Project description:62 individual Brassica napus plants of the same accession grown in the same field were expression-profiled in autumn 2016 and phenotyped extensively until harvest in spring 2017. Machine learning models were used to link gene expression to the phenotypes of individual plants, with the purpose of assessing how much phenotype information in encoded in ‘noisy’ gene expression variation among individual plants of the same background grown under the same uncontrolled field conditions. Rosette leaf 8 blades of 62 individual Brassica napus plants of the same winter-type accession (BnASSYST-120, Darmor) grown in the same field (50°58'24.9\\"N 3°46'49.1\\"E, Merelbeke, Belgium) were RNA-seq profiled. No treatments or stresses were applied, all plants were profiled individually under uncontrolled field conditions. Sown at 2016-09-08, rosette leaf 8 sampled for RNA-seq at 2016-11-28, plants harvested at 2017-06-13.
Project description:In this study, we designed a space simulation study, named “4 Subjects 180-Day Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS) Integration Experiment”, which took place in Shenzhen, China, from June to December 2016. In this experiment, four subjects (3 males and 1 female) lived for 180 days in an enclosed simulated cabin, and multiple-sampling-point DNA methylation data was collected to conduct the epigenic analysis. Peripheral whole blood cells were extracted from all 4 subjects on the 12 sampling points (Pre45, Pre15, R2, R30, R60, R75, R90, R105, R120, R150, R175 and Post30 mission day during the experiment).
Project description:The human immune response to inactivated influenza vaccine is dynamic and impacted by age and preexisting immunity. Our goal was to identify postvaccination transcriptomic changes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from children. Blood samples were obtained before and at 3 or 7 days postvaccination with 2016-2017 quadrivalent inactivated influenza vaccine and RNA sequencing was performed. There were 1,466 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) for the Day 0-Day 3 group and 513 DEGs for the Day 0-Day 7 group. Thirty-three genes were common between the two groups. The majority of the transcriptomic changes at Day 3 represented innate inflammation and apoptosis pathways. Day 7 DEGs were characterized by activation of cellular processes, including the regulation of cytoskeleton, junctions, and metabolism, and increased expression of immunoglobulin genes. DEGs at Day 3 were compared between older and younger children revealing increased inflammatory gene expression in the older group. Vaccine history in the year prior to the study was characterized by robust DEGs at Day 3 with decreased phagosome and dendritic cell maturation in those who had been vaccinated in the previous year. PBMC responses to inactivated influenza vaccination in children differed significantly by the timing of sampling, patient age, and vaccine history. These data provide insight into the expected molecular pathways to be temporally altered by influenza vaccination in children.
Project description:The genome-wide target genes of transcription factors MYC2 and MYC3 were determined in etiolated (dark-grown) seedlings of Arabidopsis thaliana. Chromatin immunoprecipition of MYC2 and MYC3 was performed as described in O’Malley et al (2016; doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.04.038), using transgenic A. thaliana expressing MYC2::YpET and MYC3::YpET fusion proteins from their native promoters, generated by recombineering (Gimenez-Ibanez et al. 2017; doi: 10.1111/nph.14354 ). Three-day old etiolated seedlings were treated with methyl JA for 2 h (as described in Schweizer et al., 2013), then harvested for ChIP-Seq.
Project description:Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been applied in experimental and clinical settings for more than twenty years and may facilitate rehabilitation after stroke as suggested by clinical data (Hummel et al. 2005, Sparing et al. 2009). Intriguingly, tDCS evokes various cellular effects exceeding its primary neurophysiological actions: We previously described subacute effects of tDCS on immune- and stem cells in the rat brain (Rueger et al. 2012, Keuters et al. 2015, Pikhovych et al. 2016, Braun et al. 2016). However, the effects of tDCS on immune-mediating genes have not yet been investigated. To investigate the more immediate effects of tDCS regulating those cellular responses, we treated rats with a single session of either anodal or cathodal tDCS, and analyzed the gene expression by microarray; sham-stimulated rats served as control. We confirmed the effects of gene upregulation by immunohistochemistry at the protein level. We here report for the first time that acute anodal transcranial direct current stimulation enhanced the expression of several genes coding for MHC-I, affecting inflammation and synaptic plasticity (Neumann et al. 1995, Shatz et al. 2009). Moreover, cathodal tDCS increased expression of the gene encoding for the immunoregulatory protein Osteopontin. Osteopontin has beneficial effects on neural stem cells and microglia after brain damage such as stroke (Rabenstein et al. 2015, Rabenstein et al. 2016, Ladwig et al. 2017, Rogall et al. 2017). Overall, our data indicate that a specific modulation of neuroinflammatory processes by non-invasive brain stimulation constitutes a promising therapeutic option with immediate translational relevance.