Project description:Chronic psychosocial stress is a risk factor for psychiatric disorders, and genetic factors interact in conferring susceptibility. The chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) mouse model allows identifying factors underlying resilience and susceptibility to chronic psychosocial stress. We used RNA-sequencing to identify genes and pathways affected by CSDS in three brain regions: medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), ventral hippocampus (vHPC), and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), of male mice from strains C57BL/6Crl and DBA/2Crl.
Project description:Chronic psychosocial stress is a risk factor for psychiatric disorders, and genetic factors interact in conferring susceptibility. The chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) mouse model allows identifying factors underlying resilience and susceptibility to chronic psychosocial stress. Following 10 days of CSDS, we collected the brain and blood tissues. We performed (1) AGO2 RNA immunoprecipitation-sequencing (AGO2 RIP-seq) of active miRNAs and their mRNA targets in the BNST. Additionally, we carried out RNA-seq and miRNA-seq from blood cells.
Project description:Stress is a major influence on mental health status; the ways that individuals respond to or copes with stressors determine whether they are negatively affected in the future. Stress responses are established by an interplay between genetics, environment, and life experiences. Psychosocial stress is particularly impactful during adolescence, a critical period for the development of mood disorders. In this study we compared two established, selectively-bred Sprague Dawley rat lines, the “internalizing” bred Low Responder (bLR) line versus the “externalizing” bred High Responder (bHR) line, to investigate how genetic temperament and adolescent environment impact future responses to social interactions and psychosocial stress, and how these determinants of stress response interact. Animals were exposed to social and environmental enrichment in adolescence prior to experiencing social defeat and were then assessed for social interaction and anxiety-like behavior. Adolescent enrichment caused bLR rats to display less social avoidance, more social interaction, less submission during defeat, and resilience to the prolonged effects of social stress on corticosterone, while enrichment caused bHR animals to show greater aggression during defeat and during a neutral social encounter, and decreased anxiety-like behavior. To gain insight into the development of social resilience in the anxious phenotype bLRs, RNA-seq was conducted on the hippocampus and nucleus accumbens, two brain regions that mediate stress regulation and social behavior. Gene sets previously associated with stress, social behavior, aggression and exploratory activity were enriched with differential expression in both regions, with a particularly large effect on gene sets that regulate social behaviors. These findings provide further evidence that adolescent enrichment can serve as an inoculating experience against future stressors. The ability to induce social resilience in a usually anxious line of animals by manipulating their environment has translational implications, as it underscores the feasibility of intervention strategies targeted at genetically vulnerable adolescent populations.
Project description:RNA was extracted from whole blood of subjects collected in Tempus tubes on day 0 (immediately prior to vaccination), day 1 and 3 post-vaccination. We performed gene expression analysis of subjects with similar baseline antibody titres to rubella virus (RV) that experienced an increase in anti-RV IgG titre (>= 2-fold) or not (< 2 fold) at one month post-vaccination.
Project description:Dysregulation of brain synaptic proteins caused by chronic psychosocial stress has been linked with the development of major depression (MD). To gain insights into the pattern of synaptic proteome changes and different biological functions and pathways underlying MD and drug action, a comparative proteomic approach was employed in the hippocampus of rats exposed to chronic social isolation (CSIS, 6 weeks), an animal model of depression, with or without chronic antidepressant tianeptine (Tian) treatment (last 3 weeks of CSIS).
Project description:This study investigates how the baseline expression level of genes impact symptomatic outcome of flaviviral infection. Before given the YF17D vaccine, whole blood was extracted into tempus tubes from vaccinated subjects. Thereafter, the subjects were assessed if they experienced adverse events (or symptoms). 27 subjects (n=19 symptomatic, n=8 asymptomatic) were processed according to manufacturer's protocol. Transcript expression was then evaluated by Affymetrix Human GeneChip 2.0 ST array, performed at Duke-NUS Genome Biology Core Facility. Data analysis and processing was performed using Partek software and enriched pathways determined by Reactome database from Enrichr.
