Project description:The domestic ferret (Mustela putorius furo) has been used as animal model for decades, largely because its susceptibility to infection with a large number of pathogens such as influenza virus, SARS Corona virus and Canine distemper virus. Despite its importance for biomedical research, little is known about the genome of the M. Furo. The number of reagents for molecular and immunological analysis is thus restricted. To circumvent this, we present here a parallel sequencing effort to produce an extensive EST dataset derived from a normalized ferret cDNA library made from mRNA from ferret blood, liver, lung, spleen and brain. We produced more than 500000 sequence reads that were assembled into over 15000 partial ferret transcripts. These ESTs were combined with the available ferret sequences in the GenBank to develop a ferret specific microarray platform. Using this array, we detected tissue specific expression patterns which were confirmed by quantitative real time PCR assays and comparison to orthologous transcription profiles of mouse and human. We also present a set of 41 ferret transcript with even transcription profile across the tested tissues, indicating their usefulness as housekeeping genes. This study paves way for development of additional reagents for analysis of the ferret model.
Project description:The domestic ferret (Mustela putorius furo) has been used as animal model for decades, largely because its susceptibility to infection with a large number of pathogens such as influenza virus, SARS Corona virus and Canine distemper virus. Despite its importance for biomedical research, little is known about the genome of the M. Furo. The number of reagents for molecular and immunological analysis is thus restricted. To circumvent this, we present here a parallel sequencing effort to produce an extensive EST dataset derived from a normalized ferret cDNA library made from mRNA from ferret blood, liver, lung, spleen and brain. We produced more than 500000 sequence reads that were assembled into over 15000 partial ferret transcripts. These ESTs were combined with the available ferret sequences in the GenBank to develop a ferret specific microarray platform. Using this array, we detected tissue specific expression patterns which were confirmed by quantitative real time PCR assays and comparison to orthologous transcription profiles of mouse and human. We also present a set of 41 ferret transcript with even transcription profile across the tested tissues, indicating their usefulness as housekeeping genes. This study paves way for development of additional reagents for analysis of the ferret model. Three biological replicates of blood, lung, spleen, liver and brain was hybridized to the ferret specific microarray.
Project description:The domestic ferret (ferret; Mustela putorius furo) is an important animal model for neuroscience and preclinical/veterinary medicine owing to its susceptibility to avian influenza and corona viruses. Nevertheless, there is a lack of in vitro ferret models, since immortal cell lines including induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) of ferrets have been scarce. In this study, we established an induced pluripotent stem cell line from skin fibroblasts of a neonatal female ferret using a previously validated method in multiple mammalian species. The established line, fiPS-1, showed standard characteristics of pluripotency, but it showed an X chromosome instability characterized by the high emergence rate of aneuploid 39X cells from the original 40XX euploid cells.
Project description:To study the effects of secondary bacterial infection during 1918 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus infection, BALB/c mice were inoculated with the fully reconstructed 1918 influenza virus followed by inoculation with pneumococcus 72h later. To study the effects of secondary bacterial infection during 1918 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus infection, BALB/c mice were inoculated with the fully reconstructed 1918 influenza virus followed by inoculation with pneumococcus 72h later.
Project description:Periodic outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza viruses and the current H1N1 pandemic highlight the need for a more detailed understanding of influenza virus pathogenesis. To investigate the host transcriptional response induced by pathogenic influenza viruses, we used a functional-genomics approach to compare gene expression profiles in lungs from wild-type 129S6/SvEv and interferon receptor (IFNR) knockout mice infected with either the fully reconstructed H1N1 1918 pandemic virus (1918) or the highly pathogenic avian H5N1 virus Vietnam/1203/04 (VN/1203).
