Project description:Most human transcripts are alternatively spliced, and many disease-causing mutations affect RNA splicing. Towards better modeling the sequence determinants of alternative splicing, we measured the splicing patterns of nearly 2 million (M) synthetic mini-genes, which include degenerate subsequences totaling to nearly 100M bases of variation. The massive size of these training data allowed us to improve upon current models of splicing as well as to gain new mechanistic insights. Our results show that a vast majority of hexamer sequence motifs measurably influence splice site selection when positioned within alternative exons, with multiple motifs acting additively rather than cooperatively. Intriguingly, motifs that enhance (suppress) exon inclusion in alternative 5’ splicing also enhance (suppress) exon inclusion in alternative 3’ or cassette exon splicing, suggesting a universal mechanism for alternative exon recognition. Finally, our empirically trained models are highly predictive of the effects of naturally occurring variants on alternative splicing in vivo.
Project description:Calcium is a critical signaling molecule in many cell types including immune cells. The calcium-release activated calcium channels (CRAC) responsible for store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) in immune cells are gated by STIM family members functioning as sensors of Ca2+ store content in the endoplasmic reticulum. We investigated the effect of SOCE blocker BTP2 on human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) stimulated with the mitogen phytohemagglutinin (PHA).
Project description:Calcium is a critical signaling molecule in many cell types including immune cells. The calcium-release activated calcium channels (CRAC) responsible for store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) in immune cells are gated by STIM family members functioning as sensors of Ca2+ store content in the endoplasmic reticulum. We investigated the effect of SOCE blockers BTP2 and CM4620 on human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) polyclonally-stimulated with the mitogen phytohemagglutinin (PHA).
Project description:When faced with potential threat we must estimate its probability, respond advantageously, and leverage experience to update future estimates. Threat estimation is the proposed domain of the forebrain, while behaviour is elicited by the brainstem. Yet, the brainstem is also a source of prediction error, a learning signal to acquire and update threat estimates. Neuropixels probes allowed us to record single-unit activity across a 21-region brainstem axis in rats receiving probabilistic fear discrimination with foot shock outcome. Against a backdrop of diffuse behaviour signaling, a brainstem network with a dorsal hub signaled threat probability. Neuronal function remapping during the outcome period gave rise to brainstem networks signaling prediction error and shock on multiple timescales. The results reveal brainstem networks construct threat probability, behaviour, and prediction error signals from neuronal building blocks.
Project description:Flax is an important oilseed crop in North America and is mostly grown as a fibre crop in Europe. As a self-pollinated diploid with a small estimated genome size of ~370 Mb, flax is well suited for fast progress in genomics. In the last few years, important genetic resources have been developed for this crop. Here, we describe the assessment and comparative analyses of 1,506 putative simple sequence repeats (SSRs) of which, 1,164 were derived from BAC-end sequences (BESs) and 342 from expressed sequence tags (ESTs). The SSRs were assessed on a panel of 16 flax accessions with 673 (58 %) and 145 (42 %) primer pairs being polymorphic in the BESs and ESTs, respectively. With 818 novel polymorphic SSR primer pairs reported in this study, the repertoire of available SSRs in flax has more than doubled from the combined total of 508 of all previous reports. Among nucleotide motifs, trinucleotides were the most abundant irrespective of the class, but dinucleotides were the most polymorphic. SSR length was also positively correlated with polymorphism. Two dinucleotide (AT/TA and AG/GA) and two trinucleotide (AAT/ATA/TAA and GAA/AGA/AAG) motifs and their iterations, different from those reported in many other crops, accounted for more than half of all the SSRs and were also more polymorphic (63.4 %) than the rest of the markers (42.7 %). This improved resource promises to be useful in genetic, quantitative trait loci (QTL) and association mapping as well as for anchoring the physical/genetic map with the whole genome shotgun reference sequence of flax.
Project description:Nanopore sequencing produces long reads and offers unique advantages over next-generation sequencing, especially for the assembly of draft bacterial genomes with improved completeness. However, assembly errors can occur due to data characteristics and assembly algorithms. To address these issues, we developed MAECI, a pipeline for generating consensus sequences from multiple assemblies of the same nanopore sequencing data and error correction. Systematic evaluation showed that MAECI is an efficient and effective pipeline to improve the accuracy and completeness of bacterial genome assemblies. The available codes and implementation are at https://github.com/langjidong/MAECI.