Project description:Maternal exposure during pregnancy is a strong determinant of offspring health outcomes. Such exposures induce changes in the offspring epigenome resulting in gene expression and functional changes. In this study, we investigated the effect of maternal Western hypercaloric diet (HCD) programming during the perinatal period and its effect on neuronal plasticity and cardiometabolic health in adult offspring. C57BL/6J dams were fed HCD for 1 month prior to mating with regular diet (RD) sires and kept on the same diet throughout pregnancy and lactation. At weaning, offspring were maintained on either HCD or RD for 3 months duration. Maternal programming resulted in male-specific hypertension and hyperglycemia, with both males and females showing increased sympathetic tone to the vasculature. Surprisingly, programmed male offspring fed on HCD exhibited lower glucose levels, less insulin resistance, and leptin levels compared to non-programmed HCD-fed male mice. Hypothalamic genes involved in glial and astrocytic differentiation were differentially methylated in programmed male offspring. Genes involved in inflammation and type 2 diabetes were targeted by differentially expressed miRNA in programmed male offspring. Methyl-seq data were supported by our findings of astrogliosis and microgliosis as well as increased microglial activation in programmed males in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN). Aligned with programming-induced protective effect in HCD male mice, we observed lower protein levels of hypothalamic TGFβ2, NF-κB2, NF-κBp65, Ser-pIRS1, and GLP1R compared to non-programmed HCD-fed male mice. In conclusion, our study shows that maternal HCD programs neuronal plasticity in the offspring and results in male-specific hypertension and hyperglycemia. On the other hand, we observed a compensatory role of programming potentially by priming metabolic pathways to handle excess nutrients in a more efficient way.
Project description:One of the hallmarks of Pseudomonas aeruginosa cystic fibrosis (CF) infection is very high-cell-density (HCD) replication in the lung, allowing this bacterium to induce virulence controlled by HCD quorum-sensing systems. However, the nutrient sources sustaining HCD replication in this chronic infection is largely unknown. Hence, understanding the nutrient factors contributing to HCD in the CF lung will yield new insights into the 'metabolic pathogenicity' and potential treatment of CF infections caused by P. aeruginosa. Herein, we performed microarray studies of P. aeruginosa directly isolated from the CF lung to demonstrate its metabolic capability and virulence in vivo. Our in vivo microarray data, confirmed by real-time reverse-transcription-PCR, indicated P. aeruginosa expressed several genes for virulence, drug-resistance, and utilization of multiple nutrient sources (lung surfactant lipids and amino acids) contributing to HCD replication. The data also indicates deregulation of several pathways, suggesting in vivo evolution by deregulation of a large portion of the transcriptome during chronic CF infection. To our knowledge, this is the first in vivo transcriptome of P. aeruginosa in a natural CF infection, and it indicates several important aspects of pathogenesis, drug-resistance, and nutrient-utilization never before observed in vivo. Experiment Overall Design: The purpose of the experiment was to observe which genes are upregulated in P. aeruginosa during chronic CF lung infection as compared to PAO1. All in vitro studies were grown in 1x M9 minimal media supplemented with 20 mM citrate and grown to mid-log phase prior to RNA isolation. The in vivo RNA was isolated directly from CF sputum samples after TRIzol treatment. Each in vitro sample (both for PAO1 and the CF sputum pool isolate) were processed individually and in triplicate. Two in vivo isolations from sputum were conducted from the same patient but two different sputum samples. After isolation of total RNA, samples were processed for microarrays (i.e. cDNA synthesis, fragmentation, labeling, etc) as recommended by Affymetrix, and processed on the GeneChip as recommended by Affymetrix.
Project description:Maternal exposure during pregnancy is a strong determinant of offspring health outcomes. Such exposures induce changes in the offspring epigenome resulting in gene expression and functional changes. In this study, we investigated the effect of maternal Western hypercaloric diet (HCD) programming during the perinatal period and its effect on neuronal plasticity and cardiometabolic health in adult offspring. C57BL/6J dams were fed HCD for 1 month prior to mating with regular diet (RD) sires and kept on the same diet throughout pregnancy and lactation. At weaning, offspring were maintained on either HCD or RD for 3 months duration. Maternal programming resulted in male-specific hypertension and hyperglycemia, with both males and females showing increased sympathetic tone to the vasculature. Surprisingly, programmed male offspring fed on HCD exhibited lower glucose levels, less insulin resistance, and leptin levels compared to non-programmed HCD-fed male mice. Hypothalamic genes involved in glial and astrocytic differentiation were differentially methylated in programmed male offspring. Genes involved in inflammation and type 2 diabetes were targeted by differentially expressed miRNA in programmed male offspring. Methyl-seq data were supported by our findings of astrogliosis and microgliosis as well as increased microglial activation in programmed males in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN). Aligned with programming-induced protective effect in HCD male mice, we observed lower protein levels of hypothalamic TGFβ2, NF-κB2, NF-κBp65, Ser-pIRS1, and GLP1R compared to non-programmed HCD-fed male mice. In conclusion, our study shows that maternal HCD programs neuronal plasticity in the offspring and results in male-specific hypertension and hyperglycemia. On the other hand, we observed a compensatory role of programming potentially by priming metabolic pathways to handle excess nutrients in a more efficient way.
