Project description:To investigate the effect of sex on within- and between-population variation in gene expression, we performed a microarray analysis of adult females from 16 strains of Drosophila melanogaster, including eight strains from the putative ancestral range in sub-Saharan Africa and eight strains from a European population. The results were compared to those of a previous study of adult male gene expression variation among the same strains (GSE8843).
Project description:Transciprional profiling of horn forming region of Bos taurus comparing horned, polled and scurred cattle. 3 condition experiment, Polled vs Horned, Polled vs Scurred, Scurred vs Horned, male and female samples, including dye swaps. 5 chips. No confounding between sex and chip. No confounding between indivdual and chip.
Project description:The dorsal horn of the spinal cord transforms incoming somatosensory information and transmits it supraspinally to generate sensory perception, including pain and itch. Recent research using mouse Cre-driver lines has implicated specific populations of dorsal horn neurons in the transmission of different types of pain. In parallel, human genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified dozens of loci confidently associated with the genetic predisposition to chronic pain. The ability to connect controlled experiments in rodent models with human genetic studies could provide a platform for translational research, but the cell type heterogeneity of the dorsal horn and the complex genetic architecture of chronic pain have created challenges in bridging that gap. Here, we apply a variety of single cell genomic technologies and a comparative genomic analysis to identify conserved dorsal horn neuron subtypes whose open chromatin regions show enrichment for genetic variants associated with human chronic pain phenotypes. To achieve this, we first use single nucleus RNA-Seq and fluorescence in situ hybridization in Rhesus macaque to create a more detailed map of primate dorsal horn neuron subtypes. These were integrated with publicly available human and mouse single nucleus RNA-Seq datasets to create a multi-modal cross species atlas. Then, for the mouse dorsal horn, we combined single nucleus RNA-Seq, spatial transcriptomics, and single nucleus ATAC-Seq to infer spatial and epigenomic profiles of conserved dorsal horn neuron subtypes. Finally, we compared our conserved cell-type open chromatin resource to chronic pain GWAS and found that open chromatin regions of specific dorsal horn neuron subtypes showed enrichment for a variety of human chronic pain phenotypes. Our results provide a foundation to further explore how conserved dorsal horn neuron subtypes influence the transmission of pain signals.
Project description:We here describe the first successful construction of a targeted tandem duplication of a large chromosomal segment in Aspergillus oryzae. The targeted tandem chromosomal duplication was achieved by using strains that had 5’ΔpyrG upstream of the region targeted for tandem chromosomal duplication and 3’ΔpyrG downstream of the target region. Consequently, strains bearing a 210-kb targeted tandem chromosomal duplication near the centromeric region of chromosome 8 and strains bearing a targeted tandem chromosomal duplication of a 700-kb region of chromosome 2 were successfully constructed. The strains bearing the tandem chromosomal duplication were efficiently obtained from the regenerated protoplast of the parental strains. However, the generation of the chromosomal duplication did not depend on the introduction of double-stranded breaks (DSBs) by I-SceI. The chromosomal duplications of these strains were stably maintained after five generations of culture under non-selective conditions. The strains bearing the tandem chromosomal duplication in the 700-kb region of chromosome 2 showed highly increased protease activity in solid-state culture, indicating that the duplication of large chromosomal segments could be a useful new breeding technology and gene analysis method.
