Project description:Streptococcus pneumoniae (S.p.) is the most common causative agent of community-acquired pneumonia worldwide. A key pathogenic mechanism that exacerbates severity of disease is the disruption of the alveolo-capillary barrier. However, the specific virulence mechanisms responsible for this in the human lung are not yet fully understood. RNA sequencing of Streptococcus pneumoniae transcriptome under infection media conditions, but without the presence of lung tissue, representing anon-host-infection scenario FCS+/- was analyzed,. RNA isolation was performed using an acidic phenol-chloroform extraction protocol (Wetzstein et al., 1992). After DNase-I treatment (Zymo Research, Germany), the RNA quality was checked by Trinean Xpose (Gentbrugge, Belgium) and the Agilent RNA Nano 6000 kit using an Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies, Böblingen, Germany). For RNA-seq transcriptomics, Ribo-Zero rRNA Removal Kit (Bacteria) from Illumina (San Diego, CA, USA) was used to remove the rRNA. TruSeq Stranded mRNA Library Prep Kit from Illumina (San Diego, CA, United States) was applied to prepare the cDNA libraries. The cDNAs were sequenced paired end on an Illumina HiSeq 1500 (San Diego, CA, United States) using 70 and 75 bp read length and a minimum sequencing depth of 10 million reads per library.
Project description:The identification of the glucocorticoid receptor cistrome in a conditionally immortalized human podocyte cell line developed by transfection with the temperature-sensitive SV40-T gene
Project description:Nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize agriculture by developing engineered nanomaterials to be used as biostimulants, fertilizers, pesticides or smart sensors. Seed priming may represent an opportunity for nano-enabled plant technology to match economic, agronomic and environmental needs. This study investigates the effects of seed priming mediated by iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) in plants. We performed a multilevel integrated study to understand the basic interactions between MNPs and seeds in pepper (Capsicum annuum). Moreover, phenotypic, physiological and molecular analyses were performed to elucidate the biological impact of MNPs from seed to plant development. Interestingly, our findings show positive effects of MNPs on vegetative growth and a profound impact on pepper gene expression patterns. Indeed, we found 2,204 differentially expressed transcripts in nanoprimed seeds, most of them involved in plant defence mechanisms, potentially establishing a seed memory that might enhance the plant's capacity to counteract diverse forms of stress. In conclusion, this work provides a comprehensive investigation about nanoparticle-seed interactions with interesting implications for agricultural technology.
Project description:P. tricornutum (Bacillariophyta, Pennatae, NEPCC640) was obtained from the Algal Center of the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The cells were cultured in a modified f/2 medium (Guillard, 1975) at 20 +/- 1C, and illuminated with 120 umol photon m-2 s-1 under a 12:12 light: dark cycle. Flasks were shaken by the researchers twice a day at the fixed times. Experiments were conducted in triplicate in 3L sterilized and acid-washed Erlenmeyer flask containing 2L medium. The equipment used in this study is similar to the ones used in previous ocean acidification research (Fu et al., 2007; Hutchins et al., 2007; Wu et al., 2010). Prior to inoculation, the mediums were treated by different CO2 concentrations. The low CO2 medium was bubbled with ambient air of about 400 ppmv (low CO2, LC) and the high CO2 medium was bubbled with pre-mixed air-CO2 mixtures (1000 ppmv; high CO2, HC) from a plant growth CO2 chamber (HP400G-D, Ruihua Instrument & Equipment Ltd, Wuhan, China) with a variation of less than 5%. Semi-continuous cultures were used to maintain the pH stability during P. tricornutum growth in the present study, All the cultures were diluted to 1x104 cells mL-1 with fresh medium and pre-acclimated to the desired CO2 level every 24 h to maintain an exponential growth phase and minimize pH fluctuations of the cells. Cultures were harvested after 8 months of semi-continuous incubation. Significant differences between the carbonate systems in different cultures.
