Project description:The objective of this study is to search for calcium signal-dependent expression changes. 2 samples comparing active calcium signaling (control) to no signaling (5ppase)
Project description:We report the application of RNA-seq for molecular profiling of cultured, cortical astrocytes. Our data set is based on about 40 million unique reads per sample in four independent mRNA preparations. Cortical astrocytes are a prototypical cell model for investigating calcium signaling. For analysis of calcium fluxes, we performed direct calcium imaging in the endoplasmic reticulum and in the cytosol. We describe in our study the physiological profile of homeostatic and agonist-induced calcium fluxes. Furthermore, we show how ER calcium release shapes the cytosolic calcium signal. This transcriptome dataset was used to profile the calcium toolkit of astrocytes. The data suggest that a small number of calcium signaling-related proteins mediate calcium homeostasis in astrocytes.
Project description:Profiling of transcriptional changes in rat astrocytes when co-cultured with neurons: comparison of astrocytes cultured alone with astrocytes co-cultured with mouse hippocampal neurons. Co-cultured astrocytes are isolated using cold jet, a novel tool for these neuron-glia cultures. Over the last decade, the importance of astrocyte-neuron communication in neuronal development and synaptic plasticity has become increasingly clear. Since neuron-astrocyte interactions represent highly dynamic and reciprocal processes, we hypothesized that at least part of the involved astrocyte genes may be regulated as a consequence of their interactions with maturing neurons. In order to identify such neuron-induced astrocyte genes in vitro, we tested the effectiveness of the ‘cold jet’, a new method for separation of neurons from co-cultured astrocytes. The cold jet method is performed under ice-cold conditions and avoids protease-mediated isolation of astrocytes or time-consuming centrifugation, yielding intact astrocyte mRNA with approximately 90% of neuronal RNA removed. Using this method, we executed genome-wide profiling in which RNA derived from astrocyte-only cultures was compared with astrocyte RNA derived from differentiating neuron-astrocyte co-cultures. Data analysis revealed changes in expression of a large number of mRNAs and biological processes, including novel findings. Thus, cold jet is an efficient method to separate astrocytes from neurons in co-culture, and in this study reveals that neurons induce robust gene-expression changes in co-cultured astrocytes.
Project description:TGFβ activates a signal transduction cascade that results in the microRNAs and genes transcription. The objective of this study is to identify miRNAs which are regulated through TGFB signaling pathway