Project description:We investigated gene expression levels in Heliconius erato butterflies with divergent wing patterns across a 656KB genomic interval linked to the red color pattern wing polymorphism. This included comparison of expression between two H. erato color pattern populations (H. e. petiverana and a H.e. etylus x H. himera hybrid) across three sections of the forewing that differed in pigmentation (the basal, mid, and distal wing sections) and five different stages of pupal development (Day 1, 3, 5 pupae and ommochrome and melanin pigmentation stages). These results allowed us to determine whether certain genes in this interval were differentially expressed between the wing pattern elements, and, therefore, potentially responsible for adaptive color pattern variation in these butterflies. Forewings from a total of 29 individuals, covering three biological replicates of five developmental time points for each of the two H. erato distinct phenotypes were dissected, with the only exception being that there were only two replicates of the day 1 hybrid phenotype. Individuals were reared at 25˚C and dissected at the following stages: a) day 1 = 12 hr after pupation; b) day 3 = 60 hr after pupation; c) day 5 = 108 hr after pupation; d) early ommochrome = ~ 156 hr after pupation when red scales in forewing partially mature, showing a pale orange color; and e) early melanin = ~ 180 hr after pupation melanic scales begin to turn black and are present primarily at the center of the wing. Using wing veins as landmarks, each forewing was cut into three sections corresponding to the color pattern boundaries: basal (F1), middle (F2), and apical (F3). A eight custom-designed Roche NimbleGen 12x135K format microarrays with probes spanning a 656,307bp genomic region (Roche NimbleGen Inc., Madison, Wisconsin, United States) were used to hybridize double stranded cDNA from 87 tissue samples. Repetitive sequence elements found more than five times across all currently available H. erato genomic sequences, including the probed region as well as additional genomic BAC sequences, were masked from the tiling region. The remaining unmasked non-repetitive genomic sequences were tiled using 60 bp probes staggered every 13 bp on average, with slight modifications to ensure probe quality, for a total of 48,547 probes. Microarry design and printing was performed by Roche NimbleGen. cDNA labeling, hybridization, and array scanning was performed by the City of Hope Microarray Facility (Duarte, California, United States). In addition to the probes from the red color pattern intervals, the arrays also include 40,763 probes across two other genomic intervals not addressed in this study, 45,046 probes representing 12450 transcripts from a recent transcriptome assembly at 1-6X coverage, and 3248 random probes. Results from the transcriptome and other color pattern intervals will be published separately, however, we analyzed all probes together for array normalization and quality control.
Project description:Skin cancer is the most prevalent cancer in humans, especially in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Australia and New Zealand are the two countries with the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, about four times higher than the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. According to statistics, one American dies of skin cancer every hour. Studies have shown that ultraviolet radiation is the main cause of skin cancer, and ultraviolet rays are mainly divided into UVA, UVB and UVC according to wavelength, UVA and UVB can cause DNA damage, and UVB is the main factor that induces skin cancer. UVB is primarily a direct damage to cellular DNA and generally includes the formation of pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) and 6-4 photoproducts (6-4PPs). UVB can also cause mutations in tumor suppressor genes such as p53, ptch, and ras. These bases the mutation will promote the activation of related signaling pathways, thereby inducing the production of tumors.In this study, we will use gene chip technology to screen out UVB-sensitive genes, and then select the genes of the UVB-sensitive GPCR family from these genes, and further use PCR for verification, so as to identify UVB-sensitive GPCRs, which will provide a basis for further experimental research.
Project description:Resveratrol against Aeromonas hydrophila through proteomics analysis on an Q Exactive HF mass spectrometer (Thermo Scientific, United States) .
Project description:To characterize the etiology of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) in the United States, we performed deep proteogenomic profiling of 87 tumors integrating whole genome sequencing, transcriptome sequencing, proteomics and phosphoproteomics by mass spectrometry and reverse phase protein arrays. Somatic genome signature analysis revealed three subtypes including a structurally altered subtype enriched with former smokers, genomic inversions and deletions and TP53 alteration, a transition-high subtype enriched with never-smokers, and a transversion-high enriched with current smokers. We discovered that within-tumor correlations of RNA expression and protein expression were associated with tumor purity, grade, immune cell heterogeneity, and expression subtype. We detected and independently validated RNA and protein expression signatures predicting patient survival. A greater number of proteins than RNA transcripts had association with patient survival. Integrative analysis characterized three expression subtypes with divergent mutations, proteomic regulatory networks and therapeutic vulnerabilities. This proteogenomic characterization provides a new foundation for molecularly-informed medicine in LUAD.
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:We characterized sperm from the seminal vesicles of male monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus), in triplicate, identifying 548 high confidence proteins. As with all but the most basal lepidopteran species male monarch butterflies are sperm heteromorphic, producing fertilization competent and anucleate fertilization incompetent sperm morphs. Comparing this data to the sperm proteomes of the Carolina sphinx moth (Manduca sexta) and the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) demonstrated high levels of functional coherence across proteomes, and conservation at the level of protein abundance and post-translational modification within Lepidoptera. Comparative genomic analyses revealed a significant reduction in orthology among Monarch sperm genes relative to the remainder of the genome in non-Lepidopteran insects. A substantial number of sperm proteins were found to be specific to Lepidoptera, lacking detectable homology outside this taxa. These findings are consistent with a burst of genetic novelty in the sperm proteome concurrent with the origin of heteromorphic spermatogenesis early in Lepidoptera evolution.