Project description:Engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) are increasingly used to generate innovative industrial and medical goods. Because of their broad applications, they form a new class of pollutants with potential eco-toxicological impacts on marine ecosystems. Attempting to evaluate the risk, we investigated the toxicity of Iron and Zinc oxide ENPs on three picophytoplanktonic strains of algae: Micromonas commoda, Ostreococcus tauri and Nannochloris sp. Microalgae responses are highly species-dependent, Micromonas commoda growth being severely impaired by both ENP types whereas Ostreococcus tauri or Nannochloris sp. are resistant. ZnO ENPs have higher toxicity than iron ENPs though growth of M. commoda was severely inhibited by Fe2O3 ENPs. Transcriptome-wide analysis after exposure of M. commoda to ENPs shows that the altered biological processes mainly take place in the cytoplasm and that the response to ENPs is largely metabolic in nature: stimulation of carbohydrate metabolism, light harvesting processes and alteration of the nitrogen pathway. In addition, a severe disruption of ribosome structure and translation processes is observed.
Project description:Corneal epithelial stem cells reside in the limbus that is the transitional zone between the cornea and conjunctiva, and are essential to maintain the homeostasis of corneal epithelium. However, their characterization is poorly understood. Therefore, we constructed gene expression profiles of limbal epithelial SP and non-SP cell using RNA-sequencing. As a result, limbal epithelial SP cells have immature cell phenotypes with endothelial/mesenchymal cell markers, while limbal epithelial non-SP cells have epithelial progenitor cell markers.
Project description:Targeted therapies against cancer stem cells which are enriched in side populations (SP) involves interruption of Wnt-signalling. Furthermore, EpCAM is a SP marker and modulator of Wnt-signalling. Therefore, the effects of an anti-EpCAM treatment on SP-cells and WNT/β-catenin signalling was studied. SP of the murine lung adenocarcinoma cell line A2C12 was obtained by fluorescence activated cell sorting and whole genome scans helped to define their molecular phenotype after anti-EpCAM antibody treatment.
Project description:Targeted therapies against cancer stem cells which are enriched in side populations (SP) involves interruption of Wnt-signalling. Furthermore, EpCAM is a SP marker and modulator of Wnt-signalling. Therefore, the effects of an anti-EpCAM treatment on SP-cells and WNT/β-catenin signalling was studied. SP of the human lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549 was obtained by fluorescence activated cell sorting and whole genome scans helped to define their molecular phenotype after anti-EpCAM antibody treatment.
