Project description:Fresh retinatissues were harvested from 30 day old C57BL/6J mice according to published protocols. 3 retinas were pooled together to form one biological sample. Under a dissecting microscope, spring scissors were used to puncture the eye and remove the cornea, iris, and lens. The remaining eyecup had 4 radial incisions made every 90 degrees, resulting in a flat and open eye cup. The retina was then gently removed using curved tweezers and placed in a 1.5 ml microcentrifuge tube.
Project description:Platelets were isolated from standard-housed and exercising (4 days and 28 days) 18-month-old C57BL/6J mice and mass spectrometry performed. This analysis revealed differential proteomic signatures between platelets from exercsising and standard-housed mice.
Project description:Previous studies of congenic lines of C57BL/6J-DBA/2J mice compared to C57BL/6 mice revealed a 0.23 QTL for sensitivity to methamphetamine on chromosome 11, which contains two protein coding genes, Rufy1 and Hnrnph1. Subsequent transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs)-mediated introduction of frameshift deletions in the first coding exon of one copy of Hnrnph1 of C57BL/6J mice, revealed comparable association to phenotype. Analysis of the transcriptome and splicesome between these Hnrnph1 heterozygous knockouts and C57BL/6J mice revealed genome-wide differentially expression and exon usage of more than 1000 genes in either.
Project description:The ability to generate defined null mutations in mice revolutionized the analysis of gene function in mammals. However, gene-deficient mice generated by using 129-derived embryonic stem (ES) cells may carry large segments of 129 DNA, even when extensively backcrossed to reference strains, such as C57BL/6J, and this may confound interpretation of experiments performed in these mice. Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), encoded by the PLAT gene, is a fibrinolytic serine protease that is widely expressed in the brain. A large number of neurological abnormalities have been reported in tPA-deficient mice. The studies here compare genes differentially expressed in the brains of Plat-/- mice from two independent Plat-/- mouse derivations to wild-type C57BL/6J mice. One strain denoted “Old” was constructed in ES cells from a 129 mouse and backcrossed extensively to C57BL/6J, and one denoted “New” Plat-/- mouse was constructed using zinc finger nucleases directly in the C57BL/6J-Plat-/- mouse strain. We identify a significant set of genes that are differentially expressed in the brains of Old Plat-/- mice that preferentially cluster in the vicinity of Plat on chromosome 8, apparently linked to more than 20 Mbp of DNA flanking Plat being of 129 origin. No such clustering is seen in the New Plat-/- mice.
Project description:We have reported previously that when chromosome Y (chrY) from the mouse strain C57BL/6J (abbreviated as B) was substituted for that of A/J mice (ChrY<A>), cardiomyocytes from the resulting 'chromosome substitution' C57BL/6J-chrY<A> strain (abbreviated as B.Y) were smaller than that of their C57BL/6J counterparts. In reverse, when chrY<A> from A/J mice was substituted for that of chrY<B>, cardiomyocytes from the resulting A/J-chrY<C57> strain were larger than in their A/J counterparts. We further used these strains (B and the consomic B.Y) to test whether the origin of chrY could also be linked to differences in the profile of gene expression in their cardiac left ventricles in adult mice where either sham surgery (intact animals) or castration has been performed at 3-4 weeks of age..
Project description:Proteome isolated from C57BL/6J mouse B and T cells are evluated for the presence of novel open reading frame products (nORFs). Translation products encoded by non canonical or novel open reading frame (ORF) genomic regions are generally considered too small to play any significant biological role, and dismissed as inconsequential. We conduct a systematic study of novel ORFs to gain new insights into normal biological and disease processes.
Project description:We used two groups of C57BL/6J mice, one with optic nerve crush on one eye, and another with no crush as control. Three mice were subjected to optic nerve crush, with sample names 121, 113, 114 and two were used as control with sample names 118 and 119. For the optic nerve crush, a surgical peritomy was made behind and above the eyeball and the eye muscles were gently retracted to expose the optic nerve. Dumont #5 forceps (FST) were used to crush the optic nerve approximately 0.5-1 mm behind the globe without damaging retinal vessels or affecting the blood supply.