Project description:Cutis laxa (CL) syndromes are a heterogenous group of connective tissue disorders that share a loose, redundant skin as a common clinical feature. The systemic features vary among the different subtypes. CL is caused by mutations in genes encoding for components of the extracellular matrix (FBLN4, FBLN5, LTBP4 and ELN), encoding for elastin-modifying enzymes (ATP7A) or encoding for components that influence cellular trafficking and metabolism (ATP6V1E1, ATP6V1A, ATP6V0A2, ALDH18A1, RIN2, GORAB, PYCR1 and SLC2A10). ATP6V1E1–related CL cause loose redundant skin folds, variable mental disability, typical facial characteristics, lipodystrophy, hypotonia, and cardiopulmonary involvement including pneumothorax, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and aortic root dilatation. The intent of this study is to investigate which genes are up- or downregulated in atp6v1e1b-deficient zebrafish larvae compared to wild-type controls. Via transcriptome analysis, we want to study the pathogenic mechanism of ATP6V1E1-induced CL syndrome. We use a zebrafish line with viral insertion in the 5’UTR of atp6v1e1b, disrupting transcription (atp6v1e1bhi577aTg/+), from the Zebrafish International Research Center (ZIRC) and we use a line harboring a two base-pair insertion followed by a three base-pair deletion in exon 5 of atp6v1e1b, c.334insGG; c.337-340delCGG, predicted to result in p.R111WfsX2 (atp6v1e1bcmg78/+) which we created ourselves by CRISPR-Cas9 mutagenesis. Overview of the experimental work-flow: - Sample collection: pool of 10 zebrafish larvae of 3 dpf/genotype in RNA-later - RNA extraction: TRIzol® Reagent,RNeasy mini kit (Qiagen) according to manufacturer’s instructions - RNA integrity: 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent) - Sequencing library: TruSeq® Stranded mRNA Library Prep (Illumina, San Diego, California, United States) supplemented with TruSeq® RNA Single Indexes Set A (Illumina) - Sequencing: HiSeq 3000 sequencer (Illumina) - paired-end 150 bp - sequencing facility of the Center of Medical Genetics Ghent - alignement to zebrafish GRCz10 reference genome to generate bam files - RNA-seq pipeline was used that was published by the nf-core community. This pipeline was executed using the Nextflow engine for computational workflows and comprises several processing steps. QC analysis of the RNA-seq data was performed with FastQC and MultiQC. TrimGalore was used to remove adapter contamination and to trim low-quality regions. Duplicate reads were identified with MarkDuplicates. Subsequently, all cleaned and trimmed reads that passed QC were aligned to GRCz10 using STAR aligner. Gene counts were computed using the featureCounts package. Differential expression analysis subsequently was performed on these gene counts using DESeq2. Differentially expressed genes were identified using a fold change cut-off >1 and FDR=0.05. Finally, GO enrichment & pathway analysis were performed on differentially expressed gene sets using the Generally Applicable Gene-set Enrichment for Pathway Analysis (GAGE) algorithm.
Project description:We used primary human CHH (cartilage-hair hypoplasia) and control fibroblasts in a chondrogenic transdifferentiation model (FDC; fibroblast-derived chondrocytes) to determine the chondrogenic capacity and differential pathway regulation of CHH cells. For the sequencing experiment, dermal fibroblasts from control donors (n=4) and CHH patients (n=4) were isolated from skin biopsies, plated at high density into wells coated with aggrecan, and cultured for three days in an FDC transdifferentiation medium. Total RNA was isolated at three different time points (Day 0, 1, and 3; in total 24 RNA samples), and sequenced using the NextSeq platform (Illumina).
Project description:Millions of cis-regulatory sequences have recently been found in the human genome, but the function of most cis-elements are not yet clear, in part due to the difficulty in determining their regulatory targets, which are often located millions of base pairs away and separated by one or more unrelated genes. To address this problem, the Hi-C method has been developed to identify long-range looping interactions in a genome-wide, unbiased fashion. However, current data analysis of Hi-C datasets cannot fully resolve regulatory interactions between enhancers and promoters due to the low resolution. Here, we generated a high-depth Hi-C dataset and applied a new analysis method that offers improved resolution permitting genome-wide identification of nearly one million chromatin interactions. We demonstrated the use of Hi-C to identify target promoters of enhancers regulated by NF-M-NM-:B signaling and signal-dependent dynamic chromatin interaction at these enhancers in human cells. Surprisingly, our results showed that most NF-M-NM-:B binding sites are looped to their regulatory targets prior to activation of the signaling pathway, and appear to undergo little change during signaling. This observation suggests that the chromatin organization landscape, once established in a cell type, is rather stable and may influence the selection and activation of target genes by a transcription factor. We performed Hi-C analysis using a human fibroblast cell line IMR90 before and after NF-M-NM-:B activation. In the meantime, we also performed ChIP-seq experiments to map the location of NF-M-NM-:B p65 subunit, RNA polymerase II, p300, and several histone modifications (including H3K4me1, H3K4me3, H3K27ac and H3K36me3) in IMR90 cells before and after transient TNF-M-NM-1 stimulation. Additionally, to monitor the dynamic transcription profiles, we also performed Global Run-On sequencing (GRO-seq).
