Project description:The aim of the present study identify putative macromolecular interactions in human peripheral blood based on significant correlations at the transcriptional level. We found that significant transcript correlations within a giant matrix including also mRNAs from the same project reflect experimentally documented interactions
Project description:The aim of the present study identify putative macromolecular interactions in human peripheral blood based on significant correlations at the transcriptional level. We found that significant transcript correlations within the giant matrix reflect experimentally documented interactions involving select ubiquitous blood relevant transcription factors (CREB1, GATA1, and the glucocorticoid receptor (GR, NR3C1)).
Project description:Neuronal migration constitutes an important step in corticogenesis; dysregulation of the molecular mechanisms mediating this crucial step in neurodevelopment may result in various neuropsychiatric disorders. By curating experimental data from published literature, we identified eight functional modules involving Disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) and its interacting proteins that regulate neuronal migration. We then identified miRNAs and transcription factors (TFs) that form functional feedback loops and regulate gene expression of the DISC1 interactome. Using this curated data, we conducted in-silico modeling of the DISC1 interactome involved in neuronal migration and identified the proteins that either facilitate or inhibit neuronal migrational processes. We also studied the effect of perturbation of miRNAs and TFs in feedback loops on the DISC1 interactome. From these analyses, we discovered that STAT3, TCF3, and TAL1 (through feedback loop with miRNAs) play a critical role in the transcriptional control of DISC1 interactome thereby regulating neuronal migration. To the best of our knowledge, regulation of the DISC1 interactome mediating neuronal migration by these TFs has not been previously reported. These potentially important TFs can serve as targets for undertaking validation studies, which in turn can reveal the molecular processes that cause neuronal migration defects underlying neurodevelopmental disorders. This underscores the importance of the use of in-silico techniques in aiding the discovery of mechanistic evidence governing important molecular and cellular processes. The present work is one such step towards the discovery of regulatory factors of the DISC1 interactome that mediates neuronal migration.
Project description:The plasma levels of tissue-specific microRNAs can be used as prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers for chronic and acute diseases. Thereby, the combination of diverse miRNAs into biomarker signatures using multivariate statistics seems especially powerful in view to tissue and condition specific miRNA shedding into the plasma. Although Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology enables to analyse circulating microRNAs on a genome-scale level, it suffers from potential biases (e.g. adapter ligation bias) and lacks absolute transcript quantitation. In order to develop a robust NGS discovery assay for genome-scale quantitation of circulating microRNAs we first evaluated the sensitivity, repeatability and ligation bias of four commercially available small RNA library preparation protocols. The protocol from RealSeq Biosciences was selected based on its performance and usability, and coupled with a novel panel of exogenous small RNA spike-in controls to enable absolute quantitation and ensure comparability of data across independent NGS experiments. The established MicroRNA Next-Generation-Sequencing Discovery Assay (miND) was validated for its relative accuracy, precision, analytical measurement range and sequencing bias and was considered fit-for-purpose for microRNA biomarker discovery. Summarized, all these criteria were met and thus our analytical platform is considered fit-for-purpose for microRNA biomarker discovery from plasma, serum, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), synovial fluid (SF), or extracellular vesicles (EV) extracted from cell culture medium in the setting of any diagnostic, prognostic or patient stratification need.