Project description:Intermittent neonatal hypoxia elicits the upregulation of inflammatory-related genes in the adult rat through long-lasting programming effects
Project description:Living organisms are intricate systems with dynamic internal processes. Their RNA, protein, and metabolite levels fluctuate in response to variations in health and environmental conditions. Among these, RNA expression is particularly accessible for comprehensive analysis, thanks to the evolution of high throughput sequencing technologies in recent years. This progress has enabled researchers to identify unique RNA patterns associated with various diseases, as well as to develop predictive and prognostic biomarkers for therapy response. Such cross-sectional studies allow for the identification of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between groups, but they have limitations. Specifically, they often fail to capture the temporal changes in gene expression following individual perturbations and may lead to significant false discoveries due to inherent noise in RNA sequencing sample preparation and data collection. To address these challenges, our study hypothesized that frequent, longitudinal RNA sequencing (RNAseq) analysis of blood samples could offer a more profound understanding of the temporal dynamics of gene expression in response to drug interventions, while also enhancing the accuracy of identifying genes influenced by these drugs. In this research, we conducted RNAseq on 829 blood samples collected from 84 Sprague-Dawley lab rats. Excluding the control group, each rat was administered one of four different compounds known for liver toxicity: tetracycline, isoniazid, valproate, and carbon tetrachloride. We developed specialized bioinformatics tools to pinpoint genes that exhibit temporal variation in response to these treatments.
Project description:We hypothesize that the culture media collected from macrophages exposed to intermittent hypoxia will induce a greater pro-inflammatory gene profile in naïve cultured macrophages than will culture media collected from macrophages exposed to sustained hypoxia. We will evaluate gene expression using microarray analysis of RNA collected from RAW 264.7 macrophages cultured for 24 hours in DMEM media obtained from 1) cells cultured with intermittent hypoxia (2 minute cycles: 90 seconds at 40 Torr and 30 seconds at 8 Torr), 2) media exposed to intermittent hypoxia, 3) cells cultured with sustained hypoxia (8 Torr), 4) media exposed to sustained hypoxia and 4) standard tissue culture conditions (fresh DMEM media; reference).
Project description:Knee osteoarthritis (KOA), as a degenerative multifactorial disease, affects the quality of life and mental health of patients, and also brings a huge socioeconomic burden. Treating synovitis have shown promise as anti-inflammatory therapeutics in mitigating OA symptoms and disease progression. Here, by analysing synovial single-cell sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from KOA, we found that synovial fibroblasts (FLS) in OA synovium showed a distinct pro-inflammatory phenotype. We collected synovial tissue from patients with clinical OA as well as from healthy donors, and histological examination was consistent with findings in scRNA-seq. Inspired by recent cross-tissue fibroblast lineage studies, we identified by sequencing that healthy FLS in synovial tissues share transcriptome-level similarities with dermal fibroblasts (DFb). Subsequently, we revealed the local as well as systemic distribution of intra-articular injected DFbs by constructing/extracting two types of rat fibroblasts (luciferase DFbs as well as GFP DFbs). The results demonstrate that DFbs can be locally retained in the synovium for up to three weeks following targeted engrafting on it. And intra-articular injection does not result in DFbs migration to vital organs or the occurrence of histological changes in these organs. A rat model of KOA was constructed by anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT) in order to study the therapeutic effect of DFbs on KOA. After injection, the rats showed improvement in painful gait. In addition, histological as well as imaging results showed reduced synovitis and improvement in articular cartilage. Finally we verified the protective effect of DFbs on cytokine-stimulated chondrocytes in a co-culture system.
Project description:We hypothesize that cultured macrophages directly exposed intermittent hypoxia will have a greater change in expression in genes related to inflammatory response than macrophages exposed to sustained hypoxia. We will evaluate gene expression using microarray analysis of RNA collected from RAW 264.7 macrophages cultured under the following environmental conditions: 1) 4 hours of intermittent hypoxia (2 minute cycles: 90 seconds at 40 Torr and 30 seconds at 8 Torr), 2) 4 hours of sustained hypoxia (8 Torr), and 3 ) standard tissue culture conditions (141 Torr; reference).
Project description:In order to establish a rat embryonic stem cell transcriptome, mRNA from rESC cell line DAc8, the first male germline competent rat ESC line to be described and the first to be used to generate a knockout rat model was characterized using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis.