Project description:The goal of this experiment is to determine the expression levels of the genes that are influenced by the downregulation of plek2. TER119 negative mouse fetal liver erythroblasts were purified and infected with control and plek2 shRNA retroviruses and cultured in Epo free medium for 24 hours followed by Epo medium for 24 hours. Microarray gene expression profile analysis was performed using an Illumina platform with a biological triplicate of the same experiment.
Project description:We identified genes expressed in mouse liver that are regulated by Cux2, a highly female-specific liver transcription factor whose expression is regulated by sex-dependent plasma GH patterns. Using siRNA to knockdown Cux2 expression in female liver, we show that female specific genes are predominantly repressed by Cux2 knockdown. In contrast, similar numbers of male-biased genes are repressed as are induced by Cux2 knockdown. A scrambled, non-specific siRNA was used as a control. (Published in: TL Conforto et al 2012, Mol Cell Biol. 2012, 32:4611-4627. PubMed PMID: 22966202; PMCID: PMC3486175)
Project description:The fetal hemoglobin (HbF) levels were 95.4 ± 1.5% and 4.4 ± 0.2% in fetal liver-derived and adult blood derived-cultured erythrocytes (n=5), respectively. Following RNA isolation from the CD71 high/GPA positive erythroblasts, gene expression analyses were performed using Affymetrix Human Gene 2.0 ST Array. The Affymetrix raw data files of microarray were preprocessed using robust multi-array average method for background correction, log-transformation, and quantile normalization. Differential gene expression between fetal liver derived- and adult peripheral blood derived-erythroblasts was determined using moderated t-statistics implemented in the Limma package. We found the 1366 genes were upregulated by more than 1.5-fold change with adjusted p-value less than 0.05 in fetal liver derived-erythroblasts.
Project description:Mammals express thousands of long noncoding (lnc) RNAs, a few of which are shown to function in tissue development. However, the entire repertoire of lncRNAs and the extent to which they regulate biological processes in different tissues and species are not defined. Indeed, most lncRNAs are not conserved between species, raising questions about function. We used RNA-Seq to identify lncRNAs in primary murine fetal liver erythroblasts expressing the lineage marker TER119, megakaryocytes (CD41+) cultured from embryonic day (E) 14.5 murine fetal liver and megakaryocyte erythroid progenitors (MEPs) isolated from mouse bone marrow. We identified 683 and 594 polyadenylated lncRNAs expressed in red blood cell (erythroid) precursors of mice and humans, respectively. More than one half of erythroid lncRNAs are un-annotated, emphasizing the opportunity for new discovery through studies of specialized cell types. We analyzed the expression of these identified lncRNAs in several hematopoietic compartments using a custom microarray to identify erythroid-specific lncRNAs that were robustly expressed in both fetal liver and adult erythroid cells as targets for knockdown. Over 90% of fetal liver erythroid lncRNAs detected using RNA-seq were expressed in adult erythroblasts measured on the microarray. Analysis of the murine erythroid lncRNA transcriptome indicates that ~75% arise from promoters and 25% from enhancers, many of which are regulated by the key erythroid transcription factors GATA1 and SCL/TAL1. Erythroid lncRNA expression is largely conserved among 8 different mouse strains, yet only 15% of mouse lncRNAs are expressed in humans and vice versa, reflecting dramatically greater species-specificity than coding genes. We investigated potential functions of 21 relatively abundant erythroid-specific murine lncRNAs (both conserved and non-conserved) by RNA interference in primary mouse erythroid precursors, and identified 7 whose knockdown inhibited features of terminal erythroid maturation including cell size reduction and enucleation. Strikingly, at least 6 of the 7 lncRNAs have no detectable expression in human erythroblasts, demonstrating that lack of conservation between mammalian species does not predict lack of function. These results reflect marked evolutionary differences between protein-coding genes and lncRNAs and indicate that the latter exert tissue- and species-specific roles in development. For data usage terms and conditions, please refer to http://www.genome.gov/27528022 and http://www.genome.gov/Pages/Research/ENCODE/ENCODEDataReleasePolicyFinal2008.pdf