Project description:Pork is the most widely consumed meat on the planet, placing swine health as a critical factor for both the world economy and the food industry. Infectious diseases in pigs not only threaten these sectors but also raise zoonotic concerns, as pigs can act as "mixing vessels" for several animals and human viruses and can lead to the emergence of new viruses that are capable of infecting humans. Several efforts are ongoing to develop pig vaccines, albeit with limited success. This has been largely attributed to the complex nature of pig infections and incomplete understanding of the pig immune responses. Additionally, pig has been suggested to be a good experimental model to study viral infections (e.g., human influenza). Despite the significant importance of studying pig immunology for developing infection models, zoonosis, and the crucial need to develop better swine vaccines, there is still very limited information on the response of the swine adaptive immune system to several emerging pathogens. Particularly, very little is known about the pig B cell repertoire upon infection. Understanding the B cell repertoire is especially crucial towards designing better vaccines, predicting zoonosis and can provide insights into developing new diagnostic agents. Here, we developed methods for performing parallel single pig B cell (up to 10,000 B cells) global and immunoglobulin transcriptome sequencing. We then adapted a computational pipeline previously built for human/mouse sequences, to now analyze pig sequences. This allowed us to comprehensively map the B cell repertoire and get paired antibody sequences from pigs in a single parallel sequencing experiment. We believe that these approaches will have significant implications for swine diseases, particularly in the context of swine mediated zoonosis and swine and human vaccine development.
Project description:Although the well-known importance of pig in agriculture, as well as a model for human biology, the miRNA catalog of pig has been largely undefined. Identification and preliminary characterization of adipose- and muscle-specific miRNAs would be a prerequisite for a thorough understanding of their roles in regulating adipose deposition and muscle growth. In the present study, we get insight into the miRNA transcriptome in eight adipose tissues, two skeletal muscles and cardiac muscle of pig using deep sequencing technology, and to elucidate their characteristic tissue-specific profiles and genomic context. Eleven small RNA libraries from eight adipose tissues, two skeletal muscle tissues and cardiac muscle of pig were sequenced.
Project description:The bilaminar disc of early pig embryos closely mirrors that of humans making it a powerful model for studying gastrulation. Given the difficulties obtaining embryos in non-rodents, early cell-fate decisions during mammalian gastrulation remain ill-understood. Here we present a single-cell transcriptomic atlas of pig gastrulation and early organogenesis. We uncover the dynamics of cell fate emergence during pig peri-gastrulation and reveal conserved and species-specific transcriptional programs across different mammals. Combined with investigations in embryos and embryonic stem cells, we elucidate the spatial, molecular, and temporal events during definitive endoderm (DE) formation. We show that early FOXA2+ epiblast progenitors become DE without undergoing epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, contrasting later emerging FOXA2/TBXT+ anterior primitive streak, which form node/notochord progenitors. We demonstrate that DE fate is driven by hypoblast-derived NODAL signalling, which is extinguished upon DE differentiation. These findings highlight the interplay between temporal and topological signalling during early cell fate decisions during mammalian gastrulation.
Project description:Although the well-known importance of pig in agriculture, as well as a model for human biology, the miRNA catalog of pig has been largely undefined. Identification and preliminary characterization of adipose- and muscle-specific miRNAs would be a prerequisite for a thorough understanding of their roles in regulating adipose deposition and muscle growth. In the present study, we get insight into the miRNA transcriptome in eight adipose tissues, two skeletal muscles and cardiac muscle of pig using deep sequencing technology, and to elucidate their characteristic tissue-specific profiles and genomic context.