Project description:The transcriptomic response of rat hepatic stellate cells to endotoxin: implications for hepatic inflammation and immune regulation
Project description:The Norway rat has important impacts on our life. They are amongst the most used research subjects, resulting in ground-breaking advances. At the same time, wild rats live in close association with us, leading to various adverse interactions. In face of this relevance, it is surprising how little is known about their natural behaviour. While recent laboratory studies revealed their complex social skills, little is known about their social behaviour in the wild. An integration of these different scientific approaches is crucial to understand their social life, which will enable us to design more valid research paradigms, develop more effective management strategies, and to provide better welfare standards. Hence, I first summarise the literature on their natural social behaviour. Second, I provide an overview of recent developments concerning their social cognition. Third, I illustrate why an integration of these areas would be beneficial to optimise our interactions with them.
Project description:BackgroundMurine kobuviruses (MuKV) are newly recognized picornaviruses first detected in murine rodents in the USA in 2011. Little information on MuKV epidemiology in murine rodents is available. Therefore, we conducted a survey of the prevalence and genomic characteristics of rat kobuvirus in Guangdong, China.ResultsFecal samples from 223 rats (Rattus norvegicus) were collected from Guangdong and kobuviruses were detected in 12.6% (28) of samples. Phylogenetic analysis based on partial 3D and complete VP1 sequence regions showed that rat kobuvirus obtained in this study were genetically closely related to those of rat/mouse kobuvirus reported in other geographical areas. Two near full-length rat kobuvirus genomes (MM33, GZ85) were acquired and phylogenetic analysis of these revealed that they shared very high nucleotide/amino acids identity with one another (95.4%/99.4%) and a sewage-derived sequence (86.9%/93.5% and 87.5%/93.7%, respectively). Comparison with original Aichivirus A strains, such human kobuvirus, revealed amino acid identity values of approximately 80%.ConclusionOur findings indicate that rat kobuvirus have distinctive genetic characteristics from other Aichivirus A viruses. Additionally, rat kobuvirus may spread via sewage.
Project description:Goals of the Study:; 1. Assess the scope of arginine-responsive hepatic gene expression using in vitro rat models. 2. Compare normal and tumorigenic cells; 3. Identify potentially novel genes and pathways that may be subject to amino acid (arginine) regulation; Background: We previously reported that mRNA levels of the tumor associated glycoprotein amino acid transporter TA1/LAT1/ CD98 light chain arginine increase in normal hepatic cells under low arginine conditions while levels are constitutive and high in hepatic tumor cells. This suggested LAT1 amino acid response was associated with the normal hepatic phenotype and lost in carcinogenesis and may impact cell growth and survival in the tumor microenvironment. We sought to investigate how many and what types of genes are responsive to a change in arginine levels over 18 hrs using an in vitro model system. Experimental design:; Differential gene expression was determined by microarrays using samples from triplicates of normal and transformed cells subjected to 18 hour arginine-deprivation compared to controls
Project description:Inflammation is a key component of pathological angiogenesis. Here we induce cornea neovascularisation using sutures placed into the cornea, and sutures are removed to induce a regression phase. We used whole transcriptome microarray to monitor gene expression profies of several genes