Project description:Transcriptional profiles in the HdhQ150 mouse model of HD and wild-type litter mates at 6, 12 and 18 months Transcriptional profiles in the HdhQ150 mouse model of HD and wild-type litter mates at 6, 12 and 18 months
Project description:The objective of this study was to test how restoration of mitochondrial respiration using AOX affects the development of cardiac ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injuries in C57BL/ 6J mice. AOX transgenic mice have Ciona intestinalis AOX coding sequence knocked into the Rosa26 locus with AOX expression controlled by a CAG promoter as described elsewhere (Szibor et al. (2017) Dis Model Mech 10: 163–171). Consequences of 45 min of cardiac ischemia were studied 3 and 9 weeks after reperfusion in both wild-type and AOX litter mates.
Project description:The aim of the study was to investigate whether the trefoil peptide genes, in concerted action with a miRNA regulatory network, were contributing to nutritional maintrenance. Using a Tff2 knock-out mouse model, 48 specific miRNAs were noted to be significantly deregulated when compared to the wild type strain.
Project description:The aim of the study was to investigate whether the trefoil peptide genes, in concerted action with a miRNA regulatory network, were contributing to nutritional maintrenance. Using a Tff3 knock-out mouse model, 21 specific miRNAs were noted to be significantly deregulated when compared to the wild type strain.
Project description:Endogenous activation of Myocyte enhancer factor 2 D (Mef2d) in the postnatal mouse heart by cardiomyocyte-specific CRISPRactivation (Myh6-dCas9VPR) The aim of this study was to compare endogenous gene activation of the pro-hypertrophic factor Myocyte enhancer factor 2 D (Mef2d) in the postnatal mammalian heart and experimental control groups including wild-type litter mates injected with saline, wild-type litter mates injected with AAV9 TRISPR Mef2d and transgenic litter mates injected with saline. Mice were injected with saline/AAV9 TRISPR Mef2d at P4 and sacrificed 8 weeks later. RNA was isolated by TRIzol/Chloroform and isopropanol precipitation. Ventricular tissue mRNA profiles were obtained using deep sequencing, in triplicates, using Illumina HiSeq4000. The sequence reads that passed quality filters were analyzed at the transcript isoform level with TopHat followed by DESeq2. qPCR validation was performed using SYBR Green assays. We present in this study a mouse model for cardiomyocyte-specific endogenous gene activation in the postnatal mammalian heart by CRISPR/dCas9VPR. As a proof of concept, we activated the pro-hypertrophic factor Myocyte enhancer factor 2 D (Mef2d) leading to functional decline, increased marker expression of heart failure as well as cardiomyocyte hypertrophy over a time course of 8 weeks. We furthermore observed no phenotypic consequence of constitutive dCas9VPR transgene expression in the postnatal heart. We therefore conclude, that the Myh6-dCas9VPR mouse model is a suitable tool for endogenous gene activation studies in the postnatal heart.
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.