Project description:Transactive response DNA-binding protein of 43 kDa (TDP-43), a heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) with diverse activities, is a common denominator in several neurodegenerative disorders including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Orthologs of TDP-43 exist from mammals to invertebrates, but their functions in lower organisms remain poorly understood. Here we systematically studied mutant Caenorhabditis elegans lacking the nematode TDP-43 ortholog, TDP-1. To understand the global gene expression regulation induced by the loss of tdp-1, the C. elegans transcriptomes were compared between the N2 WT animals and the tdp-1(ok803lf) mutant. Transcriptional profiling demonstrated that the loss of TDP-1 altered expression of genes functioning in RNA processing and protein folding. These results suggest that the C. elegans TDP-1 as an RNA-processing protein may have a role in the regulation of protein homeostasis and aging. Global gene expression profiling was performed to compare the transcriptome of wild-type (N2) Caenorabditis elegans and that of tdp-1(ok803) loss-of-function mutant. We analyzed mixed stages of Caenorabditis elegans, wild-type N2 versus tdp-1(ok803), using the Affymetrix C. elegans genome array. Three biological replicates were performed.
Project description:Transactive response DNA-binding protein of 43 kDa (TDP-43), a heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) with diverse activities, is a common denominator in several neurodegenerative disorders including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Orthologs of TDP-43 exist from mammals to invertebrates, but their functions in lower organisms remain poorly understood. Here we systematically studied mutant Caenorhabditis elegans lacking the nematode TDP-43 ortholog, TDP-1. To understand the global gene expression regulation induced by the loss of tdp-1, the C. elegans transcriptomes were compared between the N2 WT animals and the tdp-1(ok803lf) mutant. Transcriptional profiling demonstrated that the loss of TDP-1 altered expression of genes functioning in RNA processing and protein folding. These results suggest that the C. elegans TDP-1 as an RNA-processing protein may have a role in the regulation of protein homeostasis and aging. Global gene expression profiling was performed to compare the transcriptome of wild-type (N2) Caenorabditis elegans and that of tdp-1(ok803) loss-of-function mutant.
Project description:C. elegans mutants deleted for TDP-1, an ortholog of the neurodegeneration-associated RNA binding protein TDP-43, display only mild phenotypes. Nevertheless, transcriptome sequencing revealed that many RNAs were altered in accumulation and/or processing in the mutant. Analysis of these transcriptional abnormalities demonstrates that a primary function of TDP-1 is to limit formation or stability of double-stranded RNA. Specifically, we found that deletion of tdp-1: 1) preferentially alters the accumulation of RNAs with inherent double stranded structure (dsRNA); 2) increases the accumulation of nuclear dsRNA foci, 3) enhances the frequency of adenosine-to-inosine RNA editing, and 4) dramatically increases the amount of transcripts immunoprecipitable with a dsRNA-specific antibody, including intronic sequences, RNAs with antisense overlap to another transcript, and transposons. We also show that TDP-43 knockdown in human cells results in accumulation of dsRNA , indicating that suppression of dsRNA is a conserved function of TDP-43 in mammals. Altered accumulation of structured RNA may account for some of the previously described molecular phenotypes (e.g., altered splicing) resulting from reduction of TDP-43 function. 24 samples: 3 tdp-1 polyA samples with 3 N2 controls, 3 tdp1J2 immunoprecipitated samples and tdp1 total RNA input with 3 N2 J2 immunoprecipitated controls (with N2 input), 3 tdp1 total RNA samples for RNA editing analysis with 3 N2 total RNA controls and an adr-2 mutant control, 2 tdp1 CHIPseq samples with RNAsecontrol.
Project description:Background: The force generating mechanism of muscle is evolutionarily ancient; the fundamental structural and functional components of the sarcomere are common to motile animals throughout phylogeny. Recent evidence suggests that the transcription factors that regulate muscle development are also conserved. Thus, a comprehensive description of muscle gene expression in a simple model organism should define a basic muscle transcriptome that is also expressed in animals with more complex body plans. To this end, we have applied Micro-Array Profiling of Caenorhabditis elegans Cells (MAPCeL) to muscle cell populations extracted from developing Caenorhabditis elegans embryos. Results: Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) was used to isolate myo-3::GFP-positive muscle cells, and their cultured derivatives, from dissociated early Caenorhabditis elegans embryos. Microarray analysis identified 6,693 expressed genes, 1,305 of which are enriched in the myo-3::GFP positive cell population relative to the average embryonic cell. The muscle-enriched gene set was validated by comparisons to known muscle markers, independently derived expression data, and GFP reporters in transgenic strains. These results confirm the utility of MAPCeL for cell type-specific expression profiling and reveal that 60% of these transcripts have human homologs. Conclusions: This study provides a comprehensive description of gene expression in developing Caenorhabditis elegans embryonic muscle cells. The finding that over half of these muscle-enriched transcripts encode proteins with human homologs suggests that mutant analysis of these genes in Caenorhabditis elegans could reveal evolutionarily conserved models of muscle gene function with ready application to human muscle pathologies. Keywords: embryonic muscle, myo-3::GFP