Project description:The amphioxus, as a simple basal chordate model, plays an important and unique role on providing insights into the evolution of tissues and organs of the vertebrates. To understand the unique features of the amphioxus during evolution, it’s important to identify the gene and microRNA (miRNA) expression profiles of amphioxus tissues or organs. However, the systematic examination of these expression profiles is not conducted. Here, we focused on characterizing the miRNA expression patterns of three amphioxus digestive organs (the gill, intestine and hepatic caecum) that are believed to be the first line of immune defense.
Project description:Recently, amphioxus has served as a model for studying the origin and evolution of vertebrate immunity. However, little is known about how microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in the immune defense in amphioxus. In this article, we identified the amphioxus miRNAs in the acute-phase response to Lipopolysaccharide (LPS). First, we determined the time point for the peak of immune response in amphioxus after LPS challenge by evaluating the expression of TLR4 and NF-κb(v-rel) which were commonly used immune response indicators. Then we performed miRNA microarray analysis on gill samples collected at the time point to select the differentially expressed miRNAs. Finally, we used real-time quantitative PCR to detect the expression patterns of amphioxus miRNAs under effective LPS challenge during the time course. The microarray data revealed that the miRNA expression file was significantly changed after LPS stimulation. The changes of the most upregulated and most downregualted miRNAs in gills of the amphioxus following challenge with LPS revealed a temporal induction kinetic. Our current study will provide valuable information to take an insight into molecular mechanism of innate immune and the evolution of the miRNA family.
Project description:We constructed a fish cell atlas at the whole-body scale. We investigated the heterogeneity and functional diversity of cells in the digestive, immune and nervous systems. The tissue included heart, liver, spleen, head kidney, midkidney, pyloric caecum, stomach, duodenum (smallintestine), spiral intestine, rectum, skin, muscle, gill, brain, eye, gonad, and blood samples.
