Project description:Vohwinkel syndrome, VS (OMIM#124500), a rare autosomal dominant genetic disease, with less than 50 reported cases in the literature. Although clinical symptoms of VS are complex, which are caused by GJB2 mutation is more typical. To explore related differential genes and signaling pathways of Vohwinkel syndrome (VS) caused by mutations of GJB2. Human Gene Expression Array of the GJB2-VS mutated (G130V) HaCaT cell lines and identified distinct classes of up- and down- regulated genes during this process.
Project description:Vohwinkel syndrome, VS (OMIM#124500), a rare autosomal dominant genetic disease, with less than 50 reported cases in the literature. Although clinical symptoms of VS are complex, which are caused by GJB2 mutation is more typical. To explore related differential genes and signaling pathways of Vohwinkel syndrome (VS) caused by mutations of GJB2. Human Gene Expression Array of two types of GJB2-VS mutated (G130V and D66H) HaCaT cell lines and identified distinct classes of up- and down- regulated genes during this process.
Project description:Although most disease-causing variants are within coding region of genes, it is now well established that cis-acting regulatory sequences, depending on 3D-chromatin organization, are required for temporal and spatial control of gene expression. Disruptions of such regulatory elements and/or chromatin conformation are likely to play a critical role in human genetic disease. Hence, recurrent monoallelic cases of the most common hereditary type of nonsyndromic hearing loss (i.e. DFNB1) carrying out only one identified pathogenic allele, led to strongly suggest the presence of uncharacterized distal cis-acting elements in the missing allele. Herewith, we study the spatial organization of a large DFNB1 locus encompassing the gap junction protein beta 2 (GJB2) gene, the most frequently mutated gene in this inherited hearing loss, with the chromosome conformation capture carbon copy technology (5C). By combining this approach with functional activity reporter assays and mapping of CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) along the DFNB1 locus by quantitative real-time PCR chromatin immunoprecipitation, we identify a novel set of cooperating GJB2 cis-acting elements and propose a DFNB1 three-dimensional looping regulation model. A loop chromatin forming, allows bringing closer enhancers to the GJB2 promoter, but also avoids GJB2 silencing with an enhancer-blocking insulator activity.
Project description:Ion channels and related proteins of the ion permeome (IP) are common drug targets; however, their roles in cancer remain understudied. We performed a computational, pan-cancer analysis of druggable IP genes to prioritise targets for therapeutic and biomarker development. Two candidate biomarkers in glioblastoma (GBM), GJB2 and SCN9A, associated with poor prognosis in multiple datasets, as well as inter- and intratumoral heterogeneity and malignant cell types. We used shRNA to knock down GJB2 (G5) and SCN9A (S3) in patient-derived GBM cells (729) in triplicates and performed whole transcriptome sequencing to profile the transcriptome-wide changes. Pathway enrichment identified neural projection and proliferation pathways were significantly dysregulated in GJB2 and SCN9A GBM cell line knockdowns compared to non-targeted shRNA controls (Scr). Our study underlines altered bioelectrical signalling as a cancer hallmark and provides a catalogue of IP genes for functional experiments and therapy development.
Project description:Mutations in GJB2 (Gap junction protein beta 2) are the most common genetic cause of non-syndromic hereditary deafness in humans, especially the 35delG and 235delC mutations. Owing to the homozygous-lethal of Gjb2 mutation in mice, there are currently no perfect mouse models carrying Gjb2 mutation to mimic human hereditary deafness and unveil the pathogenesis. Here, we first constructed heterozygous mutant mice, Gjb2+/35delG and Gjb2+/235delC, through androgenic haploid embryonic stem cells (AG-haESCs) mediated semi-cloning technology, which showed normal hearing function at P28. Furthermore, a homozygous mutant mouse model, Gjb235delG/35delG, was generated via enhanced tetraploid embryo complementation, which exhibited profound hearing loss like human patients at P14. Mechanism analysis showed that Gjb2 35delG disrupts the formation of intercellular gap junction channel and tunnel of Corti, and hair cell mechanotransduction, rather than the development of hair cells. Collectively, our study provides ideal mouse models for understanding the pathogenic mechanism and opens up a new avenue for investigating the treatment for DFNB1A-related hereditary deafness.
Project description:The p53 protein is encoded by TP53 gene and plays the key role in significant number of cellular processes including proliferation, apoptosis and regulation of many stress response pathways. P53 acts like a direct transcription activator of numerous genes regulating cell cycle arrest, DNA repair, growth inhibition and many others (Mollereau and Ma, 2014). The canonical biological function of p53 is maintaining genome integrity via elimination of damaged or exposed to genotoxic stress cells. Immortalized HaCaT cells are widely used for keratinocyte research, since they maintain stable keratinocyte phenotype, have nearly unlimited proliferative potential, do not require specific growth and differentiation factors (Colombo et al., 2017). Also, HaCaT cells produce typical differentiation markers such as cytokeratins K14 and K10, involucrin (Colombo et al., 2017) and respond to keratinocyte differentiation stimuli. Taking together, HaCaT cells have similar to normal human keratinocytes (NHK) properties, however, as many of spontaneously immortalized cell lines HaCaT cells bear two mutant p53 alleles - R282Q and H179Y (Lehman et al., 1993). Mutp53 in HaCaT has an increased affinity to other p53 family members (p63, p73), which significantly expands p53 properties. Moreover, mutp53 indirectly affects specific target genes via protein-protein interactions with other transcription factors (NF-Y, E2F1, NF-KB) or by tethering p63 to new promotor locations. For more detailed investigation of mutp53 impact on various processes in HaCaT cells we performed a shRNA mediated knockdown of mutp53. For generation of stable TP53 knockdown we employed plasmid vector pLKO-p53-shRNA-941 (Addgene # #25637) followed by puromycin selection of transduced cells. Here we present proteomic dataset obtained from wild type HaCaT cells and p53 knock down HaCaT keratinocytes.