Project description:Sex specificity of the C. elegans metabolome
Russell N. Burkhardt1, Alexander B. Artyukhin1,3, Erin Z. Aprison2, Brian J. Curtis1, Bennett W. Fox1, Andreas H. Ludewig1, Amaresh Chaturbedi4, Oishika Panda1, Chester J. J. Wrobel1, Siu S. Lee4, Ilya Ruvinsky2, and Frank C. Schroeder1,
1Boyce Thompson Institute and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, United States
2Department of Molecular Biosciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, United States
3Current address: Chemistry Department, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, Syracuse, New York 13210, United States
4Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, United States
Correspondence to fs31@cornell.edu
Project description:p130Cas is a polyvalent adapter protein essential for cardiovascular development, and with a key role in cell movement. In order to identify the pathways by which p130Cas exerts its biological functions in endothelial cells we mapped the p130Cas interactome and its dynamic changes in response to VEGF using high-resolution mass spectrometry and reconstruction of protein interaction (PPI) networks with the aid of multiple PPI databases. The work presented here was based on a collaboration between University College London and University College Dublin. Dr Ian Evans (first author) and Prof. Ian Zachary (lab head), can be contacted at: Centre for Cardiovascular Biology and Medicine, Division of Medicine The Rayne Building, University College London, London WC1E 6JJ, United Kingdom. Contact details for University College Dublin collaborators can be found below.
Project description:RNA was extracted from mature ovules of two samples (i.e., WT and myb98) and sequenced with an Illumina Hi-seq 2000 sequencer in the Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC) of Peking University followed by the analysis on the High Performance Computing Platform of the Center for Life Science.
Project description:In order to verify the CSC-like properties in 3D spheres of 293T cells as compared to monolayer, MCF-7 breast cancer cells under monolayer and sphere culture conditions were used as a control. Corresponding author: Chul Geun Kim, Department of Life Science, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Korea (e-mail, cgkim@hanyang.ac.kr).
Project description:In peach orchards, birds severely damage flowers during blossom season, decreasing the fruit yield potential. However, the wild peach species Prunus mira shows intraspecific variations of bird damage, indicating that some of the wild trees have developed strategies to avert bird foraging. Motivated by this observation, we formulated the present study to identify the potential flower metabolites mediating the bird's selective feeding behavior in P. mira flowers. The birds' preferred (FG) and avoided (BFT) flowers were collected from wild P. mira trees at three different locations, and their metabolite contents were detected, quantified, and compared. The widely-targeted metabolomics approach was employed to detect a diverse set of 603 compounds, predominantly, organic acids, amino acid derivatives, nucleotide and its derivatives, and flavones. By quantitatively comparing the metabolite contents between FG and BFT, three candidate metabolites, including Eriodictiol 6-C-hexoside 8-C-hexoside-O-hexoside, Luteolin O-hexosyl-O-hexosyl-O-hexoside, and Salvianolic acid A, were differentially accumulated and showed the same pattern across the three sampling locations. Distinctly, Salvianolic acid A was abundantly accumulated in FG but absent in BFT, implying that it may be the potential metabolite attracting birds in some P. mira flowers. Overall, this study sheds light on the diversity of the floral metabolome in P. mira and suggests that the bird's selective feeding behavior may be mediated by variations in floral metabolite contents.