Project description:We report for the first time movement of Correia Repeat Enclosed Elements, through inversion of the element at its chromosomal location. Analysis of Ion Torrent generated genome sequence data from Neisseria gonorrhoeae strain NCCP11945 passaged for 8 weeks in the laboratory under standard conditions and stress conditions revealed a total of 37 inversions: 24 were exclusively seen in the stressed sample; 7 in the control sample; and the remaining 3 were seen in both samples. These inversions have the capability to alter gene expression in N. gonorrhoeae through the previously determined activities of the sequence features of these elements. In addition, the locations of predicted non-coding RNAs were investigated to identify potential associations with CREE. Associations varied between strains, as did the number of each element identified. The analysis indicates a role for CREE in disrupting ancestral regulatory networks, including non-coding RNAs. RNA-Seq was used to examine expression changes related to Correia repeats in the strain
Project description:In order to determine whether dis-regulation of a genetic pathway could explain the increased apoptosis of parp-2-/- double positive thymocytes, the gene expression profiles in double positive thymocytes derived from wild-type and parp-2-/- mice were analysed using Affymetrix oligonucleotide chips (mouse genome 430 2.0).
Project description:Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) is formed by heterogeneous ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament. The patho-mechanism of OPLL is still largely unknown. MicroRNAs are small nucleatides that function as regulators of gene expression in almost any biological process. However, few microRNAs are reported to have a role in the pathological process of OPLL. Therefore, we performed high-throughput microRNA sequencing and transcriptome sequencing of primary OPLL and PLL cells in order to decipher the interacting network of microRNAs in OPLL. MRNA and microRNA profiles were done using primary culture cells of human ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) tissue and normal posterior longitudinal ligament (PLL) tissue.
Project description:Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) is formed by heterogeneous ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament. The patho-mechanism of OPLL is still largely unknown. Recently, disorders of metabolism are thought to be the center of many diseases such as OPLL. Advanced glycation end product (AGE) are accumulated in many extracellular matrixes such as ligament fibers, and it can functions as cellular signal through its receptor (RAGE), contributing to various events such as atherosclerosis or oxidative stress. However, its role in OPLL formation is not yet known. Therefore, we performed high-through-put RNA sequencing on primary posterior longitudinal ligament cells treated with different doses of AGEs (1µM, 5µM and negative control), with or without BMP2 (1µM). mRNA profiles of Primary human posterior longitudinal ligament cells stimulated with various stimuli (Control, 1µM AGE-BSA, 5µM AGE-BSA, 1µM AGE-BSA with BMP2, 5µM AGE-BSA with BMP2) were generated by deep sequencing on Ion Proton
Project description:MicroRNAs are important negative regulators of protein coding gene expression, and have been studied intensively over the last few years. To this purpose, different measurement platforms to determine their RNA abundance levels in biological samples have been developed. In this study, we have systematically compared 12 commercially available microRNA expression platforms by measuring an identical set of 20 standardized positive and negative control samples, including human universal reference RNA, human brain RNA and titrations thereof, human serum samples, and synthetic spikes from homologous microRNA family members. We developed novel quality metrics in order to objectively assess platform performance of very different technologies such as small RNA sequencing, RT-qPCR and (microarray) hybridization. We assessed reproducibility, sensitivity, quantitative performance, and specificity. The results indicate that each method has its strengths and weaknesses, which helps guiding informed selection of a quantitative microRNA gene expression platform in function of particular study goals.
