Project description:Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSqCC) are related with cigarette, alcohol and areca quid (AQ). In the era of precision preventive medicine, susceptible genetic markers for HNSqCCs were investigated by genome-wide association manner.
Project description:MicroRNAs (miRNAs) modulate diverse biological and pathological processes via post-transcriptional gene silencing. High-throughput small RNA sequencing (sRNA-seq) has been widely adopted to investigate the functions and regulatory mechanisms of miRNAs. However, accurate quantification of miRNAs has been limited owing to the severe ligation bias in conventional sRNA-seq methods. Here we quantify miRNAs and their variants (known as isomiRs) by an improved sRNA-seq protocol, termed AQ-seq (accurate quantification by sequencing), that utilizes adapters with terminal degenerate sequences and a high concentration of polyethylene glycol (PEG), which minimize the ligation bias during library preparation. Measurement using AQ-seq allows us to correct the previously misannotated 5′ end usage and strand preference in public databases. Importantly, the analysis of 5′ terminal heterogeneity reveals widespread alternative processing events which have been underestimated. We also identify highly uridylated miRNAs originating from the 3p strands, indicating regulations mediated by terminal uridylyl transferases at the pre-miRNA stage. Taken together, our study reveals the complexity of the miRNA isoform landscape, allowing us to refine miRNA annotation and to advance our understanding of miRNA regulation. Furthermore, AQ-seq can be adopted to improve other ligation-based sequencing methods including crosslinking-immunoprecipitation-sequencing (CLIP-seq) and ribosome profiling (Ribo-seq).
Project description:Zika virus (ZIKV) infects fetal and adult human brains, and is associated with serious neurological complications including microcephaly and Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). To date, no prophylactic or therapeutic treatment is available to prevent or treat ZIKV infection. Here, we performed a high content chemical screen using a library containing FDA-approved drugs or drug candidates. Two compounds, hippeastrine hydrobromide (HH) and amodiaquine dihydrochloride dihydrate (AQ), were discovered to inhibit ZIKV infection in human cortical neuron progenitor cells (hNPCs). HH was further validated to inhibit ZIKV infection and to rescue ZIKV-induced growth and differentiation defects in hNPCs and human fetal-like forebrain organoids. Finally, HH and AQ suppressed ZIKV infection in adult mouse brain in vivo. Strikingly, HH and AQ fully rescued the severe limb paralysis syndrome developed in ZIKV infected adult mice. This study identifies drug candidates for treatment of ZIKV infection and ZIKV-related neurological complications in fetal and adult patients.
Project description:Here we show that the asymmetric DNA synthesis is also observed in mec1-100 and mrc1-AQ cells defective in replication checkpoint, but surprisingly, not in mrc1∆ cells in which both DNA replication and checkpoint functions of Mrc1 are missing. Furthermore, depletion of Mrc1 or its partner in DNA replication, Tof1, suppresses the asymmetric DNA synthesis in rad53-1 mutant cells.
Project description:A new group of G-quadruplex binder, cyclic anthraquinone derivative which named cAQ-mBen was developed for G-quadruplex specific recognition. We used RNA-Seq to explore the effect of cAQ-mBen and anthraquinone derivative which named AQ-ac on the whole-transcriptome profiles of tumor cell line SAS.
