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: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.
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.