Project description:Circulating plasma microRNAs (miRNAs) are well established as biomarkers of several diseases in humans and have recently been used as indicators of environmental exposures in fish. However, the role of plasma miRNAs in regulating acute stress responses in fish is largely unknown. Tissue and plasma miRNAs have recently been associated with excreted miRNAs in humans however external miRNAs have never been measured in fish. The objective of this study was to characterize the plasma miRNA profile in response to acute stress in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), as well as miRNA profiles in novel external samples, (fish epidermal mucus and the surrounding water). RNA was extracted and sequenced from plasma, mucus, and water collected from rainbow trout and their surrounding environment prior to and one-hour following a three-minute air exposure, a known inducer of an acute stress response in fish. Following small RNA-Seq and pathway analysis, we identified differentially expressed plasma miRNAs that targeted biosynthetic, degradation, and metabolic pathways. We successfully isolated miRNA from trout mucus and the surrounding water and detected differences in miRNA expression one-hour post air stress. The altered miRNA profiles in mucus and water were unique to the altered plasma miRNA profile, indicating that the plasma miRNA response was not associated with or immediately reflected in external samples. This research expands our understanding of the role of plasma miRNA in the acute stress response of fish and is the first study to report on the successful isolation and profiling of miRNA from fish mucus and water samples. Measurements of miRNA from plasma, mucus, and water can be further studied and have the potential to be applied in environmental monitoring as non-lethal indicators of acute stress in fish.
Project description:Effect of temperature variation on zebra fish health and behaviour Water temperature is an important environmental parameter that influences the distribution and the health of fishes. Moreover, temperature has a central role in ectothermic animals affecting their physiology and behaviour. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of ambient temperature on the molecular mechanism and the behavioural responses in ZF (Danio rerio) (ZF) a widely used animal model for environmental "omics" genomics researches. A global proteomic analysis was performed on fish brains to investigate physiological and biochemical changes that may occur from the exposure to this environmental stressor at the central nervous system level. Behavioural investigations were performed using a Y-Maze task to evaluate how temperature variations may affect swimming performance, the response to novelty and the spatial memory. Adult specimens of wild type ZF were kept at three different temperatures: 18 °C, 34 °C and 26 °C (used as a control) for 21 days. Proteomic data revealed 202XXX differentially expressed proteins across acclimation groups. These proteins are involved in energy metabolism, mitochondrial regulation and cytoskeletal organization. Temperature variation was able to alter swimming performance in adult ZF and to induce variations in the novel ambient exploration and in the acquisition and consolidation of spatial memory. This study indicates that moderate temperature variations can elicit biochemical changes that may affect fish health and behaviour. This combined approach may provide insights into mechanisms supporting thermal adaptation and plasticity in fishes.
Project description:Kelp are the largest photosynthetic organisms in the ocean with tissue differentiation and complex life cycles. Other multicellular organisms with similar complexity such as plants and animals are well known to posses epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation to control development and morphogenesis. Despite plant-like body plans and the presence of different life-cycle stages, the kelp species Saccharina japonica has only a very low level of DNA methylation, yet we have found strong evidence for differential methylation of regulatory elements and protein-coding genes which seem to contribute to the formation of life-cycle stages, tissue differentiation, growth and halogen metabolism. Thus, DNA methylation seems to play an important role in kelp, which has not been reported before.
Project description:We investigated salinity adaptation during the migration from freshwater to seawater of European eel (Anguilla anguilla) by examining the hypothesis that: The brain is the central organ for the co-ordination of environmental cues (day length, photoperiod, temperature and environmental salinity) with the anatomical and physiological adaptations which accompany pre-migrational morphogenesis and the osmoregulatory plasticity seen in post-migrational, salinity-adapted fish. We have characertised the mRNA expression profiles for the brains of fresh water and sea water adapted silver eel using a highly representative brain cDNA microarray. The array comprises 5760 cDNA clones from A.anguilla ranging from 0.5 -10 kb and an estimated redundancy of > 5 %.
Project description:Microfluidic deterministic barcoding of mRNAs and proteins in tissue slides followed by high throughput sequencing enables the construction of high-spatial-resolution multi-omics atlas at the genome scale. Applying it to mouse embryo tissues revealed major tissue (sub)types in early-stage organogenesis, brain micro-vasculatures, and the fine structure of an optical vesicle at the single-cell-layer resolution.
Project description:These Heterogeneous Stock (HS) rats are derived from eight inbred progenitors through more than 60 generations of outbreeding. As a result they are fine-grained mosaics of the founder genomes, and well suited for high-resolution genetic mapping of complex traits. This experiment provides dense genotyping data for 1407 HS rats, 15 duplicates, and the 8 progenitors. From these data, each HS rat chromosome can be reconstructed as a mosaic of progenitor haplotypes. Together with phenotype and sequence data available elsewhere (DOI:10.1038/ng.2644), these data allowed fine-mapping of 160 complex traits, and identified causal genes at the QTLs. The sequences of the progenitors are available from ENA (study accession PRJEB3358, http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/PRJEB3358). A series of supporting data files are available from http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/files/E-MTAB-2332 , with an accompanying list (suppl_files_description.xlsx) describing each supporting file.