beta-catenin is an essential mediator of canonical Wnt signaling and a central component of the cadherin-catenin epithelial adhesion complex. Dysregulation of beta-catenin expression has been described in pancreatic neoplasia. Newly published studies have suggested that beta-catenin is critical for normal pancreatic development although these reports reached somewhat different conclusions. In addition, the molecular mechanisms by which loss of beta-catenin affects pancreas development are not well understood. The goals of this study then were; 1] to further investigate the role of beta-catenin in pancreatic development using a conditional knockout approach and 2] to identify possible mechanisms by which loss of beta-catenin disrupts pancreatic development. A Pdx1-cre mouse line was used to delete a floxed beta-catenin allele specifically in the developing pancreas, and embryonic pancreata were studied by immunohistochemistry and microarray analysis.
Wnt/beta-catenin signaling is required for development of the exocrine pancreas.
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View SamplesTumors cause the induction or repression of many genes associated with inflammation. To investigate the up and down regulation of genes associated with immune stimulation or immune tolerance RNA was isolated from dendritic cells from normal or tumor bearing prostate for microarray analysis.
FOXO3 programs tumor-associated DCs to become tolerogenic in human and murine prostate cancer.
Sex, Specimen part
View SamplesTumors cause the induction or repression of many genes associated with inflammation. To investigate the up and down regulation of genes associated with immune stimulation or immune tolerance RNA was isolated from dendritic cells from normal or tumor bearing prostate for microarray analysis.
FOXO3 programs tumor-associated DCs to become tolerogenic in human and murine prostate cancer.
Sex, Specimen part
View SamplesViruses lack the basic machinery needed to replicate and therefore must hijack host metabolism to propagate. Virus-induced metabolic alterations have yet to be systematically studied in the context of the host transcriptional regulation, offering insight into host-pathogen metabolic interplay. In this work we identified Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)-responsive regulators by coupling system-wide metabolic flux analysis with targeted perturbation of nuclear receptors in primary human hepatocytes. We find HCV-induced up-regulation of glycolysis, ketogenesis and drug metabolism, controlled by activation of HNF4, PPAR, FXR and PXR, respectively. Pharmaceutical inhibition of HNF4 reversed HCV-induced glycolysis, blocking viral replication while increasing apoptosis in infected cells showing a viral-induced dependence on glycolysis. In contrast, pharmaceutical inhibition of PPAR or FXR reversed HCV-induced ketogenesis, but increased viral replication demonstrating a unique host anti-viral response. Our results show that viral-induced changes to host metabolism can be detrimental to its lifecycle demonstrating a distinct biological complexity.
Nuclear receptors control pro-viral and antiviral metabolic responses to hepatitis C virus infection.
Age, Specimen part
View SamplesTo follow-up findings that miR-9 was abundantly expressed in control NPCs, significantly down-regulated in a subset of SZ NPCs, and that miR-9 levels/activity, neural migration and diagnosis were strongly correlated, we tested the effect of manipulating miR-9 at cellular, proteomic and transcriptomic levels. Unexpectedly, proteomic- and RNAseq-based analysis revealed that these effects were mediated primarily by small changes in expression of indirect miR-9 targets, rather than large changes in direct miR-9 targets; these indirect targets are enriched for migration-associated genes. Together these data indicate that aberrant levels and activity of miR-9 may be one of the many factors that contribute to SZ risk, at least in a subset of patients. Methods: We compared global transcription of forebrain NPCs from two control and two SZ patients with manipulated miR-9 levels by RNAseq. Results: Although RNAseq analysis revealed large inter-individual heterogeneity, we were able to resolve several functional consistencies in the effects of our miR-9 perturbations: i) the change in miR-9 activity was consistent with the inhibitory role of miR-9, ii) the gene expression fold-change of miR-9 target genes (between each perturbation and its corresponding control, summarized by the first principal component) was correlated (r=0.95, p=3.92e-04) with miR-9 fold change and iii) the differentially expressed (DE; p <0.01) gene list resulting from miR-9 