Project description:Transient mitochondrial stress can promote beneficial physiological responses and longevity, termed "mitohormesis." To interrogate mitohormetic pathways in mammals, we generated mice in which mitochondrial superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD2) can be knocked-down in an inducible and reversible manner (iSOD2-KD). Depleting SOD2 only during embryonic development did not cause post-natal lethality, allowing us to probe adaptive responses to mitochondrial oxidant stress in adult mice. Liver from adapted mice had increased mitochondrial biogenesis and antioxidant gene expression and fewer reactive oxygen species. Gene expression analysis implicated non- canonical activation of the Nrf2 antioxidant and PPAR-PGC-1 mitochondrial signaling pathways in this response. Transient SOD2 knock-down in embryonic fibroblasts from iSOD2-KD mice also resulted in adaptive mitochondrial changes, enhanced antioxidant capacity, and resistance to a subsequent oxidant challenge. We propose that mitohormesis in response to mitochondrial oxidative stress in mice involves sustained basal activation of mitochondrial and antioxidant signaling pathways to establish a heightened antioxidant state. We used microarrays to determine differentially expressed genes in mouse liver after transient SOD2 knock-down during mouse embryogenesis.
Project description:We generated chimeric mice with livers that were predominantly repopulated with human hepatocytes. Hepatocytes were isolated from the chimeric mouse livers and their gene expressions were compared with hepatocytes isolated from normal human livers . Cluster and principal components analyses showed that gene expression profiles of hepatocytes from the chimeric mice and those from normal human livers were extremely closed. Additionally, we performed microarray experiments to examine gene expression in human tissues. This data was used for comparison with hepatocytes. A total of 22 tissues (bone marrow, cerebellum, colon, cortex, fetal brain, heart, kidney, liver, lung, pancreas, prostate, salivary gland, skeletal muscle, small intestine, spinal cord, spleen, stomach, testes, thymus, thyroid, trachea and uterus) were examined.