Project description:Canonical WNT-signaling is essential for placode formation irrespective of appendage type. At sites of placode initiation, Although WNT-signaling occurs in both epithelium and mesenchyme, the site of most intense activity as revealed by the WNT reporter Axin2-LacZ was in a zone just below the epithelial-mesenchymal interface. In ventral foot-skin, this WNT activity peaked at E17.5, concomitant with sweat bud fate commitment, while in dorsal back-skin, it began at E14.5, concomitant with HF fate specification.
Project description:Epidermal appendages play a key role in thermoregulation, which is crucial in maintaining the equilibrium of body temperature. The normality of eccrine sweat glands (SwGs) and hair follicles (HFs) assures homeostatic thermoregulation. However, the fate commitments of SwGs and HFs development and their key regulators are still poorly understood. To elucidate the regulatory networks and the major regulators in SwGs and HFs development, we generated a transcriptomic atlas within three tissues (dorsal back skin, front and hinder ventral foot skin) across four early development stages (embryonic (E) days E15.5 and E17.5, postnatal (P) days P1 and P3) of Mus musculus. We then applied a second-order polynomial model to fit time-course expression of genes and used likelihood ratio test (LRT) to identify temporal dynamic expressed genes. We further constructed temporal regulatory networks to investigate the master regulators during different developmental stages. We found the distinct temporally developmental patterns between dorsal back and ventral foot skin. Eight temporally dynamic expression modes were inferred, which are comprised of over 90% of the dynamic genes. Shh, Eda, Bmp2 and other previously identified factors were noted in our dominant dynamic patterns as well and temporally dynamic expressed in dorsal back and ventral foot. Combined with differentially expressed genes analysis, we highlighted 501 genes that were common in front and hinder foot, albeit uniquely enrich or depleted in dorsal back. Moreover, the integration of temporal expression models and genes regulatory networks accentuated master transcription factors functioning at specific stages in different tissues. Our findings demonstrated the temporally dynamic determinants during SwGs and HFs fate commitments and can contribute to restoring impaired SwGs and HFs clinically after hypohidrosis or burn injury.
Project description:Based on snSeq of back, dorsal digit and ventral digit skin from 2 fetal donations at 14 weeks EGA we report differential expression of signaling and structural molecules between different skin regions, specifically as related to the distinction between hair follicle producing and dermatoglyph producing skin.
Project description:The hippocampus - one of the most studied brain regions – is a key target of the stress response and vulnerable to the detrimental effects of stress. Although its intrinsic organization is highly conserved throughout its long dorsal-ventral axis, the dorsal hippocampus is linked to spatial navigation and memory formation, whereas the ventral hippocampus is linked to emotional regulation. Here, we provide the first combined transcriptomic and proteomic profiling that reveals striking differences between dorsal and ventral hippocampus. Using various acute stress challenges we demonstrate that both regions display very distinct molecular responses, and that the ventral hippocampus is particularly responsive to the effects of stress. We demonstrate that separately analyzing dorsal and ventral hippocampus greatly increases the ability to detect region-specific stress effects, and we identify an epigenetic network, which is specifically sensitive to acute stress in the ventral hippocampus.
Project description:To identify genes expressed predominantly in the ventral skin dermis of pregnant mice, we performed DNA microarray analysis by using isolated dermal tissues from ventral skin at 0 and 15 dpc, PP2-injected ventral skin at 15 dpc, and dorsal skin at 15 dpc.
Project description:Introgressed variants from other species can be an important source of genetic variation because they may arise rapidly, can include multiple mutations on a single haplotype, and have often been pretested by selection in the species of origin. Although introgressed alleles are generally deleterious, several studies have reported introgression as the source of adaptive alleles-including the rodenticide-resistant variant of Vkorc1 that introgressed from Mus spretus into European populations of Mus musculus domesticus. Here, we conducted bidirectional genome scans to characterize introgressed regions into one wild population of M. spretus from Spain and three wild populations of M. m. domesticus from France, Germany, and Iran. Despite the fact that these species show considerable intrinsic postzygotic reproductive isolation, introgression was observed in all individuals, including in the M. musculus reference genome (GRCm38). Mus spretus individuals had a greater proportion of introgression compared with M. m. domesticus, and within M. m. domesticus, the proportion of introgression decreased with geographic distance from the area of sympatry. Introgression was observed on all autosomes for both species, but not on the X-chromosome in M. m. domesticus, consistent with known X-linked hybrid sterility and inviability genes that have been mapped to the M. spretus X-chromosome. Tract lengths were generally short with a few outliers of up to 2.7 Mb. Interestingly, the longest introgressed tracts were in olfactory receptor regions, and introgressed tracts were significantly enriched for olfactory receptor genes in both species, suggesting that introgression may be a source of functional novelty even between species with high barriers to gene flow.
Project description:Porcine plantar skin was compared to 3 other skin types, namely trunk, snout and dorsal foot skin, to identify potential differences in gene expression profiles, which could lead to insights into the mechanisms underlying the many specializations of plantar skin tissue.
Project description:To identify genes expressed predominantly in the ventral skin epidermal basal cells of pregnant mice, we performed DNA microarray analysis by using FACS-purified epidermal basal cells from ventral skin at 0 and 16 dpc, and dorsal skin at 16 dpc.
Project description:Multilevel logical model encompassing the Nodal and BMP pathways together with key transcription factors setting the dorsal-ventral axis in the sea urchin P. lividus embryo. This model accounts for the specification of wild-type ventral ectoderm, ciliary band and dorsal ectoderm, and further recapitulates sophisticated mutant phenotypes.