Project description:In animals, maternal diet and environment can influence the health of offspring. Whether and how maternal dietary choice impacts the nervous system across multiple generations is not well understood. Here, we show that feeding Caenorhabditis elegans with ursolic acid (UA), a natural plant product, reduces adult-onset neurodegeneration intergenerationally. UA provides neuroprotection by enhancing maternal provisioning of sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) - a bioactive sphingolipid. Intestine-to-oocyte S1P transfer is required for intergenerational neuroprotection and is dependent on the RME-2 lipoprotein yolk receptor. S1P acts intergenerationally by upregulating transcription of the acid ceramidase-1 (asah-1) gene in the intestine. Spatially regulating sphingolipid metabolism is critical as inappropriate asah-1 expression in neurons causes developmental axon outgrowth defects. Our results show that sphingolipid homeostasis impacts the development and intergenerational health of the nervous system. The ability of specific lipid metabolites to act as messengers between generations may have broad implications for dietary choice during reproduction.
Project description:Multiple myeloma (MM) evolves from highly prevalent premalignant condition termed Monoclonal Gammopathy of Undetermined Significance (MGUS). We report an MGUS-MM phenotype arising in transgenic mice with Emu-directed expression of the unfolded protein/ER stress response and plasma cell development spliced isoform factor XBP-1s. Emu-XBP-1s elicited elevated serum Ig and IL-6 levels, skin alterations and with advancing age, a significant proportion of Emu-xbp-1s transgenic mice develop features diagnostic of human MM including bone lytic lesions. Transcriptional profiles of Emu-xbp-1s B lymphoid and MM cells show aberrant expression of genes known to be dysregulated in human MM including Cyclin D1, MAF, MAFB, and APRIL. This genetic model coupled with documented frequent XBP-1s overexpression in human MM serve to implicate chronic XBP-1s dysregulation in the development of this common and lethal malignancy. Experiment Overall Design: In this study, we have explored the biological impact of sustained XBP-1s expression in the lymphoid system, anticipating that this genetic event would be a necessary component along with other MM-relevant oncogenes and tumor suppressor gene manipulations to generate a MM-prone mouse model. Unexpectedly, XBP-1s overexpression alone yielded an MGUS-MM disease bearing many features classical of the human disease on the clinical, pathological and molecular levels. Experiment Overall Design: We performed expression analysis of B cells derived from the spleen of 20-week old Emu-xbp-1s mice (n=5) and non-transgenic mice (n=5). Additionally, we analyzed the expression profiles from MM tumor cells arising in Emu-xbp-1s mice (n=6).
Project description:Multiple myeloma (MM) evolves from highly prevalent premalignant condition termed Monoclonal Gammopathy of Undetermined Significance (MGUS). We report an MGUS-MM phenotype arising in transgenic mice with Emu-directed expression of the unfolded protein/ER stress response and plasma cell development spliced isoform factor XBP-1s. Emu-XBP-1s elicited elevated serum Ig and IL-6 levels, skin alterations and with advancing age, a significant proportion of Emu-xbp-1s transgenic mice develop features diagnostic of human MM including bone lytic lesions. Transcriptional profiles of Emu-xbp-1s B lymphoid and MM cells show aberrant expression of genes known to be dysregulated in human MM including Cyclin D1, MAF, MAFB, and APRIL. This genetic model coupled with documented frequent XBP-1s overexpression in human MM serve to implicate chronic XBP-1s dysregulation in the development of this common and lethal malignancy. Keywords: XBP-1, MGUS, multiple myeloma, transgenic mouse
Project description:We compare whole-animal RNA-seq transcriptomes for C. elegans males and hermaphrodites from the late L3 larval stage to young adulthood. During this interval, male sexual structures develop, including extensive neurogenesis and synaptogenesis that nearly doubles the size of the nervous system. Previous genome-wide expression studies in C. elegans have usually focused on only one sex â the hermaphrodite, and there are a relatively large number of predicted genes that still remain without meaningful annotation. In the present study, differential expression analysis of the RNA-seq data revealed 1,751 genes expressed at a higher level in the male. By differential expression analysis, unbiased gene correlation analysis, and a guilt-by-association approach, we identified new transcription factors required for differentiation of male genital structures, semen proteins, and candidates for previously-unknown components for synapse function. The results validate the dataset as a rich resource for future gene discovery in C. elegans. To analyze gene expression during sexual maturation in C. elegans, we performed RNA-seq for five samples for each sex ranging at 6 hr intervals from late L3 to young adult stages
Project description:The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is often used as a model organism to study cell and developmental biology. Quantitative mass spectrometry has only recently been performed in C. elegans and, so far, most studies have been done on adult worm samples. Here we use quantitative mass spectrometry to characterise protein level changes across the four larval developmental stages (L1-L4) of C. elegans, in biological triplicate. In total, we identify 4,130 proteins and quantify 1,541 proteins that were identified across all four stages in all three biological repeats with at least 2 unique peptides per protein. Using hierarchical clustering and functional ontological analyses, we identify 21 protein groups containing proteins with similar protein profiles across the four stages, and highlight the most overrepresented biological functions in each of these protein clusters. In addition, we use the dataset to identify putative larval stage specific proteins in each individual developmental stage, as well as in the early and late developmental stages. In summary, this dataset provides a system-wide analysis of protein level changes across the four C. elegans larval developmental stages, which serves as a useful resource for the worm development research community.