Project description:BackgroundThe utility of dipstick proteinuria for predicting microalbuminuria in non-diabetic lifestyle-related diseases compared with the urine protein-to-creatinine ratio (uPCR) and the effect of dipstick proteinuria on the cut-off value (CO) and accuracy of uPCR are unclear.MethodsThe subjects included Japanese patients ≥ 18 years old with lifestyle-related diseases who had an estimated glomerular filtration rate of ≥ 15 ml/min/1.73 m2 and uPCR of < 0.5 g/gCr at initiation. Urine dipstick, uPCR and urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (uACR) were measured three times per case. Microalbuminuria was defined as uACR of 30-299 mg/gCr for at least 2 of 3 measurements. Youden's Index was used as the optimal CO. Factors associated with microalbuminuria were analyzed using a logistic regression model.ResultsIn 313 non-diabetic cases (median 70.8 years old), 3 dipstick proteinuria measurements were independently useful for detecting microalbuminuria, and the CO was set when a trace finding was obtained at least 1 of 3 times (sensitivity 0.56, specificity 0.80, positive predictive value [PPV] 0.73, negative predictive value [NPV] 0.65). A single uPCR measurement was more useful than 3 dipstick measurements, and was useful for detecting microalbuminuria even in cases with three consecutive negative proteinuria findings, indicating that the CO of the second uPCR with G1-3a (n = 136) was 0.06 g/gCr (sensitivity 0.76, specificity 0.84. PPV 0.68, NPV 0.89), while that with G3-b4 (n = 59) was 0.10 g/gCr (sensitivity 0.56, specificity 0.91. PPV 0.83, NPV 0.71). The sum of 3 uPCRs was useful for detecting microalbuminuria in cases with G1-3a (sensitivity 0.67, specificity 0.94, PPV 0.82, NPV 0.86) and G3b-4 (sensitivity 0.78, specificity 0.94, PPV 0.91 NPV 0.83), with both COs being 0.23 g/gCr. These COs of microalbuminuria did not change when trace or more proteinuria was included, although the sensitivity increased. A high uPCR and low urine specific gravity or creatinine level were independent factors for uACR ≥ 30 mg/gCr in cases with negative proteinuria, although the uPCR was a major predictive factor of a uACR ≥ 30 mg/gCr.ConclusionsThe uPCR (preferably determined using early-morning urine), including in dipstick-negative proteinuria cases with non-diabetic lifestyle-related diseases, can aid in the early detection of microalbuminuria.Trial registrationRetrospectively registered.
Project description:BACKGROUND:To explore the differences of 24-hour urine compositions associated with urolithiasis between non- and postmenopausal females. METHODS:The 24-hour urine samples of female participants were collected from May 2013 to July 2014 along with national cross-sectional study of urolithiasis among adults aged ≥18 years in China. The exclusion criteria for the participants were: serum creatinine > 133μmol/L, with urinary tract infection, gout, hyperthyroidism, malignancy, had a history of cancer, kidney stones, enterectomy, had taken thiazide diuretics, allopurinol, vitamin supplement, potassium citrate or calcium supplements during the past two weeks. The compositions associated with urinary stone in 24-hour urine were measured and compared between non-and postmenopausal women. RESULTS:A total of 603 24-hour urine samples of female participants were analyzed. 354 women with a mean age of 52.5± 14.03 (range 19-84) years met the criteria, including 160 non-menopausal women and 194 postmenopausal women. Compared to the non-menopausal women, postmenopausal women had a lower secretion of citrate (p = 0.043), magnesium (p = 0.001) and creatinine (p = 0.001) in 24h urine. Multivariate linear regression analysis showed that the menopause status was associated with the changes in magnesium (p = 0.003) and creatinine (p = 0.002) secretion, whereas not with the changes in citrate (p = 0.402) secretion. CONCLUSIONS:Postmenopausal women have a significant lower secretion of magnesium in their 24-hour urine than non-menopausal ones. We suppose that might be associated with increased risk of urinary stone formation among postmenopausal women.
