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) is increasing, and it is contributing to the susceptibility to diabetes and its related epidemic in offspring. Although the impacts of paternal T2D on metabolism of offspring have been well established, the exact molecular and mechanistic basis that mediates these impacts remains largely unclear. Here we show that paternal T2D increases the susceptibility to diabetes in offspring through the gametic epigenetic alterations. Paternal T2D led to glucose intolerance and insulin resistance in offspring. Relative to controls, offspring of T2D fathers exhibited altered gene expression patterns in the pancreatic islets, with downregulation of several genes involved in glucose metabolism and insulin signaling pathway. Epigenomic profiling of offspring pancreatic islets revealed numerous changes in cytosine methylation depending on paternal T2D, including reproducible changes in methylation over several insulin signaling genes. Paternal T2D altered overall methylome patterns in sperm, with a large portion of differentially methylated genes overlapped with that of pancreatic islets in offspring. Our study revealed, for the first time, that T2D can be inherited transgenerationally through the mammalian germline by an epigenetic manner. For all comparisons shown, male F0 founders were weaned from mothers at 3 weeks of age, and sibling males were put into cages with high-fat diet (33% energy as fat) or control diet until 12 weeks of age, at which point mice fed with HFD were injected intraperitoneally with a low dose of STZ and kept on the same diet for 4 weeks. Fasting blood glucose was examined each week post-STZ for 4 weeks, and only glucose level at 7~11 mM was considered as type 2 diabetes. Females were always raised on standard diet. At 16 weeks, male F0 founders were mated with females. After 1 or 2 days, males were removed, and pregnant females were left alone until their litters were 3 weeks of age. Note that we always used virgin females to avoid confounding effects brought about by the females. At 3 weeks of age a portion of the offspring were sacrificed and islets were generated, each from an independent father.Samples from six control and six paternal type 2 diabetes offspring were chosen for microarray analysis.
Project description:Slimming is globally prevalent especially in young women, and it may contribute to the metabolic health of their offspring. Whereas some Lamarckian ideas about environmental inheritance have been dismissed, increasing evidence suggest that certain acquired traits can be transmitted to the next generation. It is therefore of great interest to determine how and to what extent a maternal lifestyle change contributes to their offspring. Here we show that enriched environment (EE) induced maternal slimming improves general health and reprograms metabolic gene expression in mice offspring. EE in mothers induced decreased body weight, adiposity, and improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity. Relative to controls, their offspring exhibited improved general health such as reduced fat accumulation, enhanced metabolic parameters as well as glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity. Maternal slimming altered the expression of 1,732 genes in the liver of offspring, with coherent downregulation of genes involved in lipid and cholesterol biosynthesis. Epigenomic profiling in offspring revealed numerous changes in cytosine methylation depending on maternal slimming, including hypermethylation of several genes involved in lipid biosynthesis, correlated with the downregulation of these genes. Maternal slimming also altered overall transcriptome patterns in mature oocytes, which contributes largely to the metabolic health and gene expression patterns in offspring. Overall, our studies suggest that maternal slimming have a beneficial role in regulating metabolic profiles in offspring, implying that it might be considered as a potential strategy to reverse the global prevalence of obesity and related metabolic syndromes. Female F0 founders were raised on a standard diet in a normal cage until 12 weeks of age, at which point they were placed into the enriched environmental cage or stayed in the normal cage (chosen at random) for 4 weeks. Males were always raised on a standard diet in the standard cage. At 16 weeks, female F0 founders were mated with males in standard conditions. After 1 or 2 days, males were removed, and pregnant females were left alone with a standard diet in the standard cage until their litters were 3 weeks of age. Note that we always used virgin males to avoid confounding effects brought about by the males. Moreover, males mated with two female groups did not differ in phenotypic data (body weight, adiposity, fasting blood glucose and insulin levels). At 3 weeks of age, partial offspring were sacrificed and the median lobe of liver was rapidly dissected out and flash-frozen in liquid N2, each from an independent mother. Samples from five control and four slimming offspring, each from different mothers, were chosen for microarray analysis.
