Project description:The potato is susceptible to water stress at all stages of development. We examined four clones of tetraploid potato, Cardinal, Desirée, Clone 37 FB and Mije, from the germplasm bank of the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA) in Chile. Water stress was applied by suspending irrigation at the beginning of tuberization. Stomatal conductance, tuber and plant fresh and dry weight was used to categorize water stress tolerance. Cardinal had high susceptibility to water stress. Desirée was less suscepetible than Cardinal and had some characteristics of tolerance. Mije had moderate and Clon 37 FB high tolerance. Differential gene expression in leaves from plants with and without water stress were examined using transcriptome sequencing. Water stress susceptible Cardinal had the fewest differentially expressed genes at 101, compared to Desirée at 1867, Clon 37 FB at 1179 and Mije at 1010. Water stress tolerance was associated with up-regulation of expression of transcription factor genes and genes involved in osmolyte and polyamine biosynthesis. Increased expression of genes encoding late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) and dehydrin proteins along with decreased expression of genes involved in nitrate assimilation and amino acid metabolism were found for clones showing water stress tolerance. The results also show that water deficit was associated with reduced biotic stress responses. Additionally, heat shock protein genes were differentially expressed in all clones except for highly susceptible Cardinal. Together the gene expression study demonstrates variation in the molecular pathways and biological processes in response to water stress contributing to tolerance and susceptibility.
Project description:Stem cells are defined by two cardinal properties: limitless self-renewal and multipotency. We have serendipitously found that non-haematopoietic DNGR-1 lineage traced cells residing in the ependymal cell layer of the central nervous system display the two cardinal properties of stem cells, both in vitro and in vivo. However, whether these properties were a feature of all DNGR-1-traced cells or were confined to a particular subset of these is unclear. To address the potential heterogeneity of DNGR-1-traced ependymal cells and caractherise their putative stem cell compartment we conducted single-cell RNA sequencing of DNGR-1-traced cells isolated from uninjured spinal cords.
Project description:The cardinal clinical features of Parkinson's disease result from selective loss of midbrain dopaminergic neurons. The goal of this experiment is to determine the gene expression profiles of these neurons by studying untreated rat substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) and ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopaminergic neurons using laser capture microscopy to obtain region-specific neuronal mRNA.