Project description:Since the discovery of adult neural stem cells, their exact identity is still under discussion. Moreover, the lack of a reproducible procedure to purify neural stem cells prospectively rather than by growing them in vitro has so far precluded their study at the transcriptome level. Here we demonstrate a novel procedure to prospectively isolate neural stem cells from the adult mouse subependymal zone on the basis of their GFAP- and prominin1-expression by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. All self-renewing, multipotent stem cells are contained in this fraction at 70% purity. The stem cell identity of these double-positive cells is further demonstrated in vivo, by using a novel split-Cre-technology for fate mapping. Comparison of the transcriptome of these prospectively isolated neural stem cells to the transcriptomes of other astrocytes or ependymal cells revealed a distinct clustering of the stem cells, highlighting their unique features, as well as profound similarities to the astrocyte as well as ependyma transcriptome.
Project description:Since the discovery of adult neural stem cells, their exact identity is still under discussion. Moreover, the lack of a reproducible procedure to purify neural stem cells prospectively rather than by growing them in vitro has so far precluded their study at the transcriptome level. Here we demonstrate a novel procedure to prospectively isolate neural stem cells from the adult mouse subependymal zone on the basis of their GFAP- and prominin1-expression by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. All self-renewing, multipotent stem cells are contained in this fraction at 70% purity. The stem cell identity of these double-positive cells is further demonstrated in vivo, by using a novel split-Cre-technology for fate mapping. Comparison of the transcriptome of these prospectively isolated neural stem cells to the transcriptomes of other astrocytes or ependymal cells revealed a distinct clustering of the stem cells, highlighting their unique features, as well as profound similarities to the astrocyte as well as ependyma transcriptome. FACS-sorting was used to isolate prospective neural stem, astrocytes and ependymal cells from brain regions of hGFAP eGFP expressing mice. Total RNA from these cells was hybridised on Affymetrix MOE430 2.0 arrays and expression patterns were analysed.
Project description:A transcriptome study in mouse hematopoietic stem cells was performed using a sensitive SAGE method, in an attempt to detect medium and low abundant transcripts expressed in these cells. Among a total of 31,380 unique transcript, 17,326 (55%) known genes were detected, 14,054 (45%) low-copy transcripts that have no matches to currently known genes. 3,899 (23%) were alternatively spliced transcripts of the known genes and 3,754 (22%) represent anti-sense transcripts from known genes.
Project description:A transcriptome study in mouse hematopoietic stem cells was performed using a sensitive SAGE method, in an attempt to detect medium and low abundant transcripts expressed in these cells. Among a total of 31,380 unique transcript, 17,326 (55%) known genes were detected, 14,054 (45%) low-copy transcripts that have no matches to currently known genes. 3,899 (23%) were alternatively spliced transcripts of the known genes and 3,754 (22%) represent anti-sense transcripts from known genes. Mouse hematopoietic stem cells were purified from bone marrow cells using negative and positive selection with a Magnetic-Activated Cell Sorter (MACS). total RNA and mRNA were purified from the purified cells using Trizol reagent and magnetic oligo dT beads. Double strand cDNAs were synthesized using a cDNA synthesis kit and anchored oligo dT primers. After NlaIII digestion, 3’ cDNAs were isolated and amplified through 16-cycle PCR. SAGE tags were released from the 3’ cDNA after linker ligation. Ditags were formed, concatemerized and cloned into a pZERO vector. Sequencing reactions were performed with the ET sequencing terminator kit. Sequences were collected using a Megabase 1000 sequencer. SAGE tag sequences were extracted using SAGE 2000 software.
Project description:Introgressed variants from other species can be an important source of genetic variation because they may arise rapidly, can include multiple mutations on a single haplotype, and have often been pretested by selection in the species of origin. Although introgressed alleles are generally deleterious, several studies have reported introgression as the source of adaptive alleles-including the rodenticide-resistant variant of Vkorc1 that introgressed from Mus spretus into European populations of Mus musculus domesticus. Here, we conducted bidirectional genome scans to characterize introgressed regions into one wild population of M. spretus from Spain and three wild populations of M. m. domesticus from France, Germany, and Iran. Despite the fact that these species show considerable intrinsic postzygotic reproductive isolation, introgression was observed in all individuals, including in the M. musculus reference genome (GRCm38). Mus spretus individuals had a greater proportion of introgression compared with M. m. domesticus, and within M. m. domesticus, the proportion of introgression decreased with geographic distance from the area of sympatry. Introgression was observed on all autosomes for both species, but not on the X-chromosome in M. m. domesticus, consistent with known X-linked hybrid sterility and inviability genes that have been mapped to the M. spretus X-chromosome. Tract lengths were generally short with a few outliers of up to 2.7 Mb. Interestingly, the longest introgressed tracts were in olfactory receptor regions, and introgressed tracts were significantly enriched for olfactory receptor genes in both species, suggesting that introgression may be a source of functional novelty even between species with high barriers to gene flow.