Project description:Using proteomics, we documented the glue composition in two congeners that live in different environments, Argiope argentata (dry southwest US) and A. trifasciata (humid southeast US). The viscoelastic protein cores of A. argentata droplets comprised a smaller portion of droplet volume than did those of A. trifasciata and, as humidity increased, incorporated a smaller percentage of absorbed water. Argiope argentata core protein was many times stiffer and tougher than A. trifasciata protein. Each species’ glue included ~30 aggregate-expressed proteins, most of which (24 and 23, respectively) were homologous between the two species. However, the relative contribution and number of gene family members of each homologous group differed. For instance, the aggregate spidroins (AgSp1 and AgSp2) accounted for nearly half of the detected glue composition in A. argentata, but only 38% in A. trifasciata. Additionally, AgSp1, which has highly negatively charged regions, was ~2X as abundant as the positively charged AgSp2 in A. argentata but ~3X as abundant in A. trifasciata. As another example, A. argentata glue included 11 members of a newly discovered cysteine-rich gene family, versus 5 in A. trifasciata. The ability to selectively express different glue protein genes and/or to extrude their products at different rates provides a faster mechanism to evolve material properties than sequence evolution alone.
Project description:Purpose: The goal of this study is to compare endothelial small RNA transcriptome to identify the target of OASL under basal or stimulated conditions by utilizing miRNA-seq. Methods: Endothelial miRNA profilies of siCTL or siOASL transfected HUVECs were generated by illumina sequencing method, in duplicate. After sequencing, the raw sequence reads are filtered based on quality. The adapter sequences are also trimmed off the raw sequence reads. rRNA removed reads are sequentially aligned to reference genome (GRCh38) and miRNA prediction is performed by miRDeep2. Results: We identified known miRNA in species (miRDeep2) in the HUVECs transfected with siCTL or siOASL. The expression profile of mature miRNA is used to analyze differentially expressed miRNA(DE miRNA). Conclusions: Our study represents the first analysis of endothelial miRNA profiles affected by OASL knockdown with biologic replicates.