ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is to prepare and analyze a set of samples that will test the experimental variability and reproducibility of NMR based metabolomics.
Project description:Synovial fluid (SF) is of great interest for the investigation of orthopaedic pathologies as it is in close proximity to various tissues which are primarily altered during these disease processes and can be collected using minimally invasive protocols. Therefore, SF has substantial potential for improved understanding of underlying disease pathogenesis and biomarker discovery. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics is a rapidly expanding field, providing comprehensive metabolite profiling of complex biological samples with high levels of technical reproducibility. However, currently there are no agreed standard protocols which are published for SF collection and processing for use with NMR metabolomic analysis. The development of liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) has provided a fast and sensitive methodology to identify and quantify proteins within complex biological samples. However, the large protein concentration dynamic range present within SF can mask the detection of lower abundance proteins. Combinational ligand libraries (ProteoMinerTM columns) have been developed to reduce this dynamic range, achieving peptide-based depletion, whilst allowing preservation of the whole proteome. However, the reproducibility of ProteoMinerTM columns when used in conjunction with SF or on-bead protein digestion protocol reproducibility have yet to be investigated. During this study, protocols have been optimised for the collection, processing and storage of SF for NMR metabolite analysis. We have also optimised protocols for analysis of the SF proteome using LC-MS/MS.
Project description:Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as key regulators in cancer and play complicate and critical roles in regulating various key biological processes including chromatin modification, transcription and post-transcriptional processing. We identified a novel transcript, lncRNA NMR, which was upregulated in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and significantly associated with overall survival of ESCC patients and and is identical to ENST00000432429.1 in GENCODE v13 or ENST00000432429.5 in Ensembl release 83. Here, we sought to determine the alterations of trancriptome after shRNA-mediated knockdown and transient overexpression of lncRNA NMR in ESCC KYSE70 and KYSE450 cell lines.
Project description:The hypothesis of the present study is that metabolic phenotyping of blood plasma allows to (i) discriminate between colorectal cancer patients and control subjects and (ii) identify new biomarkers for colorectal cancer. In order to test this hypothesis, the investigators will apply proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy to perform metabolic phenotyping of blood plasma in 50 colorectal cancer patients and 50 control subjects. Multivariate statistics will be performed to assess the discriminative power of the applied methodology in distinguishing between both groups and to identify metabolites with potential as biomarkers for colorectal cancer.
Project description:The “Fish Acute Toxicity Test” in the “OECD Guideline for Testing of Chemicals” is an essential test for environmental toxicity. Here we have tried to evaluate the physiology of medaka during this test procedure by using genomics. Genomics technology can provide genome-wide expression profiles of mRNA, and these profiles correspond to the physiology of organisms. Thus, a comparison of mRNA expression profiles gives information on the reproducibility of experimental conditions. Expression profiles of mRNA were measured for medakas maintained within the allowable range of the test conditions and also under extreme conditions beyond the guidelines limits. We confirmed the high physiological reproducibility of medaka kept in the recommended conditions of the “Fish Acute Toxicity Test” in the “OECD Guideline for Testing of Chemicals" from the expression profiles obtained under all experimental conditions except for the type of feeding.