Genome-Wide Analysis of Gene expression in the Pituitary Gland of the Pregnant Dam
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ABSTRACT: Analysis of gene expression in the pituitary gland of pregnant versus non-pregnant dams. We describe the dynamic control of pituitary gene expression in the pregnant mother, with implications for the regulation of maternal metabolic adaptations to pregnancy.
Project description:The regulation of pituitary function via the hypothalamus and via intra-pituitary connections represents a complex system. Though hormones secreted from the pituitary glands have been well studied, overall information of proteins expressed in the pituitary glands is very limited. Protein expression profiling of normal pituitary tissue may lead to discovery of novel proteins playing an important role in the physiology of pituitary glands and can lead to better understanding of pituitary gland diseases. We aimed to carry out systematic proteomic profiling of adenohypophysis from human pituitary glands using high-resolution Fourier transform mass spectrometer. A total of 2,175 proteins were identified in this study of which, 105 proteins were identified for the first time as compared to high throughput proteomic-based studies from human pituitary glands. The comprehensive list of proteins identified in this study will facilitate the better understanding the role of this important gland in health and disease.
Project description:In mammals, imprinted genes regulate many critical endocrine processes such as growth, the onset of puberty and maternal reproductive behaviour. Human imprinting disorders (IDs) are caused by genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that alter the expression dosage of imprinted genes. Due to improvements in diagnosis, increasing numbers of patients with IDs are now identified and monitored across their lifetimes. Seminal work has revealed that IDs have a strong endocrine component, yet the contribution of imprinted gene products in the develop-ment and function of the hypothalamo-pituitary axis are not well defined. Postnatal endocrine processes are dependent upon the production of hormones from the pituitary gland. While the actions of a few imprinted genes in pituitary development and function have been described, to date there has been no attempt to link the expression of these genes as a class to the formation and function of this essential organ. This is important because IDs show considerable overlap, and imprinted genes are known to define a transcriptional network related to organ growth. This knowledge deficit is partly due to technical difficulties in obtaining useful transcriptomic data from the pituitary gland, namely, its small size during development and cellular complex-ity in maturity. Here we utilise high-sensitivity RNA sequencing at the embryonic stages, and single-cell RNA sequencing data to describe the imprinted transcriptome of the pituitary gland. In concert, we provide a comprehensive literature review of the current knowledge of the role of imprinted genes in pituitary hormonal pathways and how these relate to IDs. We present new data that implicate imprinted gene networks in the development of the gland and in the stem cell compartment. Furthermore, we suggest novel roles for individual imprinted genes in the aetiology of IDs. Finally, we describe the dynamic regulation of imprinted genes in the pituitary gland of the pregnant mother, with implications for the regulation of maternal metabolic adap-tations to pregnancy.
Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the following subset Series:; GSE4028: Effects of diethylstilbestrol (DES) on the anterior pituitary gland of the ACI, Copenhagen and Brown Norway Rat. GSE4080: Effect of DES-treated Ept congenic rat lines on gene expression in the anterior pituitary gland. GSE4081: Expression QTL (eQTL) mapping in the anterior pituitary gland using DES-treated COPxACI F2 rats. Experiment Overall Design: Refer to individual Series
Project description:The pituitary gland is a neuroendocrine organ that is involved in several processes within the body such as metabolism, growth, immune function, and reproduction. Increased ambient temperatures are environmental stressor that leads to several welfare concerns in poultry production but also economic losses. Because of the involvement of the pituitary gland in several processes that are affected by heat stress, it is hypothesized this tissue's gene expression will be impacted by heat stress. The objectives of the project are to (a) identify genes that constitue the pituitary gland when compared to other collected chicken tissues (Insert tissues) and (b) identify genes that respond to heat stress via differential expression analysis to better understand the chicken's response to heat at the transcriptomic level.
Project description:POU1F1 regulates, in the pituitary, the development of the prolactin-, growth hormone- and thyrotropin ß-expressing lineages and the expression of these hormone in the mature pituitary through the direct regulation of their promoters. Besides these functions, POU1F1 is also involved in other cellular processes in the pituitary, such as cell division and survival, but the genomic targets involved in these actions are not known. The present ChIP-chip study identified a large number of hitherto unknown potential direct targets that might be involved in these actions, such as Tcf4, Lmo4, Pax6, Trp53 etc. ChIP-chip was done from pregnant female mouse (C57Bl/6J) pituitary (3 pools of 12 pituitary anterior lobes, corresponding to three biological replicates) with POU1F1 (PIT-1)
Project description:The obesity incidence is increasing worldwide with the urgent need to identify new therapeutics. Obesity is associated with endocrine alterations, arising from changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary hormone axes, leading to reproductive disorders, altered basal metabolism and stress hormone production. The focus of this study was to determine if diet induced obesity alters pituitary gland plasticity, gene expression and hormone production and secretion. Here we performed single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) on pituitary glands from control (CTRL) and high fat diet (HFD) fed males and looked at cell type population dynamics and gene expression changes between HFD and CTRL for all hormone-producing cell types. Our study revealed diet-induced changes in pituitary gland plasticity and hormone production that may play a role in altered hormone production in obese patients and consequently, dysregulation of pituitary gland homeostasis.
Project description:The pituitary gland exhibits sex differences in its function. Diseases associated with dysregulation of the pituitary are also sex-biased in prevalence. Previous qPCR profiling of puberty-related genes in the pituitary gland revealed increasingly sex-biased expression of genes profiled across pubertal transition. Here, we performed small RNA-seq on total RNA extracted from C57BL/6J mouse pituitary gland of both sexes mice at 4 ages spanning pubertal transition (postnatal days 12, 22, 27, 32) (6 replicates per sex at each age) to examine microRNA (miRNA) regulation of sex differences in gene expression observed. Total RNA was sent to SickKids TCAG core to construct small RNA-seq libraries using NEBNext Small RNA Library Prep Kit according to manufacterer’s protocol. Resulting single-end libraries were sequenced at TCAG core on the Illumina HiSeq 2500 v4 flow cell with SR50 bp. Data obtained was processed using miRDeep2 pipeline to align small RNA-seq reads to the mouse genome (mm10) and to filter for miRNAs.
Project description:The pituitary gland exhibits sex differences in its function. Diseases associated with dysregulation of the pituitary are also sex-biased in prevalence. Previous qPCR profiling of puberty-related genes in the pituitary gland revealed increasingly sex-biased expression of genes profiled across pubertal transition. Here, we performed 3’-UTR-seq on pituitary gland from both sexes of C57BL/6J mice at 5 ages spanning pubertal transition (postnatal days 12, 22, 27, 32, 37) (6 replicates per sex at each age) to examine genome-wide sex-biased trends in gene expression and potential regulatory mechanisms of these sex differences. QuantSeq 3’mRNA-seq libraries were constructed from total RNA using an automated method with Agilent NGS Workstation. Resulting single-end libraries were sequenced at SickKids TCAG core on the Illumina v4 flow cell with SR50 bp cycles extended to 68 bp. A customized pipeline was developed and used for analysis of reads obtained (see paper for details). Processed reads were mapped to mouse genome (mm10).