Project description:Weanling rats fed a choline-deficient diet develop acute renal failure (ARF) after 6-7 days of receiving the experimental diet. Its pathogenesis is controversial. Menhaden oil has a protective effect in this experimental model. The aim of this study is to describe both the genetic profile and its changes when vegetable oils are replaced by menhaden oil. Wistar, weanling rats from the Animal Facility of the Centre of Experimental and Applied Pathology were divided into 4 groups and fed with the following diets: 1- Choline-deficient diet with vegetable oils as lipids (corn and hydrogenated oils); 2- Choline-supplemented diet with vegetable oils as lipids; 3- Choline-deficient diet with menhaden oil as lipid; and 4- Choline supplemented diet with menhaden oil as lipid. Animals were sacrificed after 6 days of receiving the experimental diets. The right kidney was cryopreserved. In this assay biological duplicated samples were used. In order to evaluate changes in gene expression WT Expression Kit (Ambion, USA) over the platform GeneChip® Gene 1.0 ST Rat Genome Array (Affymetrix Inc, USA) was used. Fluorescent distribution in the array was obtained using the language R (www-r-project.org), in house own algorithms and other formsbioconductor tools http://www.bioconductor.org/. We analyzed the differential gene expression, using as cut value p<0.01 with fdr control & |log FC|>1.5, in all groups. Rats fed with diets 2, 3 and 4 have similar genetic profiles. However, the comparison between rats fed with diets 2 and 4 showed 35 genes with diferential expression. As these rats did not have renal necrosis, we can hypothesize that the differential expression is due to the menhaden oil of the diet. In short, the massive analysis of genetic expression allowed to confirm that menhaden oil has a protective effect in this experimental model and to identify 35 genes that could be responsible of that protection. Twenty eight animals were sacrificed after 6 days of receiving the experimental diets. The right kidney was cryopreserved for microarray analysis. Cryopreserved kidney was pulverized under liquid-nitrogen conditions. Total RNA was purified from 30 mg of frozen rat kidney tissue. Each sample represents a pool of 3 animals (except CD+AM SN with 2 animals/pool), to reduce biological variation. In this assay biological duplicated samples were used.
Project description:Ozone-Induced Vascular Contractility and Pulmonary Injury are Differentially Impacted by Diets Enriched with Coconut Oil, Fish Oil, and Olive Oil
Project description:Few studies have assessed the patterns of parasite populations of rodents over a longitudinal gradient in Chile. In this work, the gastrointestinal helminthic fauna of invasive rodents in Chile was examined to assess the association between their presence/absence and abundance with latitude, host sex, and host body condition, and to assess the coexistence and correlation of the abundance between parasite species. Rodents were obtained from 20 localities between 33 and 43°S. Helminths were extracted from the gastrointestinal tract and identified morphologically. Overall, 13 helminth taxa were obtained. The most frequently identified parasite species was Heterakis spumosa, and the most abundant was Syphacia muris, while Physaloptera sp. was the most widely distributed. No locality presented with a coexistence that was different from that expected by chance, while the abundance of five helminthic species correlated with the abundance of another in at least one locality, most likely due to co-infection rather than interaction. Host sex was associated with parasite presence or abundance, and female sex-biased parasitism was notably observed in all cases. Body condition and latitude presented either a positive or negative association with the presence or abundance of parasites depending on the species. It is notable that the likely native Physaloptera sp. is widely distributed among invasive rodents. Further, gravid females were found, suggesting spillback of this species to the native fauna. The low frequency and abundance of highly zoonotic hymenolepid species suggest that rodents are of low concern regarding gastrointestinal zoonotic helminths.
Project description:The Norway rat has important impacts on our life. They are amongst the most used research subjects, resulting in ground-breaking advances. At the same time, wild rats live in close association with us, leading to various adverse interactions. In face of this relevance, it is surprising how little is known about their natural behaviour. While recent laboratory studies revealed their complex social skills, little is known about their social behaviour in the wild. An integration of these different scientific approaches is crucial to understand their social life, which will enable us to design more valid research paradigms, develop more effective management strategies, and to provide better welfare standards. Hence, I first summarise the literature on their natural social behaviour. Second, I provide an overview of recent developments concerning their social cognition. Third, I illustrate why an integration of these areas would be beneficial to optimise our interactions with them.
Project description:BackgroundMurine kobuviruses (MuKV) are newly recognized picornaviruses first detected in murine rodents in the USA in 2011. Little information on MuKV epidemiology in murine rodents is available. Therefore, we conducted a survey of the prevalence and genomic characteristics of rat kobuvirus in Guangdong, China.ResultsFecal samples from 223 rats (Rattus norvegicus) were collected from Guangdong and kobuviruses were detected in 12.6% (28) of samples. Phylogenetic analysis based on partial 3D and complete VP1 sequence regions showed that rat kobuvirus obtained in this study were genetically closely related to those of rat/mouse kobuvirus reported in other geographical areas. Two near full-length rat kobuvirus genomes (MM33, GZ85) were acquired and phylogenetic analysis of these revealed that they shared very high nucleotide/amino acids identity with one another (95.4%/99.4%) and a sewage-derived sequence (86.9%/93.5% and 87.5%/93.7%, respectively). Comparison with original Aichivirus A strains, such human kobuvirus, revealed amino acid identity values of approximately 80%.ConclusionOur findings indicate that rat kobuvirus have distinctive genetic characteristics from other Aichivirus A viruses. Additionally, rat kobuvirus may spread via sewage.
Project description:Inflammation is a key component of pathological angiogenesis. Here we induce cornea neovascularisation using sutures placed into the cornea, and sutures are removed to induce a regression phase. We used whole transcriptome microarray to monitor gene expression profies of several genes