Project description:Short hairpin RNA (shRNA) expression strategies that allow safe and persistent target mRNA knockdown are key to the success of many in vitro or in vivo RNAi applications. Here, we propose a novel solution which is expression of a promoterless miRNA-adapted shRNA (shmiRNA) from an engineered genomic miRNA locus. For proof-of-concept, we genetically “vaccinated” liver cells against a human pathogen, by using TALEns or CRISPR to integrate an anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) shmiRNA into the liver-specific miR-122/hcr gene. Reporter assays and qRT-PCR confirmed anti-HCV shmiRNA expression as well as miR-122 integrity and functionality. Specificity and safety of shmiRNA integration were validated via PCR, cDNA and miRNA profiling, and whole genome sequencing. A subgenomic HCV replicon and a full-length reporter virus, but not a Dengue virus control, were significantly impaired in the modified cells. Our original combination of DNA engineering and RNA expression technologies should benefit numerous applications, from basic miRNA research, to human cell and gene therapy Four Huh7 cells lines at 3 different passages were analyzed. The reference cell line was Huh7 wild type cells (WT). The other three cell lines had an integration of an anti-HCV shmiRNA in the hcr locus and miR-122 intact (T2 31.3) or mutated (TS 30.20 and U6 20.16). RNA was extracted from three different passages.
Project description:Short hairpin RNA (shRNA) expression strategies that allow safe and persistent target mRNA knockdown are key to the success of many in vitro or in vivo RNAi applications. Here, we propose a novel solution which is expression of a promoterless miRNA-adapted shRNA (shmiRNA) from an engineered genomic miRNA locus. For proof-of-concept, we genetically “vaccinated” liver cells against a human pathogen, by using TALEns or CRISPR to integrate an anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) shmiRNA into the liver-specific miR-122/hcr gene. Reporter assays and qRT-PCR confirmed anti-HCV shmiRNA expression as well as miR-122 integrity and functionality. Specificity and safety of shmiRNA integration were validated via PCR, cDNA and miRNA profiling, and whole genome sequencing. A subgenomic HCV replicon and a full-length reporter virus, but not a Dengue virus control, were significantly impaired in the modified cells. Our original combination of DNA engineering and RNA expression technologies should benefit numerous applications, from basic miRNA research, to human cell and gene therapy Four Huh7 cells lines at 3 different passages were analyzed. The reference cell line was Huh7 wild type cells (WT). The other three cell lines had an integration of an anti-HCV shmiRNA in the hcr locus and miR-122 intact (T2 31.3) or mutated (TS 30.20 and U6 20.16). RNA was extracted from three different passages.
Project description:The zinc finger factor Insm1 is known to regulate differentiation of pancreatic ? cells during development, Here we show that Insm1 is essential for the maintenance of functionally mature pancreatic ? cells in mice. We used microarrays to analyse the global gene expression after deletion of insm1 in adult pancreatic ? cells and identified functional important genes and immature islets releated genes deregulated in the mutatant islets. We used 8 mutant and 8 litter matched control mice for the islets preparation.
Project description:We used a mouse maternal separation model, a well-known paradigm of early adversity, to test the hypothesis that transcriptional changes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) are paralleled by specific gene expression changes in three brain regions that are involved in the stress response. Furthermore, we evaluated whether gene expression profiles of PBMCs could be used to predict stress-related animal behaviours.
Project description:Innate immune responses must be regulated in the intestine to prevent excessive inflammation. Here, using gene reporter mice, we show that a subset of mouse colonic macrophages constitutively produced the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10. In mice infected with Citrobacter rodentium, which is considered similar to enteropathogenic Escherichia coli infection in humans, macrophage IL-10 was required to prevent intestinal pathology and to promote survival. The synthesis of the proinflammatory cytokine IL-23 was significantly increased in infected mice with a myeloid cell specific deletion of IL-10 and the addition of IL-10 reduced in vitro IL-23 production by intestinal macrophages. Furthermore, blockade of IL-23 led to reduced morbidity and mortality in the context of macrophage IL-10 deficiency. Transcriptome analysis indicated that the reporter positive and negative colonic macrophage subsets were highly similar, but the reporter positive cells differed for the expression of CD163, an IL-10 target gene, suggesting an autocrine IL-10 signal, and when obtained from infected mice, they had reduced IL-23p19 mRNA. Interestingly, only transfer of the reporter positive cells could rescue IL-10 deficient infected mice. Therefore, these data indicate a pivotal role for a subset of intestinal macrophages that constitutively produces IL-10, perhaps acting in part in autocrine fashion, in controlling excessive innate immune activation, regulation of IL-23 production, and prevention of tissue damage after an acute bacterial infection in the intestine. Two replicates each of IL10+ and IL10- large intestinal macrophages. Data were normalized with the 'rma' function of the Bioconductor package, along with several GEO (GSM616132, GSM616136, GSM616140, GSM868296, GSM868297, GSM868298) and ArrayExpress (E-MEXP-3216: 04-M2WT, 05-M2WT, 06-M2WT) datasets.