Project description:Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most prevalent type of adult brain tumor, and one of the deadliest tumors known to mankind. The genetic understanding of GBM is, however, limited, and the molecular mechanisms which facilitate GBM cell survival and growth within the tumor microenvironment are largely unknown. We applied digital karyotyping and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays to screen for copy number changes in GBM samples and found that the most frequently amplified region is at chromosome 7p11.2. The high resolution of digital karyotyping and SNP arrays permits the precise delineation of amplicon boundaries and has enabled identification of the minimal region of amplification at 7p11.2, which contains two genes, EGFR and SEC61?. SEC61? encodes a subunit of a heterotrimeric protein channel located in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). In addition to its high frequency of gene amplification in GBMs, SEC61? is also remarkably overexpressed in 77% of GBMs, but not in lower-grade gliomas. The siRNA-mediated knockdown of SEC61? expression in tumor cells led to growth suppression and apoptosis. Furthermore, we showed that pharmacological ER stress agents induce SEC61? expression in GBM cells. Together, these results indicate that aberrant expression of SEC61? serves significant roles in GBM cell survival, likely via a mechanism that is involved in the cytoprotective ER stress-adaptive response to the tumor microenvironment. hSETD1A was silenced in HCT116 cells using retrovirus harboring shRNA specifically against the hSETD1A gene. 10?g RNA was reverse transcribed to cDNA using the Applied Biosystems High Capacity cDNA Reverse Transcription kit according to the manufacturer’s instructions (Applied Biosystems). cDNA products were treated with 100ng RNaseA and then purified using the Qiagen PCR purification kit according to the manufacturer’s instructions. NimbleGen Human Gene Expression array was purchased from Roche Applied Sciences. cDNA samples were labeled, Cy3 hybridized, and processed at the FSU NimbleGen Microarray Facility at Florida State University.
Project description:Investigation on expression levels of normal tissue from prostate cancer patients on locus 8q24. The region chr8:127640000-129120000 is tiled with isothermal probes (hg17) 7 chip study, using 7 independent samples.
Project description:Investigation on expression levels of normal tissue from prostate cancer patients on locus 8q24. 3 chips with 3 arrays each study, using 3 pairs of normal vs. tumor tissue and 3 replicates of the same sample. Each chip contained one pair of normal vs. tumor and one copy of the repeated sample.
Project description:Investigation on expression levels of normal tissue from prostate cancer patients on locus 8q24. The region chr8:127640000-129120000 is tiled with 60 nt probes at 10 nt interval (hg18) 7 chip study, using 7 independent samples.
Project description:Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) self-renew and differentiate into an array of cell types in vitro and in vivo. A complex network of genetic and epigenetic pathways regulates the self-renewal and differentiation of these pluripotent cells, and the structure and covalent modifications of chromatin play a prominent role in this process. We examine nucleosome occupancy in mouse and human embryonic stem cells (ESCs), induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and differentiated cell types using MNase-seq. To address variability inherent in this technique, we developed a bioinformatic approach that enabled the identification of regions of difference (RoD) in nucleosome occupancy between pluripotent and somatic cells. The majority of changes in nucleosomal signatures that occur in differentiation are reset during reprogramming. We conclude that changes in nucleosome occupancy are a hallmark of pluripotency and likely identify key regulatory regions that play a role in determining cell identity. A six chip study using total RNA recovered from three cell types with 2 replicates each
Project description:The profiling was conducted with the Rice 3'-Tiling 135k Microarray designed from 31,439 genes deposited at IRGSP, RAP2 database (http://rapdb.lab.nig.ac.jp). In this research, an array of 31,439 rice genes was used to elucidate gene expression in leaf and panicles of non-transgenic and HMB4 over-expression line. The analyses show that transgenic rice induces early flowering due to an enhancement of stress response. A total of 20 chips were used for microarray. Total RNAs were extracted from rice leaf and panicle. Experiments were duplicated.