Project description:To investigate the altered gene expression levels in mouse fibrotic liver tissues, C57BL6/J mice were intraperitoneally injected with CCl4 or vehicle twice every week. After 8 weeks, livers were harvested and RNA was extracted by Trizol. The gene expression levels were analyzed and compared between CCl4 treated group and vehicle treated (control) group.
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. To induce chronic liver fibrosis, seven-week-old mice received 0.6 ml/kg body weight of carbon-tetrachloride (CCl4) dissolved in corn-oil by intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection, twice a week for 10 weeks (n=3). As a control, same number of mice was injected with equal volume of corn-oil for 10 weeks.
Project description:Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a prevalent human cancer with rising incidence worldwide. Human HCC is frequently associated with chronic liver inflammation and cirrhosis, pathophysiological processes that are a consequence of chronic viral infection, disturbances in metabolism, or exposure to chemical toxicants. To better characterize the pathogenesis of HCC, we used a human disease-relevant mouse model of fibrosis-associated hepatocarcinogenesis. In this model, marked liver tumor response caused by a pro-mutagenic chemical N-nitrosodiethylamine in presence of liver fibrosis was associated with epigenetic events indicative of genomic instability. Therefore, we hypothesized that DNA copy number alterations (CNAs), a feature of genomic instability and a common characteristic of cancer, are concordant between human HCC and mouse models of fibrosis-associated hepatocarcinogenesis. We evaluated DNA CNAs and changes in gene expression in the mouse liver (normal, tumor and non-tumor cirrhotic tissues). In addition, we compared our findings to those in human HCC (tumor and non-tumor cirrhotic/fibrotic tissues). We observed that while fibrotic liver tissue is largely devoid of DNA CNAs, highly frequently occurring DNA CNAs are found in mouse tumors, which is indicative of a profound increase in chromosomal instability in HCC. When compared to CNAs in human HCC, we found that 33% of genes in these segments are similarly affected in the mouse tumors. Our results suggest that CNAs most commonly arise in neoplastic tissue rather than in fibrotic liver, and demonstrate the utility of this mouse model in replicating the molecular features of human HCC. Genomic DNA was extracted from frozen liver samples from vehicle-control and DEN+CCl4-treated mice using a DNEasy kit (Qiagen, Valencia, CA). Eighteen mouse tumor samples were included in the study, as well as 18 matched non-tumor samples taken from fibrotic, non-tumorous, surrounding liver tissue from the same mice. Liver DNA from 6 vehicle control-mice was pooled and used as the reference genome in the aCGH experiments. Copy number alterations were identified using the normalized data.
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.
Project description:We used Adamts12−/− and wild-type mice generated and genotyped by El Hour et al. 2010 (PMID: 20208563). eight-week-old females were treated by intraperitoneal injections of CCl4 (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA) diluted at 3% v/v in olive oil. A single dose of CCl4 0.3 ml/kg of mouse body weight was administered (acute treatment) and mice were sacrificed after 4h, 12h, 24h or 7 days. Control mice were treated with the vehicle (olive oil). Liver samples were collected, weighed and treated as previously described (Kesteloot et al. 2007, PMID: 17929299). We performed gene expression profiling analysis using data obtained from liver samples of wild-type or Adamts12_KO mice at different time points after CCl4 (or vehicle) injection.
Project description:To understand the fibrotic response in the CCl4 induced liver fibrosis model, we performed RNA-seq of liver samples from mice treated with oil or CCl4.
Project description:Exploratory RNA sequencing of pro-inflammatory (Ly6C high) and resolutive (Ly6C low) macrophages in mouse liver during fibrosis regression. Mice were treated with a MAIT antagonist or its control vehicle for 2 days after the last CCl4 injection. Ly6C high and Ly6C low macrophages were sorted by ARIA III.
Project description:Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in numerous biological functions and pathological processes. In this study, we have identified a novel lncRNA ENSMUST00000147617, named Highly Expressed in Liver Fibrosis (lnc-HELF), which is remarkably up-regulated in mouse and human fibrotic livers. To identify the roles of lnc-HELF in liver fibrosis, we performed RNA-seq to analyze the effect of lnc-HELF deficient on CCl4-induced liver fibrosis. The mice were divided in three groups: mice treated with CCl4 in combination with injection of AAV8-NC (NC_CCl4, n=3), mice treated with CCl4 in combination with injection of AAV8-shRNA-lncHELF1# (sh1_CCl4, n=3) and mice treated with CCl4 in combination with injection of AAV8-shRNA-lncHELF2# (sh2_CCl4, n=3).