Project description:The morphology and the behavior of skin and oral tissue keratinocytes are different. One significant dissimilarity between the two sites is the response to injury. Oral and skin keratinocytes have intrinsic differences in the response to injury and such differences are reflected in gene expression profiles. We used microarrays to investigate differences in global gene expression patterns between baseline skin and oral epithelium sheets without their underlying connective tissue.
Project description:The morphology and the behavior of skin and oral tissue keratinocytes are different. One significant dissimilarity between the two sites is the response to injury. Oral and skin keratinocytes have intrinsic differences in the response to injury and such differences are reflected in gene expression profiles. We used microarrays to investigate differences in global gene expression patterns between baseline skin and oral epithelium sheets without their underlying connective tissue. Paired skin and oral epithelium was separated from the dermis for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. Skin epidermal tissues were obtained from the tail of mice and oral epidermal tissues were obtained from the hard palate. Enzymatically isolated epithelium was used for analysis.
Project description:The epidermis of skin and oral mucosa is constantly exposed to various environmental stimuli, including temperature changes. In particularly extreme conditions, such as excess heat or cold, significant injury may occur. Oral and skin keratinocytes exhibit tissue-specific differences in wound healing outcomes and the transcriptomic response to injury. This study investigated if skin and oral keratinocytes also have differential responses to heat and cold-induced injury. Oral keratinocytes (TIGK) were found to exhibit an enhanced viability following heat-induced injury compared to skin keratinocytes (HaCaT). However, there were no discernible differences between skin and oral keratinocyte viability following cold-induced injury. To examine the transcriptomic differences between skin and oral keratinocytes in response to temperature-induced injury, we generated an mRNA-sequencing gene expression dataset. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) including heat shock proteins (HSPs) were identified between HaCaT and TIGK at baseline (37°C) and after heat (60°C) or cold-induced (-25°C) injury. Our comparative analyses suggest that skin and oral keratinocytes exhibit transcriptomic differences at baseline and in their responses to heat or cold exposure. The enhanced heat tolerance of TIGK relative to HaCaT may be due to an advantageous expression of a subset of HSPs at baseline in TIGK. Our work also provides a source of skin and oral keratinocyte gene expression data following heat and cold-induced injury that can be used for future analyses.
Project description:While skin and oral mucosa share many morphological similarities, oral mucosal wounds heal more rapidly than skin wounds. Epithelial cells from oral mucosa exhibit increased migratory and proliferative capacities when compared to cells from skin, suggesting that the improved repair of mucosa may involve intrinsic differences in epithelial cells. This is an exploratory experiment to define the differential microRNA expression of baseline unwounded skin and oral mucosa epithelium.
Project description:Compared to skin wounds, oral mucosal wounds heal more rapidly with less inflammation, faster re-epithelialization, and minimal scarring. One cell type that may be a differentiating factor is keratinocytes. Using immortalized skin and oral keratinocytes, HaCaT and TIGK, respectively, we found that oral keratinocytes have an enhanced migratory and proliferative capacity. To examine the transcriptomic differences that underlie the improved healing abilities of oral keratinocytes, we generated an RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) gene expression dataset utilizing HaCaT and TIGK. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified between HaCaT and TIGK at baseline and throughout the injury response. Gene Ontology (GO) or Reactome enrichment analysis was performed to understand the biological significance of DEGs. Processes related to inflammation and migration were uniquely enriched in TIGK. Additionally, TIGK retained its enhanced migratory capacity when grown on various basement membrane (BM) and extracellular matrix (ECM) substrates. This may be due to the differential expression of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and integrins between HaCaT and TIGK. We also identified genes differentially over or under-expressed in HaCaT and TIGK following injury when compared to each respective cell type’s unwounded gene expression levels. Lastly, we showed that the post-injury secretome of TIGK promotes keratinocyte migration. Our comparative analyses suggest specific transcriptomic differences between oral and skin keratinocytes at unwounded baseline and in response to injury may underlie the distinct wound healing phenotypes seen in these two tissues. This work also provides a source of HaCaT and TIGK gene expression data over healing that can be used for future analyses.
Project description:Sex differences in liver gene expression are dictated by sex-differences in circulating growth hormone (GH) profiles. Presently, the pituitary hormone dependence of mouse liver gene expression was investigated on a global scale to discover sex-specific early GH response genes that might contribute to sex-specific regulation of downstream GH targets and to ascertain whether intrinsic sex-differences characterize hepatic responses to plasma GH stimulation. RNA expression analysis using 41,000-feature microarrays revealed two distinct classes of sex-specific mouse liver genes: genes subject to positive regulation (class-I) and genes subject to negative regulation by pituitary hormones (class-II). Genes activated or repressed in hypophysectomized (Hypox) mouse liver within 30-90min of GH pulse treatment at a physiological dose were identified as direct targets of GH action (early response genes). Intrinsic sex-differences in the GH responsiveness of a subset of these early response genes were observed. Notably, 45 male-specific genes, including five encoding transcriptional regulators that may mediate downstream sex-specific transcriptional responses, were rapidly induced by GH (within 30min) in Hypox male but not Hypox female mouse liver. The early GH response genes were enriched in 29 male-specific targets of the transcription factor Mef2, whose activation in hepatic stellate cells is associated with liver fibrosis leading to hepatocellular carcinoma, a male-predominant disease. Thus, the rapid activation by GH pulses of certain sex-specific genes is modulated by intrinsic sex-specific factors, which may be associated with prior hormone exposure (epigenetic mechanisms) or genetic factors that are pituitary-independent, and could contribute to sex-differences in predisposition to liver cancer or other hepatic pathophysiologies.
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:To investigate the differences in microRNA expression profiles between fibrotic and normal livers, we performed microRNA microarrays for total RNA extracts isolated from mouse livers treated with carbontetrachloride (CCl4) or corn-oil for 10 weeks (n=3/group). MicroRNAs were considered to have significant differences in expression level when the expression difference showed more than two-fold change between the experimental and control groups at p<0.05. We found that 12 miRNAs were differentially expressed in CCl4-induced fibrotic liver.