Project description:Plasma-treated water (PTW) contains reactive oxygen and nitrogen species and can therefore induce mild oxidative stress in plants. In a previous study, PTW treatment of leaves resulted in both short- and long-term systemic signals. RNA-seq was applied to analyse the adaptive response triggered by PTW treatment and to further determine the mode of action of PTW in barley leaves and roots under short- and long-term conditions. The application of PTW to the leaves resulted in stronger long-term transcriptional changes in the roots. PTW treatment significantly increased root biomass, while it had no effect on shoot growth. In roots the signalling of auxin, ethylene, brassinosteroids and gibberellin was stimulated, while cytokinin signalling was impeded. Many genes encoding cell wall modifying enzymes, structural proteins and receptor kinases were upregulated in the roots in long-term response to PTW. This indicates that PTW treatment appears to affect root growth by promoting cell elongation. In addition, foliar treatment with PTW led to changes in root architecture: root length, surface area, diameter and number of forks increased in the long term, as did the content of soluble phenolic compounds. All these changes indicate that PTW could be a suitable stimulant for improving the root growth of plants.
Project description:Research shows that children who are reared in households with low socioeconomic status are more vulnerable to heart disease, respiratory infection, and some cancers when they reach adulthood. This study conducted transcriptional profiling of PBMC in healthy adults who were low vs. high in early-life SES to explore the long-lasting genomic effects of early experience. Keywords: life stress, gene expression, inflammation, socioeconomic status Samples from 30 adults with low early-life SES and 30 adults with high early-life SES
Project description:During female reproductive life, the reserve of ovarian follicles is reduced by maturation and atresia until menopause ensues. Foxo3 is required to maintain the ovarian reserve in mice. We asked if overexpression of a constitutively active FOXO3 protein can increase long-lasting ovarian reproductive capacity in mice. Trangenic vs non-transgenic mice onto Foxo3+/- vs Foxo3-/- genotype
Project description:Low-calorie sweetener (LCS) consumption in children has increased dramatically due to widespread presence in the food environment and efforts to mitigate obesity through sugar replacement. However, mechanistic studies on the long-term impact of early-life LCS consumption on cognitive function and physiological processes are lacking. Here, we developed a rodent model to evaluate the effects of daily LCS consumption (acesulfame potassium, saccharin, or stevia) during adolescence on adult metabolic, behavioral, gut microbiome, and brain transcriptomic outcomes. Results reveal that habitual early-life LCS consumption impacts normal post-oral glucose handling and impairs hippocampal-dependent memory in the absence of weight gain. Furthermore, adolescent LCS consumption yielded long-term reductions in lingual sweet taste receptor expression and alterations in sugar-motivated appetitive and consummatory responses. While early life LCS consumption did not produce robust changes in the gut microbiome, brain region-specific RNA sequencing analyses reveal LCS-induced changes in collagen- and synaptic signaling-related gene pathways in the hippocampus and nucleus accumbens, respectively, in a sex-dependent manner. Collectively, these results reveal that habitual early-life LCS consumption has long lasting implications for glucoregulation, sugar-motivated behavior, and hippocampal-dependent memory in rats, which may be based in part on changes in nutrient transporter, sweet taste receptor, and central gene pathway expression.
Project description:Prenatal stress exposure is associated with the risk for psychiatric disorders later in life. This may be mediated via enhanced exposure to glucocorticoids (GCs), known to impact neurogenesis. We aimed to identify molecular mediators of these effects, focusing on long-lasting epigenetic changes. In a human hippocampal progenitor cell (HPC) line, we assessed the short- and long-term effects of GC exposure during neurogenesis on mRNA expression and DNA methylation (DNAm) profiles. GC exposure induced changes in DNAm at 27,812 CpG sites and in the expression of 3,857 transcripts at FDR ≤ 0.1 and an absolsute change in expression of 1.15. HPC gene expression and GC-affected DNAm profiles were enriched for changes observed during human fetal brain development. Differentially methylated sites (DMSs) with GC exposure clustered into four trajectories over HPC-differentiation, with transient as well as long-lasting DNAm changes. Lasting DMSs mapped to distinct functional pathways and were selectively enriched for poised and bivalent enhancer marks. Lasting DMSs had little correlation with lasting gene expression changes, but were associated with a significantly enhanced transcriptional response to a second acute GC challenge. A significant subset of lasting DMSs was also responsive to an acute GC-challenge in peripheral blood. These tissue-overlapping DMSs were used to compute a poly-epigenetic score that predicted exposure to conditions of excessive prenatal GC in newborn cord blood. Overall, our data suggest that early exposure to GCs can change the set point of future transcriptional responses to stress by inducing lasting DNAm changes. Such altered set points may relate to differential vulnerability to stress exposure later in life.