Project description:Transcription factors direct gene expression, and so there is much interest in mapping their genome-wide binding locations. M-BM- Current methods do not allow for the multiplexed analysis of TF binding, and this limits their throughput. We describe a novel method for determining the genomic target genes of multiple transcription factors simultaneously. DNA-binding proteins are endowed with the ability to direct transposon insertions into the genome near to where they bind. The transposon becomes a M-bM-^@M-^\Calling CardM-bM-^@M-^] marking the visit of the DNA-binding protein to that location. A unique sequence M-bM-^@M-^\barcodeM-bM-^@M-^] in the transposon matches it to the DNA-binding protein that directed its insertion. The sequences of the DNA flanking the transposon (which reveal where in the genome the transposon landed) and the barcode within the transposon (which identifies the TF that put it there) are determined by massively-parallel DNA sequencing. To demonstrate the methodM-bM-^@M-^Ys feasibility, we determined the genomic targets of eight transcription factors in a single experiment. The Calling Card method promises to significantly reduce the cost and labor needed to determine the genomic targets of many transcription factors in different environmental conditions and genetic backgrounds. These data contain Ty5 insertion sites mapped by an Illumina GAII analyzer in the S. cerevisiae genome for the background strain without any Sir4 present (1 run), in strains expressing Sir4-tagged copies of three well-characterized TFs: Gal4, Leu3, and Gcn4 (1 run each), and a multiplex of eight Sir4-tagged TFs pooled in a single experiment (2 biological replicates), and insertions from the Thi2-Sir4 fusion expressed from its native locus in two conditions (1 run each). The format of each insertions file is [chromosome number] [position of genomic base] [direction of insertion] [number of reads at that position]. Raw sequencing data comes in two varieties. Paired-end data contains a 5 bp barcode at the beginning of read #2. Single-end data contains a 2 bp barcode on the beggining of read #1.
Project description:Hair Follicle regeneration relies on both epithelial components (bulge and hair germ cells) and a mesenchymal one (dermal papilla cells). We used microarrays to detail the global programme of gene expression underlying organ regeneration at the transition between quiescent stages (early and middle telogen) and the initiation of a new growth (late telogen). Experiment Overall Design: These microarray at the 3 different stages were designed to identify signals released by the mesenchymal dermal papilla cells to activate epithelial growth, their target genes in the hair germ and bulge compartments, and to get at gene signature differences and similarities between hair germ and bulge cells.
Project description:In this experiment, we've examined chromatin conformation of OG2 (B6; CBA-Tg(Pou5f1-EGFP)2Mnn/J; stock number 004654) mouse stem cells cultured as described in (Shi et al., 2008), using different amounts of starting cells. We performed a modified in situ Hi-C protocol for 6 samples digested with MboI restriction enzyme having as starting material 1 million (M), 100 thousand (k), 50k, 25k, 10k or 1k cells. As well as, to 2 samples digested with HindIII restriction enzyme that had as starting material 5M or 100k cells. Traditional in situ Hi-C protocols recommend 5-10 million starting cells. The aim of the experiment was to assess the impact of decreasing the cell number on reproducibility, library complexity, chromatin structure visualization in order to adapt the method to the study of rare cell populations. Furthermore, we have characterised the 3D structure of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) obtained from a blood extraction from a healthy donor and from a lymph node biopsy from a DLBCL patient as a proof of concept for the suitability of Low-C for rare cell population analysis.