Project description:Maternal exposure during pregnancy is a strong determinant of offspring health outcomes. Such exposures induce changes in the offspring epigenome resulting in gene expression and functional changes. In this study, we investigated the effect of maternal Western hypercaloric diet (HCD) programming during the perinatal period and its effect on neuronal plasticity and cardiometabolic health in adult offspring. C57BL/6J dams were fed HCD for 1 month prior to mating with regular diet (RD) sires and kept on the same diet throughout pregnancy and lactation. At weaning, offspring were maintained on either HCD or RD for 3 months duration. Maternal programming resulted in male-specific hypertension and hyperglycemia, with both males and females showing increased sympathetic tone to the vasculature. Surprisingly, programmed male offspring fed on HCD exhibited lower glucose levels, less insulin resistance, and leptin levels compared to non-programmed HCD-fed male mice. Hypothalamic genes involved in glial and astrocytic differentiation were differentially methylated in programmed male offspring. Genes involved in inflammation and type 2 diabetes were targeted by differentially expressed miRNA in programmed male offspring. Methyl-seq data were supported by our findings of astrogliosis and microgliosis as well as increased microglial activation in programmed males in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN). Aligned with programming-induced protective effect in HCD male mice, we observed lower protein levels of hypothalamic TGFβ2, NF-κB2, NF-κBp65, Ser-pIRS1, and GLP1R compared to non-programmed HCD-fed male mice. In conclusion, our study shows that maternal HCD programs neuronal plasticity in the offspring and results in male-specific hypertension and hyperglycemia. On the other hand, we observed a compensatory role of programming potentially by priming metabolic pathways to handle excess nutrients in a more efficient way.
Project description:One of the hallmarks of Pseudomonas aeruginosa cystic fibrosis (CF) infection is very high-cell-density (HCD) replication in the lung, allowing this bacterium to induce virulence controlled by HCD quorum-sensing systems. However, the nutrient sources sustaining HCD replication in this chronic infection is largely unknown. Hence, understanding the nutrient factors contributing to HCD in the CF lung will yield new insights into the 'metabolic pathogenicity' and potential treatment of CF infections caused by P. aeruginosa. Herein, we performed microarray studies of P. aeruginosa directly isolated from the CF lung to demonstrate its metabolic capability and virulence in vivo. Our in vivo microarray data, confirmed by real-time reverse-transcription-PCR, indicated P. aeruginosa expressed several genes for virulence, drug-resistance, and utilization of multiple nutrient sources (lung surfactant lipids and amino acids) contributing to HCD replication. The data also indicates deregulation of several pathways, suggesting in vivo evolution by deregulation of a large portion of the transcriptome during chronic CF infection. To our knowledge, this is the first in vivo transcriptome of P. aeruginosa in a natural CF infection, and it indicates several important aspects of pathogenesis, drug-resistance, and nutrient-utilization never before observed in vivo. Keywords: in vivo gene induction
Project description:The vulnerability of bone marrow hematopoiesis to perturbations of cholesterol metabolism is well documented, while the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here we reveal a distinct cholesterol metabolic signature of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) within the hematopoietic compartment.To identify the phenotype switching and function variation in BM LT-HSCs with HCD treatment, we performed RNA-seq of LT-HSCs from the bone marrow of mice with or without3-month HCD treatment.
Project description:Liver samples of mice harboring liver-specific deletion of Lats2 (Lats2-CKO) were compared to WT mice. This effect was tested along with the effect of diet - high cholesterol diet (Paigen-PD) vs. normal chow (ND). Expression array analysis on Affymetrix microarrays was carried out for livers from WT and Lats2-CKO mice fed ND or HCD for 9 weeks.
Project description:Purpose: To reveal the small RNA profiles in the sperm using traitional and PANDORA-seq methods Methods: 3 week old LDLR-/- male mice were fed a high cholesterol or low cholesterol diet for 9 weeks. Sperm RNA was extracted via Trizol. Results: paternal HCD feeding can lead to sperm tsRNA/rsRNA landscape changes that are undetected by traditional RNA-seq
Project description:Splenic B cell subsets (IgM+CD138+ ASC, FO B cells, MZ+B1 B cells) sorted from 8 month LDL-r KO mice with or without c-myb hypomorphism fed a 12 week HCD diet