Project description:Alcohol consumption is known to lead to gene expression changes in the brain. After performing gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) of genome-wide mRNA and microRNA expressions in the Nucleus Accumbens (NAc) from subjects with alcohol dependence (AD) and matched controls six mRNA and three miRNA modules significantly correlated with AD after Bonferroni correction (adj. p? 0.05) were identified. Cell-type-specific transcriptome analysis revealed two of the mRNA modules to be enriched for neuronal specific marker genes and downregulated in AD, whereas the remaining four were enriched for astrocyte and microglial specific marker genes and were upregulated in AD. Using gene set enrichment analysis, the neuronal specific modules were enriched for genes involved in oxidative phosphorylation, mitochondrial dysfunction and MAPK signaling, while the glial-specific modules were enriched mostly for genes involved in processes related to immune functions, i.e. reactome cytokine signaling in immune system (all adj. p? 0.05). In the mRNA and miRNA modules, 461 and 25 candidate hub genes were identified, respectively. In contrast to the expected miRNAs’ biological functions, the correlation analyses between mRNA and miRNA hub genes revealed a significantly higher number of positive than negative correlations (chi-square p? 0.0001). At FDR? 0.1, integration of the mRNA and miRNA hubs genes expression with genome-wide genotypic data identified 591 cis-eQTLs and 62 cis-eQTLs for the mRNA and miRNA hubs, respectively. Adjusting for the number of tests, the mRNA cis-eQTLs were significantly enriched for AD GWAS signals in the Collaborative Study on Genetics of Alcohol (COGA) sample (adj. p=0.024), providing a novel biological role for these association signals. In conclusion, our study identified coordinated mRNA and miRNA co-expression changes in the NAc of AD subjects, and our genetic (cis-eQTL) analysis provides novel insights into the etiological mechanisms of AD. Tissue samples were received from the Australian Brain Donor Programs New South Wales Tissue Resource Centre, which is supported by The University of Sydney, National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, Schizophrenia Research Institute, National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the New South Wales Department of Health. Cases were excluded if they had an infectious disease (i.e. HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B or C, or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease), an unsatisfactory agonal status determined from the circumstances surrounding the death, post-mortem delays >48 hours, or significant head injury. In addition to case status, age, sex, ethnicity, brain weight, brain pH, post-mortem interval (PMI), tissue hemisphere, clinical cause of death, blood toxicology at time of death, smoking status, neuropathology and liver pathology were also provided for each subject. MiRNA and mRNA expression in 18 matched case-control pairs (N=36) with sample RINs ?6 were assessed on the Affymetrix GeneChip® Human Genome U133A 2.0 (HG-U133A 2.0) and Affymetrix GeneChip miRNA 3.0 microarray.
Project description:In order to identify genes that are activated in differentiating WT ESCs, but are missing in Tal-1-/- and Runx1-/- ESCs, and which might be involved in the generation of definitive hematopoietic progenitors and their specification thereafter, we performed microarray analyses on purified Flk-1+ cells, differentiated from these ESCs for 4, 5, and 6 days M-bM-^@M-^\in vitroM-bM-^@M-^]. Gene-expression profiling of three biological replicates was performed at days 4, 5, and 6 during the differentiation process of WT J1 ESCs (9 samples), and at day 6 during the differentiation process of either Runx1-/- J1 or Tal-1-/- J1 ESCs (3 samples each). Total RNA was extracted using the RNeasy Mini kit (Qiagen). The integrity and amount of isolated RNA was assessed for each sample using an Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent, Waldbronn, Germany) and a NanoDrop ND-1000 spectrophotometer (NanoDrop Technologies, Wilmington, DE). Complementary DNA was synthesized from 3-5 M-NM-<g total RNA, using reagents recommended in the technical manual GeneChip Expression Analysis (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA). The in vitro transcription, necessary for the synthesis of biotinylated complementary RNA (cRNA) was performed using the Enzo RNA Transcript Labeling kit (Affymetrix). Fifteen micrograms of fragmented cRNA of each sample were hybridized to nine Mouse Genome 430-2 arrays (Affymetrix). Hybridization was performed in a Hybridization Oven 640, and chips were washed and stained in the Fluidics Station 400 (both Affymetrix), according to procedure 2 as described in the technical manual. Finally, the arrays were scanned with a GeneChip Scanner 3000 using the GCOS software, both Affymetrix. All relevant GCOS data of quality checked microarrays were analyzed with High Performance Chip Data Analysis (HPCDA, unpublished), using the BioRetis database (www.bioretis-analysis.de), as described and validated previously (55). Used query parameters for database filtering process was described earlier several times (56). For hierarchical cluster analysis, we used the program Genes@Work (57) with gene vectors for normalization and Pearson w/mean for similarity measure. As cluster type, we used center of mass.
Project description:PreB cells were analyzed for differences in gene expression before and after the overexpression of miR-221. In order to dissect possible targets for the miR-221, gene expression profiles of preB cells un-induced or induced for the miR-221 expression after 8, 16 and 24 hours were compared. All induction time-points, e.g. after 8, 16 and 24 hours were compared to un-induced preB cells and to each other group. Gene expression profiles of un-induced preB cells, preB cells induced for miR-221 expression after 8, 16, and 24 hours were analyzed using Affymetrix MG 430 2.0 whole genome arrays. Each time-point was performed in triplicates for un-induced preB cells and preB cells induced for miR-221 expression after 8, 16, and 24 hours (12 arrays in total). To obtain genes significantly downregulated upon induction of miR-221, the expression profiles of un-induced preB cells were compared to preB cells activated for 8, 16, or 24 h and were also compared to each other. After total RNA extraction, reverse transcription, cDNA extraction, the biotinylated cRNA was transcribed, fragmented, and 15 M-BM-5g cRNA hybridized in triplicates for each of the four groups to the 12 GeneChip arrays: Group1, un-induced preB cells, Group2, preB cells induced for miR-221 expression after 8h, Group3, preB cells induced for miR-221 expression after 16h, Group4, preB cells induced for miR-221 expression after 24h.