Project description:Light represents an important environmental cue, which exerts considerable influence on the metabolism of fungi. Studies with the biotechnological fungal workhorse Trichoderma reesei (Hypocrea jecorina) have revealed an interconnection between transcriptional regulation of cellulolytic enyzmes and the light response. The filamentous fungus, Neurospora crassa, has been used as a model organism to study light and circadian rhythm biology. We therefore investigated whether light also regulates transcriptional regulation of cellulolytic enzymes in N. crassa. We show that the N. crassa photoreceptor genes wc-1, wc-2 and vvd are involved in regulation of cellulase gene expression, indicating that this phenomenon is conserved among filamentous fungi. Genome wide analysis of photoreceptor mutants and evaluation of results by analysis of mutant strains identified several candidate genes likely to play a role in light modulated cellulase gene expression.
Project description:Transcriptomic analysis of cancer samples helps to identify the mechanism and molecular markers of cancer. However, transcriptomic analyses of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma from the Japanese population are lacking. We performed RNA sequencing of flesh or frozen pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma tissues and adjacent normal pancreatic tissue from 12 Japanese patients to identify genes critical for the clinical pathology of pancreatic cancer among the Japanese population.
Project description:Light represents an important environmental cue, which exerts considerable influence on the metabolism of fungi. Studies with the biotechnological fungal workhorse Trichoderma reesei (Hypocrea jecorina) have revealed an interconnection between transcriptional regulation of cellulolytic enyzmes and the light response. The filamentous fungus, Neurospora crassa, has been used as a model organism to study light and circadian rhythm biology. We therefore investigated whether light also regulates transcriptional regulation of cellulolytic enzymes in N. crassa. We show that the N. crassa photoreceptor genes wc-1, wc-2 and vvd are involved in regulation of cellulase gene expression, indicating that this phenomenon is conserved among filamentous fungi. Genome wide analysis of photoreceptor mutants and evaluation of results by analysis of mutant strains identified several candidate genes likely to play a role in light modulated cellulase gene expression. Three deletion strains (delta-wc-1 (FGSC 11712), delta-wc-2 (FGSC 11124) and delta-vvd (FGSC 11556)) and the wild type strain (FGSC 2489) at two different timepoints (28h or 40h) were analyzed. Cy3 and Cy5 dye swaps were performed.
Project description:Drug overdose deaths involving cocaine have skyrocketed, an outcome attributable in part to the lack of FDA-approved medications for the treatment of cocaine use disorder (CUD), highlighting the need to identify new pharmacotherapeutic targets. Vulnerability to cocaine-associated environmental contexts and stimuli serves as a risk factor for relapse in CUD recovery, with individual differences evident in the motivational aspects of these cues. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) provides top-down control of striatal circuitry to regulate the incentive-motivational properties of cocaine-associated stimuli. Clinical and preclinical studies have identified genetic variations that impact the degree of executive restraint over drug-motivated behaviors, and we designed the present study to employ next-generation sequencing to identify specific genes associated with heightened cue-evoked cocaine-seeking in the mPFC of male, outbred rats. Rats were trained to stably self-administer cocaine, and baseline cue-reinforced cocaine-seeking was established. Rats were phenotyped as either high cue (HC) or low cue (LC) responders based upon lever pressing for previously associated cocaine cues and allowed 10 days of abstinence in their home cages prior to mPFC collection for RNA-sequencing. The expression of 309 genes in the mPFC was significantly different in HC vs. LC rats. Functional gene enrichment analyses identified ten biological processes that were overrepresented in the mPFC of HC vs. LC rats. The present study identifies distinctions in mPFC mRNA transcripts that characterizes individual differences in relapse-like behavior and provides prioritized candidates (i.e., Htr2c, Adora2a, Drd2) for future pharmacotherapeutics aimed to help maintain abstinence in CUD.
Project description:The goal of this study is to identify the role of OCT4 in combination with small molecules as the critical cue governing the reprogramming of human somatic cells into OPCs using ChIP-seq
Project description:The current study aimed at addressing two questions: 1) How the expression of key miRNAs is altered in the NAc during the cue-induced incubation of morphine craving? 2) Which is/are the target gene(s) and what is/are the regulatory mechanism(s) of gene(s) in response to the candidate miRNAs? To answer these two questions, the cue-induced incubation of the morphine craving model was first established by using the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Then, the aberrant expression of miRNAs was identified in the NAc tissue by RNA-sequencing.