Project description:Environmental stressors present in the modern world can have a fundamental effect on the physiology and health of humans. Exposure to stressors like air pollution, heat and traffic noise has been linked to a pronounced increase in non-communicable diseases. Specifically, aircraft noise has been identified as a risk factor for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, such as arteriosclerosis, heart failure, stroke and diabetes. Noise stress leads to neuronal activation with subsequent stress hormone release that ultimately leads to activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, increasing inflammation and oxidative stress, with dramatic effects on the cardiovascular system. However, despite the epidemiological evidence of a link between noise stress and metabolic dysfunction, the consequences of exposure at the molecular, metabolic level of the cardiovascular system are largely unknown. Here we use a murine model system of aircraft noise exposure to show that noise stress profoundly alters heart metabolism. Within days of exposing animals to aircraft noise the heart has a reduced potential for utilising fatty-acid beta-oxidation, the tricarboxylic acid cycle, and the electron transport chain for generating ATP. This is compensated by shifting energy production towards glycolysis. Intriguingly, the metabolic shift is reminiscent of what is observed in failing and ischaemic hearts. Our results demonstrate that within a relatively short exposure time, the cardiovascular system undergoes a fundamental metabolic shift that bears the hallmarks of cardiovascular disease. Overall, aircraft noise induces rapid, detrimental metabolic shifts in the heart, resembling patterns seen in cardiovascular diseases. These findings underscore the urgent need to comprehend molecular consequences of environmental stressors, paving the way for targeted interventions aiming mitigating health risks associated with chronic noise exposure in our modern, noisy environments.
Project description:How piRNA-mediated genome defense achieves specificity against transposons while sampling a complex transcriptome has remained unresolved. Here we show that piRNA biogenesis operates through pervasive, non-specific sampling of cytoplasmic RNAs, with specificity imposed by tissue-specific molecular modules that exploit intrinsic vulnerabilities of transposons. In Drosophila somatic cells, the specificity factor Yb steers basal processing towards uridine-rich RNAs—automatically capturing antisense retrotransposon transcripts due to their intrinsically adenosine-biased genomes. In germline cells lacking Yb, basal sampling generates naïve piRNAs loaded into catalytically active Argonaute proteins, which trigger autocatalytic ping-pong amplification upon encountering complementary targets. In both contexts, transposon mobility facilitates the production of antisense RNAs that enable either biased processing or amplification. Thus, piRNA clusters, long associated with pathway specificity, act as sources of transposon antisense sequences, while specificity arises from layering distinct molecular mechanisms onto a shared foundation of indiscriminate transcript sampling, enabling robust and adaptable genome defense without predefined templates.
Project description:Ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta) is used as a cleaner fish in Norwegian aquaculture to control sea lice. Thus, knowledge on the digestive physiology and nutrient requirements, as well as the ontogeny of the immune system is important. In this study, two different diets were tested; diet 1 was used as control diet consisting of artemia and rotifers cultivated and enriched in the in-house facility at IMR, Austevoll, Bergen (Norway). Diet 2 consists in plankton which has successfully been used before in cod larvae generating more robust individuals. Sampling was done according to the standard length of the larvae rather than age (dph). Sampling point 0 (BW0) (4 mm), sampling point 2 (BW2) (4,5 mm), sampling point 3 (BW3) (5,7 to 6 mm), sampling 4 (BW4) (7 to 7,5 mm), sampling point 5 (BW5) (10 to 10,5 mm), sampling point 6 (BW6) (16 to 16,5 mm), and sampling point 7 (BW7) (25 to 30 mm). Ontogeny of lymphoid organs and mucosal associated lymphoid tissues in ballan wrasse and the effect of different diets were investigated.