Project description:Scottish trained individuals (SCO; n = 18) living and training at or near sea-level and Kenyan runners (KEN; n = 20) living and training at ~2,150 m received rHuEPO injections of 50 IUâ kg-1 body mass every two days for four weeks. Blood was collected at baseline, during rHuEPO administration and for four weeks after administration. Eight time points per subject were selected for gene expression analysis; two baseline samples, then one sample at two days, two weeks and four weeks after the first rHuEPO injection and one week, two weeks and four weeks after ceasing rHuEPO administration. RNA was extracted from blood stabilized in Tempus Blood RNA tubes (Life Technologies), amplified, labelled and hybridized to Illumina HumanHT-12v4 Expression BeadChips (Illumina). Expression data was analysed using Rank Products with a Benjamini-Hochberg 5% false discovery rate and an additional 1.5 fold-change threshold. The expression profiles of a subset of target genes was further confirmed using QuantiGene Plex assay (Affymetrix) and Limma (linear models for microarray).
Project description:This study compared whole transcriptome signatures of 6 immune cell subsets and whole blood from patients with an array of immune-associated diseases. Fresh blood samples were collected from healthy subjects and subjects diagnosed type 1 diabetes, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and sepsis, as well as multiple sclerosis patients before and 24 hours after the first treatment with IFN-beta. At the time of blood draw, an aliquot of whole blood was collected into a Tempus tube (Invitrogen), while the remainder of the primary fresh blood sample was processed to highly pure populations of neutrophils, monocytes, B cells, CD4 T cells, CD8 T cells, and natural killer cells. RNA was extracted from each of these cell subsets, as well as the whole blood samples, and processed into RNA sequencing (RNAseq) libraries (Illumina TruSeq). Sequencing libraries were analyzed on an Illumina HiScan, with a target read depth of ~20M reads. Reads were demultiplexed, mapped to human gene models (ENSEMBL), and tabulated using HTSeq. Read count data were normalized by the TMM procedure (edgeR package). We performed whole genome RNAseq profiling of immune cell subsets and whole blood from subjects with an array of immune-associated diseases.
Project description:The role of environmental factors and gender disparities as determinants of health is incontrovertible. In the digestive sphere, it is noteworthy that one of the most prevalent diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has a predominance in females. The origin of IBS is related to mucosal microinflammation phenomena, psychosocial stress, and in the last years, alterations in gut microbiota. Recent observations from our group in healthy subjects, demonstrate that both chronic psychosocial stress, and female gender per se determine a significant intestinal epithelial barrier dysfunction in response to intercurrent stimuli, which, in susceptible individuals, could result in an early stage in the development of more lasting changes and the onset of clinical manifestations of IBS. Although the intimate mechanisms involved in stress-induced intestinal pathophysiology are not well known, diverse studies suggest that gut microbiota alteration, through epigenetic modifications of the main stress-mediators could be one of them. However, solid scientific evidence demonstrating the influence of stress on gut microbiota and epigenetics of the main stress-mediators is missing. Therefore, we want to investigate and characterize gender-dependent epigenetic modifications involved in intestinal barrier dysfunction in response to acute stress. The identification of gender-dependent abnormal epigenetic patterns related to female gender dysfunction can make a breakthrough in the understanding of the pathophysiology of the regulation of intestinal permeability, and promote positive diagnostic and therapeutic future progress in IBS.
Project description:Analysis of transcript abundance estimates as a function of child soldier status, PTSD symptoms, and psychological resilience. Gene expression profiling was conducted on dried blood spot (DBS) samples collected from community dwelling adolescents and young adults in Nepal. Approximatley half of the sample were former child soldiers in the Nepal People's War and the other half were demographically similiar civilian non-combatants. In addition to basic demographic characteristics (age, sex, ethnic minority status, social caste status, education level), participants were also assessed on syptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTS, assessed by a culturally adapted version of The Child PTSD Symptom Scale; Kohrt BA, et al. (2011) Validation of cross-cultural child mental health and psychosocial research instruments: adapting the Depression Self-Rating Scale and Child PTSD Symptom Scale in Nepal. BMC Psychiatry 11(1):e127, with higher values indicating greater PTSD symptoms) and psychological resilience (assessed by a culturally adapted version of the Resilience Scale; Wagnild GM & Young HM (1993) Development and psychometric evaluation of the Resilience Scale. Journal of Nursing Measurement, with higher values indicating greater resilience). Dichotomous variables were coded 0=no/absent and 1=yes/present. Valid gene expression data are available for 254 samples.