Project description:Investigate the persistent effects of early postnatal overnutrition on the developmental establishment of the DNA methylation in the mouse hypothalamus.
Project description:Investigate the persistent effects of early postnatal overnutrition on the developmental establishment of the DNA methylation in the mouse hypothalamus. Early postnatal overnutrition was induced in mice by reducing the litter size from normally 9 (C) to 4 (SL) pups per litter. Hypothalami were collected from both C and SL mice at the age of postnatal day 180 (P180). Genome-wide DNA methylation difference between SL and C were detected by MSAM. Equal amount of genomic DNA from 5 hypothalami of the same group were pooled as one MSAM sample. Two pooled DNA samples for each group were used for comparison that meant total 10 hypothalami for each group. 500ng pooled DNA was serially digested with SmaI and XmaI followed by adaptor ligation and PCR amplification. Two cohybridizations were performed to compare DNA methylation between SL and C hypothalami, with day swap.
Project description:Human epidemiologic and animal model data indicate that early environmental influences can persistently alter an individual’s risk of obesity. Environmental effects on hypothalamic developmental epigenetics provide a strong candidate mechanism to explain such ‘developmental programming’ of obesity. To advance our understanding of these processes, it is essential to determine to what extent the diversity of hypothalamic cell types is regulated by epigenetic differences, and when these are established. By performing genome-scale DNA methylation profiling in hypothalamic neurons and non-neuronal cells at postnatal day 0 (P0) and P21, we found that most of the DNA methylation differences distinguishing these two cell types are established postnatally. We found dramatic neuron-specific increases in DNA methylation from P0 to P21. Gene ontology analyses indicated that cell-type specific P0 to P21 methylation changes are key regulators of hypothalamic development. Quantitative bisulfite pyrosequencing verified our methylation profiling results in 16 of 16 selected regions. Expression differences were associated with DNA methylation in several genes analyzed. Our data indicate that future studies of hypothalamic epigenetics in developmental programming of obesity will gain far greater sensitivity and insight by examining outcomes at the cell-type specific level. Moreover, our results provide new evidence that early postnatal life is a critical period for murine hypothalamic developmental epigenetics. Hypothalami were dissected from inbred male C57 mice at postnatal day 0 (P0) and P21. Non-neuronal and neuronal nuclei were separated via fluorescence-activated sorting based on staining for the neuron-specific nuclear surface marker NeuN; each sample for sorting was comprised of 2 age-matched hypothalami. Genome-scale DNA methylation profiling was performed by methylation specific amplification coupled with next generation sequencing (MSA-seq) as decribed below (5 independent samples per age).
Project description:Human epidemiologic and animal model data indicate that early environmental influences can persistently alter an individual’s risk of obesity. Environmental effects on hypothalamic developmental epigenetics provide a strong candidate mechanism to explain such ‘developmental programming’ of obesity. To advance our understanding of these processes, it is essential to determine to what extent the diversity of hypothalamic cell types is regulated by epigenetic differences, and when these are established. By performing genome-scale DNA methylation profiling in hypothalamic neurons and non-neuronal cells at postnatal day 0 (P0) and P21, we found that most of the DNA methylation differences distinguishing these two cell types are established postnatally. We found dramatic neuron-specific increases in DNA methylation from P0 to P21. Gene ontology analyses indicated that cell-type specific P0 to P21 methylation changes are key regulators of hypothalamic development. Quantitative bisulfite pyrosequencing verified our methylation profiling results in 16 of 16 selected regions. Expression differences were associated with DNA methylation in several genes analyzed. Our data indicate that future studies of hypothalamic epigenetics in developmental programming of obesity will gain far greater sensitivity and insight by examining outcomes at the cell-type specific level. Moreover, our results provide new evidence that early postnatal life is a critical period for murine hypothalamic developmental epigenetics.
Project description:PURPOSE: To provide a detailed gene expression profile of the normal postnatal mouse cornea. METHODS: Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) was performed on postnatal day (PN)9 and adult mouse (6 week) total corneas. The expression of selected genes was analyzed by in situ hybridization. RESULTS: A total of 64,272 PN9 and 62,206 adult tags were sequenced. Mouse corneal transcriptomes are composed of at least 19,544 and 18,509 unique mRNAs, respectively. One third of the unique tags were expressed at both stages, whereas a third was identified exclusively in PN9 or adult corneas. Three hundred thirty-four PN9 and 339 adult tags were enriched more than fivefold over other published nonocular libraries. Abundant transcripts were associated with metabolic functions, redox activities, and barrier integrity. Three members of the Ly-6/uPAR family whose functions are unknown in the cornea constitute more than 1% of the total mRNA. Aquaporin 5, epithelial membrane protein and glutathione-S-transferase (GST) omega-1, and GST alpha-4 mRNAs were preferentially expressed in distinct corneal epithelial layers, providing new markers for stratification. More than 200 tags were differentially expressed, of which 25 mediate transcription. CONCLUSIONS: In addition to providing a detailed profile of expressed genes in the PN9 and mature mouse cornea, the present SAGE data demonstrate dynamic changes in gene expression after eye opening and provide new probes for exploring corneal epithelial cell stratification, development, and function and for exploring the intricate relationship between programmed and environmentally induced gene expression in the cornea. Keywords: other
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.
Project description:PGCs undergo two distinct stages of demethylation before reaching a hypomethylated ground state at E13.5. Stage 1 occurs between E7.25- E9.5 in which PGCs experience a global loss of cytosine methylation. However, discreet loci escape this global loss of methylation and between E10.5-E13.5, stage 2 of demethylation takes place. In this stage these loci are targeted by Tet1 and Tet2 leading to the loss of the remaining methylation and resulting in the epigenetic ground state. Our data shows that Dnmt1 is responsible for maintaining the methylation of loci that escape stage 1 demethylation, and that it functions in a UHRF1 independent manner. Our data further demonstrates that when these loci lose methylation prior to stage 2 it results in early activation of the meiotic program, which leads to precocious differentiation of the germ line resulting in a decreased pool of PGCs in the embryo and subsequent infertility in adult mice.