Project description:Canis familiaris oral papillomavirus, formerly canine oral papillomavirus, is a causative agent of the self-resolving canine oral papillomatosis and was first described in 1994. This is the first report of two full-length genome sequences described in South Africa and indicates the highly conserved nature of Canis familiaris oral papillomavirus.
Project description:Comparative oncology is a developing research discipline that is being used to assist our understanding of human neoplastic diseases. Companion canines are a preferred animal oncology model due to spontaneous tumor development and similarity to human disease at the pathophysiological level. We use a paired RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq)/microarray analysis of a set of four normal canine lymph nodes and ten canine lymphoma fine needle aspirates to identify technical biases and variation between the technologies and convergence on biological disease pathways. Surrogate Variable Analysis (SVA) provides a formal multivariate analysis of the combined RNA-Seq/microarray data set. Applying SVA to the data allows us to decompose variation into contributions associated with transcript abundance, differences between the technology, and latent variation within each technology. A substantial and highly statistically significant component of the variation reflects transcript abundance, and RNA-Seq proved more sensitive for detection of transcripts expressed at low levels. Latent random variation among RNA-Seq samples is also distinct in character from that impacting microarray samples. In particular, we observed variation between RNA-Seq samples that reflects transcript GC content. Platform-independent variable decomposition without a priori knowledge of the sources of variation using SVA represents a generalizable method for accomplishing cross-platform data analysis. We identified genes differentially expressed between normal lymph nodes of disease free dogs and a subset of the diseased dogs diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma using each technology. There is statistically significant overlap between the RNA-Seq and microarray sets of differentially expressed genes. Analysis of overlapping genes in the context of biological systems suggests elevated expression and activity of PI3K signaling in B-cell lymphoma biopsies compared with normal biopsies, consistent with literature describing successful use of drugs targeting this pathway in lymphomas.
Project description:Mechanically dissociated IPF lung explant derived cellular suspensions were cultured in 50% senescent lung fibroblast conditioned medium + 50% fibroblast complete medium (DMEM + 15% FBS + antiboitics) and 10 µM of Y27632. After approximately 2 weeks, cells were passaged and cultured overnight in Pneumacult Ex Plus medium (STEMCELL technologies).
Project description:A 14-year-old West Highland White terrier dog developed multiple raised plaques that were confined to the concave surface of the right pinna. Histology allowed a diagnosis of viral plaque, although the lesions contained some unusual microscopic features. A papillomaviral (PV) DNA sequence was amplified from the plaque using consensus PCR primers. The amplified sequence was used as a template to design 'outward facing' PCR primers, which allowed amplification of the complete PV DNA sequence. The sequence was 7778 bp and was predicted to code for five early genes and two late genes. The ORF L1 showed the highest (83.9%) similarity to CPV15, and phylogenetic analysis revealed the novel PV clustered with the species 3 ChiPVs. The novel PV was designated as canine papillomavirus (CPV) type 25. As CPV25 was not previously detected in a canine viral plaque, this PV type may be a rare cause of skin disease in dogs. However, as plaques that remain confined to the pinna were not previously reported in dogs, it is possible that CPV25 could be more common in plaques from this area of skin. The findings from this case expand the number of PV types that cause disease in dogs. Evidence from this case suggests that, compared to the other canine ChiPV types, infection by CPV25 results in viral plaques in atypical locations with unusual histological features.
Project description:Comparative oncology is a developing research discipline that is being used to assist our understanding of human neoplastic diseases. Companion canines are a preferred animal oncology model due to spontaneous tumor development and similarity to human disease at the pathophysiological level. We use a paired RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq)/microarray analysis of a set of four normal canine lymph nodes and ten canine lymphoma fine needle aspirates to identify technical biases and variation between the technologies and convergence on biological disease pathways. Surrogate Variable Analysis (SVA) provides a formal multivariate analysis of the combined RNA-Seq/microarray data set. Applying SVA to the data allows us to decompose variation into contributions associated with transcript abundance, differences between the technology, and latent variation within each technology. A substantial and highly statistically significant component of the variation reflects transcript abundance, and RNA-Seq proved more sensitive for detection of transcripts expressed at low levels. Latent random variation among RNA-Seq samples is also distinct in character from that impacting microarray samples. In particular, we observed variation between RNA-Seq samples that reflects transcript GC content. Platform-independent variable decomposition without a priori knowledge of the sources of variation using SVA represents a generalizable method for accomplishing cross-platform data analysis. We identified genes differentially expressed between normal lymph nodes of disease free dogs and a subset of the diseased dogs diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma using each technology. There is statistically significant overlap between the RNA-Seq and microarray sets of differentially expressed genes. Analysis of overlapping genes in the context of biological systems suggests elevated expression and activity of PI3K signaling in B-cell lymphoma biopsies compared with normal biopsies, consistent with literature describing successful use of drugs targeting this pathway in lymphomas. RNA was extracted from 10 lymphoma fine needle aspirates attained from companion canines. 4 normal lymph node samples were obtained from a Beagle breeding colony at Pfizer, including two samples that were taken from the same dog but different lymph nodes. This Series represents the Affymetrix gene expression only, not RNA-Seq referenced above. RNA-Seq data have been submitted to SRA as SRA059558.
Project description:Evidence of animal multimodal signalling is widespread and compelling. Dogs' aggressive vocalisations (growls and barks) have been extensively studied, but without any consideration of the simultaneously produced visual displays. In this study we aimed to categorize dogs' bimodal aggressive signals according to the redundant/non-redundant classification framework. We presented dogs with unimodal (audio or visual) or bimodal (audio-visual) stimuli and measured their gazing and motor behaviours. Responses did not qualitatively differ between the bimodal and two unimodal contexts, indicating that acoustic and visual signals provide redundant information. We could not further classify the signal as 'equivalent' or 'enhancing' as we found evidence for both subcategories. We discuss our findings in relation to the complex signal framework, and propose several hypotheses for this signal's function.
Project description:To study the effect of myoblast-derived paracrine factors on cardiomyocyte gene expression, microarray analysis was performed from isolated rat fetal cardiomyocyte cultures. These cultures were treated for 24 hours with fresh culture medium (control), skeletal myoblast-conditioned medium, or cardiac fibroblast-conditioned medium.
Project description:Dogs live in 45% of households, integrated into various human groups in various societies. This is certainly not true for wolves. We suggest that dogs' increased tractability (meant as individual dogs being easier to control, handle and direct by humans, in contrast to trainability defined as performance increase due to training) makes a crucial contribution to this fundamental difference. In this study, we assessed the development of tractability in hand-raised wolves and similarly raised dogs. We combined a variety of behavioural tests: fetching, calling, obeying a sit signal, hair brushing and walking in a muzzle. Wolf (N?=?16) and dog (N?=?11) pups were tested repeatedly, between the ages of 3-24 weeks. In addition to hand-raised wolves and dogs, we also tested mother-raised family dogs (N?=?12) for fetching and calling. Our results show that despite intensive socialization, wolves remained less tractable than dogs, especially in contexts involving access to a resource. Dogs' tractability appeared to be less context dependent, as they followed human initiation of action in more contexts than wolves. We found no evidence that different rearing conditions (i.e. intensive socialization vs. mother rearing) would affect tractability in dogs. This suggests that during domestication dogs might have been selected for increased tractability, although based on the current data we cannot exclude that the differential speed of development of dogs and wolves or the earlier relocation of wolves to live as a group explains some of the differences we found.