Project description:Molecular programs that mediate normal cell differentiation are required for oncogenesis and tumor cell survival in certain types of cancers. How cell lineage restricted genes specifically influence metastatic progression is poorly defined. In lung cancers, we uncovered an alveolar cell-selective transcriptional program that preferentially correlates with lung adenocarcinoma metastasis. This program is required for epithelial specification in the distal airways and is partially regulated by the lineage transcription factors GATA6 and HOPX. These factors cooperatively restrain the metastatic competence of adenocarcinoma cells, without affecting their survival, through the modulation of alveologenic and invasogenic target genes. Thus, GATA6 and HOPX are critical nodes in a lineage-selective pathway that directly links alveolar cell fate with metastasis suppresion in the lung adenocarcinoma subtype. mRNA profiles of human lung Adenocarcinoma PC9 cell lines infected with lentivirus harboring shRNA of control (Arab1) and shRNA of both GATA6 and HOPX were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Illumina HiSeq2000.
Project description:SILAC based protein correlation profiling using size exclusion of protein complexes derived from Mus musculus tissues (Heart, Liver, Lung, Kidney, Skeletal Muscle, Thymus)
Project description:SILAC based protein correlation profiling using size exclusion of protein complexes derived from seven Mus musculus tissues (Heart, Brain, Liver, Lung, Kidney, Skeletal Muscle, Thymus)
Project description:Previously, we identifed alveolar Type II cells as cell-of-origin for Kras induced lung adenocarcinoma. In the current study, we examined the phenotype of Type II cells after Kras activation and found evidence for proliferation of cells that co-express Type I and Type II markers. Using RNAseq, we are trying to charcterize these different alveolar epithelial cells (Type I, Type II and double positive (Type I/II+)) upon KrasG12D activation during lung adenocarcinoma.
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:In mammals, retinal damage is followed by Müller glia cell activation and proliferation. While retinal gliosis persists in adult mammals after an insult or disease, some vertebrates, including zebrafish, have the capacity to regenerate. We believe we are the first group to show that gliosis is a fibrotic-like process in mammals’ eyes caused by differential activation of canonical and non-canonical TGFβ signaling pathways.