perturbation (paired t-test) was enriched for miR-9 targets (1.53-fold, p=1.2e-5). Conclusions: We integrated the miR-9 perturbation RNAseq data with our existing RNAseq datasets contrasting control and SZ hiPSC NPC expression from our cohort 1 (six controls, four patients), to ask whether there was any relationship between the “SZ NPC signature” and “miR-9 perturbation” datasets; we observed that the DE (p-value <0.01) in “SZ NPC signature” is enriched for DE (fdr<0.01) in “miR-9 perturbation” (the overall enrichment is 2.31-fold (p=9.39e-09)); there is significant correlation between DE fold-change in these two datasets (overall genes r=0.188; p<10e-50). Effects were mediated primarily by small changes in expression of indirect miR-9 targets, rather than large changes in direct miR-9 targets; these indirect targets are enriched for migration-associated genes Overall design: Biological duplicates of passage-matched NPCs from 1 control (female) and 1 SZ patient (female) were transduced with either RV-GFP or RV-miR-9-GFP; GFP-positive NPCs were purified by fluorescent activated cell sorting (FACS) and expanded for two passages. In parallel, passage-matched NPCs from 2 controls (1 male, 1 female) and 2 SZ patients (1 male, 1 female) were transiently transfected with either scrambled or miR-9 LNA probes. In both instances, miR-9 perturbation was confirmed by qPCR.
Dysregulation of miRNA-9 in a Subset of Schizophrenia Patient-Derived Neural Progenitor Cells.
Sex, Specimen part, Disease, Subject
View SamplesCell-based models of many neurological and psychiatric diseases, established by reprogramming patient somatic cells into human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), have now been reported. While numerous reports have demonstrated that neuronal cells differentiated from hiPSCs are electrophysiologically active mature neurons, the “age” of these cells relative to cells in the human brain remains unresolved. Comparisons of gene expression profiles of hiPSC-derived neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and neurons to the Allen BrainSpan Atlas indicate that hiPSC neural cells most resemble first trimester neural tissue. Consequently, we posit that hiPSC-derived neural cells may most accurately be used to model the early developmental defects that contribute to disease predisposition rather than the late features of the disease. Though the characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia SZ generally appear late in adolescence, it is now thought to be a neurodevelopmental condition, often predated by a prodromal period that can appear in early childhood. Postmortem studies of SZ brain tissue typically describe defects in mature neurons, such as reduced neuronal size and spine density in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, but abnormalities of neuronal organization, particularly in the cortex, have also been reported. We postulated that defects in cortical organization in SZ might result from abnormal migration of neural cells. To test this hypothesis, we directly reprogrammed fibroblasts from SZ patients into hiPSCs and subsequently differentiated these disorder-specific hiPSCs into NPCs. SZ hiPSC differentiated into forebrain NPCs have altered expression of a number of cellular adhesion genes and WNT signaling. Methods: We compared global transcription of forebrain NPCs from six control and four SZ patients by RNAseq. Results: Multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) resolved most SZ and control hiPSC NPC samples; 848 genes were significantly differentially expressed (FDR<0.01) Conclusions: The WNT signaling pathway was enriched 2-fold (fisher exact test p-value = 0.031). Overall design: 1-2 independent differentiations (biological replicates) for each of four control and four schizophrenia patients were analyzed; samples were generated in parallel to neuron RNAseq data.
Dysregulation of miRNA-9 in a Subset of Schizophrenia Patient-Derived Neural Progenitor Cells.
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View SamplesLysozyme-GFP ER-HoxA9 cells were cultured in the presence of estradiol (active ER-HoxA9) or in the absence of estradiol (inactive ER-HoxA9). Samples were taken at 10 time points over a 120 hour time course of myeloid differentiation to examine those gene expression changes that accompany differentiation upon the release of HoxA9 differentiation arrest. Overall design: RNA Sequencing at 10 different time points done in duplicate
Inhibition of Dihydroorotate Dehydrogenase Overcomes Differentiation Blockade in Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
Cell line, Subject
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