Project description:In this study, RNA-Seq was used to reveal the differences of molecular pathways in hepatopancreas of O. niloticus adapated to water with salinity of 8 or 16 practical salinity (psu), respectively, with fish at freshwater as the control,. Significantly changed pathways were mainly related to lipid metabolism, glucose utilization, protein consumption, osmotic regulation, signal transduction and immunology. Based on the tendencies from freshwater to 8 or 16 psu, the differentially expressed gene unions were categorized into eight unique models, which were further classified into three categories which were constant-change (either keep increasing or decreasing), change-then-stable and stable-then-change. In constant-change category, steroid biosynthesis, steroid hormone biosynthesis, fat digestion and absorption, complement and coagulation cascades were extremely significantly affected by ambient salinity (P < 0.01), indicating that these pathways play pivotal roles in molecular response to salinity acclimation from freshwater to saline water in O. niloticus, and should be the main research focus in the future. In change-then-stable category, ribosome, oxidative phosphorylation, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR) signaling pathway, fat digestion and absorption changed significantly with ambient increasing salinity (P < 0.01), showing these pathways were sensitive to environmental salinity variation, but had a response threshold, and would stop changing once salinity exceeds the threshold. In stable-then-change category, protein export, protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum, tight junction, thyroid hormone synthesis, antigen processing and presentation, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis and glycosaminoglycan biosynthesis - keratan sulfate were the top changed pathways (P < 0.01), suggesting that these pathways were not sensitive to salinity variation, but these pathways will respond significantly under salinity exceeding a certain level. The pathways and genes reported in this study laid on a solid foundation for future studies in understanding the underlying mechanism for salinity adaptation of freshwater fish. Examination of 3 different salinities treated hepatopancreas in Nile tilapia
Project description:Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are recently characterized players that are involved in the regulatory circuitry of self-renewal in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). However, the specific roles of lncRNAs in this circuitry are poorly understood. Here, we determined that growth-arrest-specific transcript 5 (GAS5), which is a known tumor suppressor and growth arrest gene, is abundantly expressed in the cytoplasm of hESCs and essential for hESC self-renewal. GAS5 depletion in hESCs significantly impaired their pluripotency and self-renewal ability, whereas GAS5 overexpression in hESCs accelerated the cell cycle, enhanced their colony formation ability and increased pluripotency marker expression. By RNA sequencing and bioinformatics analysis, we determined that GAS5 activates NODAL-SMAD2/3 signaling by sustaining the expression of NODAL, which plays a key role in hESC self-renewal but not in somatic cell growth. Further studies indicated that GAS5 functions as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) to protect NODAL mRNA against degradation and that GAS5 transcription is directly controlled by the core pluripotency transcriptional factors (TFs). Taken together, we suggest that the core TFs, GAS5 and NODAL-SMAD2/3 form a feed-forward loop to maintain the hESC self-renewal process. These findings are specific to ESCs and did not occur in the somatic cell lines we tested; therefore, our findings also provide evidence that the functions of lncRNAs vary in different biological contexts. We analyzed long non-coding RNAs in two hESC cell lines (X-01 and H1), and found GAS5 is highly expressed and functional in maintaining hESC self-renewal. We generate stable overexpressed or knockdown hESC cell lines using lentiviral approach. We transfected cells initialy after passage, and lentiviruses are added with daily medium change for three days (at a final concentration of 10^5 IU/ml). Puromycin is added for selection and supplied with daily medium change. Stable cell lines are established after two passages and verified under fluorescence scope. Total RNAs and miRNAs are extracted separately of all three cell lines (LV-NC, LV-GAS5 and LV-shGAS5) and put to sequencing.
Project description:We used ATLAS-seq to comprehensively map the genomic location of LINE-1 elements belonging to the youngest and potentially polymorphic subfamily (L1HS-Ta). This was performed in a panel of 12 human primary or transformed cell lines (BJ, IMR90, MRC5, H1, K562, HCT116, HeLa S3, HepG2, MCF7, HEK-293, HEK-293T, 2102Ep). In brief, ATLAS-seq relies on the random mechanical fragmentation of the genomic DNA to ensure high-coverage, ligation of adapter sequences, suppression PCR-amplification of L1HS-Ta element junctions, and Ion Torrent sequencing using single-end 400 bp read chemistry. A notable aspect of ATLAS-seq is that we can obtain both L1 downstream and upstream junctions (3'- and 5'-ATLAS-seq libraries, respectively), for full-length L1 elements. Note that a 10-nt sample-specific barcode has been removed at the 5' end of the reads in the .fastq files upon demultiplexing. This was achieved using cutadapt v1.9.2.dev0 (with the following parameters: -e 0.1 -q 10 -m 25 -g <barcode_name>=^<barcode_sequence>)