Project description:Prenatal stress exposure is associated with the risk for psychiatric disorders later in life. This may be mediated via enhanced exposure to glucocorticoids (GCs), known to impact neurogenesis. We aimed to identify molecular mediators of these effects, focusing on long-lasting epigenetic changes. In a human hippocampal progenitor cell (HPC) line, we assessed the short- and long-term effects of GC exposure during neurogenesis on mRNA expression and DNA methylation (DNAm) profiles. GC exposure induced changes in DNAm at 27,812 CpG sites and in the expression of 3,857 transcripts at FDR ≤ 0.1 and an absolsute change in expression of 1.15. HPC gene expression and GC-affected DNAm profiles were enriched for changes observed during human fetal brain development. Differentially methylated sites (DMSs) with GC exposure clustered into four trajectories over HPC-differentiation, with transient as well as long-lasting DNAm changes. Lasting DMSs mapped to distinct functional pathways and were selectively enriched for poised and bivalent enhancer marks. Lasting DMSs had little correlation with lasting gene expression changes, but were associated with a significantly enhanced transcriptional response to a second acute GC challenge. A significant subset of lasting DMSs was also responsive to an acute GC-challenge in peripheral blood. These tissue-overlapping DMSs were used to compute a poly-epigenetic score that predicted exposure to conditions of excessive prenatal GC in newborn cord blood. Overall, our data suggest that early exposure to GCs can change the set point of future transcriptional responses to stress by inducing lasting DNAm changes. Such altered set points may relate to differential vulnerability to stress exposure later in life.
Project description:Prenatal stress exposure is associated with the risk for psychiatric disorders later in life. This may be mediated via enhanced exposure to glucocorticoids (GCs), known to impact neurogenesis. We aimed to identify molecular mediators of these effects, focusing on long-lasting epigenetic changes. In a human hippocampal progenitor cell (HPC) line, we assessed the short- and long-term effects of GC exposure during neurogenesis on mRNA expression and DNA methylation (DNAm) profiles. GC exposure induced changes in DNAm at 27,812 CpG sites and in the expression of 3,857 transcripts at FDR ≤ 0.1 and an absolsute change in expression of 1.15. HPC gene expression and GC-affected DNAm profiles were enriched for changes observed during human fetal brain development. Differentially methylated sites (DMSs) with GC exposure clustered into four trajectories over HPC-differentiation, with transient as well as long-lasting DNAm changes. Lasting DMSs mapped to distinct functional pathways and were selectively enriched for poised and bivalent enhancer marks. Lasting DMSs had little correlation with lasting gene expression changes, but were associated with a significantly enhanced transcriptional response to a second acute GC challenge. A significant subset of lasting DMSs was also responsive to an acute GC-challenge in peripheral blood. These tissue-overlapping DMSs were used to compute a poly-epigenetic score that predicted exposure to conditions of excessive prenatal GC in newborn cord blood. Overall, our data suggest that early exposure to GCs can change the set point of future transcriptional responses to stress by inducing lasting DNAm changes. Such altered set points may relate to differential vulnerability to stress exposure later in life.
Project description:Long-lasting activation of T cells requires up-regulation of many genes, for example of transcription factors, cytoskeletal proteins and cell surface proteins encluding ion channels. An increase of ion channel density at the cell surface reflects the needs to manage increased Ca2+ influx into the activated T cell. Using oligonucleotide-based arrays we have surveyed changes in ion channel mRNA expression that occur upon T cell activation.
Project description:Research shows that children who are reared in households with low socioeconomic status are more vulnerable to heart disease, respiratory infection, and some cancers when they reach adulthood. This study conducted transcriptional profiling of PBMC in healthy adults who were low vs. high in early-life SES to explore the long-lasting genomic effects of early experience. Keywords: life stress, gene expression, inflammation, socioeconomic status