Major depression is a multidimensional disorder highly prevalent in modern society. Although several classes of antidepressants (ADs) are currently available to treat depression, the effectiveness of treatment is still limited, as many patients do not show full remission; thus, there is a need to find better patients directed therapeutic strategies. Neuroplastic changes in several brain regions, namely in the hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG), are amongst the best correlates of depression and of ADs actions. In this study the targets and molecular mediators of chronic stress and of four ADs from different pharmacological classes (fluoxetine, imipramine, tianeptine and agomelatine) were investigated in the DG.
Differential and converging molecular mechanisms of antidepressants' action in the hippocampal dentate gyrus.
Sex, Age, Specimen part
View SamplesThe conserved RNA-binding protein Musashi1 (MSI1) has emerged as a key oncogenic factor in numerous solid tumors, including glioblastoma. However, its mechanism of action has not yet been established comprehensively. We set out to map its impact on the transcriptome in U251 cells using RNA-seq and iCLIP. Overall design: Examination of gene expression and splicing changes upon KD of Musashi1 in U251 cells and link to iCLIP-identified Musashi1 RNA binding sites
RNA-Binding Protein Musashi1 Is a Central Regulator of Adhesion Pathways in Glioblastoma.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesNitric oxide regulates plant development and responses to stress. However, the mechanisms underlying its regulatory role are still poorly known, and the impact of endogenous NO on the genome-wide transcriptome of plants has not been studied. For that purpose, we compared the transcriptomes of NO-deficient nia1nia2, noa1-2 and nia1nia2noa1-2 mutant versus wild type Arabidopsis thaliana plants. A core comprising 66 NO-responsive genes with similar expression in all NO-deficient genotypes was identified. Among them, 46 were down- and 20 up-regulated in NO-deficient plants, and thus positively and negatively regulated by endogenous NO, respectively. Accordingly with changes in its transcriptome, the NO-deficient nia1nia2noa1-2 mutant accumulated anthocyanins and indolic glucosinolates, displayed abnormal iron homeostasis in shoots and roots, and also showed altered root sensitivity to hormones such as ABA, ET, CYK and IAA. Together the presented data suggest NO functions essentially as a modulator of hormone action.
Nitric oxide sensing in plants is mediated by proteolytic control of group VII ERF transcription factors.
Specimen part
View SamplesThe peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-coactivator-11 (PGC-11) regulates genes involved in energy metabolism. Increasing adipose tissue energy expenditure through PGC-11 activation has been suggested to be beneficial for systemic metabolism. Pharmacological PGC-11 activators could be valuable tools in the fight against obesity and metabolic disease. Finding such compounds has been challenging partly because PGC-11 is a transcriptional coactivator with no known ligand-binding activities. Importantly, PGC-11 activation is regulated by several mechanisms but protein stabilization is a limiting step as the protein has a short half-life under unstimulated conditions.
Small molecule PGC-1α1 protein stabilizers induce adipocyte Ucp1 expression and uncoupled mitochondrial respiration.
Specimen part
View SamplesAsthma is a heterogeneous disease requiring understandings at molecular level that characterizes subgroups of patients with specific biomarkers to faciliate the development of targeted thearpies.
T-helper cell type 2 (Th2) and non-Th2 molecular phenotypes of asthma using sputum transcriptomics in U-BIOPRED.
Sex, Age
View SamplesSevere asthma is a collection of disease entities with varying pathophysiological characteristics (7) that result in symptoms of cough, wheeze and breathlessness, with frequent exacerbations. To address the problem of phenotypic difference and heterogeneity, the Unbiased Biomarkers for the Prediction of Respiratory Disease Outcomes (U-BIOPRED) project was set up as a public-private partnership within the framework of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), engaging academia, the pharmaceutical industry and patient groups. The goal of this investigation was to identify transcript fingerprints in whole blood that characterize patients with severe asthma and to determine whether subgroups of severe asthmatics can be identified. Furthermore, we were interested in elucidating the biological pathways that showed differences between subgroups.
A Severe Asthma Disease Signature from Gene Expression Profiling of Peripheral Blood from U-BIOPRED Cohorts.
Sex, Specimen part, Race
View SamplesBreast carcinoma (BC) have been extensively profiled by high-throughput technologies for over a decade, and broadly speaking, these studies can be grouped into those that seek to identify patient subtypes (studies of heterogeneity) or those that seek to identify gene signatures with prognostic or predictive capacity. The shear number of reported signatures has led to speculation that everything is prognostic in BC. Here we show that this ubiquity is an apparition caused by a poor understanding of the inter- relatedness between subtype and the molecular determinants of prognosis. Our approach constructively shows how to avoid confounding due to a patient's subtype, clinicopathological or treatment profile. The approach identifies patients who are predicted to have good outcome at time of diagnosis by all available clinical and molecular markers, but who experience a distant metastasis within five years. These inherently difficult patients (~7% of BC) are prioritized for investigations of intra-tumoral heterogeneity.
The prognostic ease and difficulty of invasive breast carcinoma.
Age, Disease stage, Time
View SamplesTransgenic expression of TLX1 induces T-cell leukemias in mice.
The TLX1 oncogene drives aneuploidy in T cell transformation.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesEpigenetic regulation serves as the basis for stem cell differentiation into distinct cell types, but it is unclear how global epigenetic changes are regulated during this process. Here, we tested the hypothesis that global chromatin organization affects the lineage potential of stem cells and that manipulation of chromatin dynamics influences stem cell function. Using nuclease sensitivity assays, we found a progressive decrease in chromatin digestion between pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESCs), multipotent hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), and mature hematopoietic cells. Quantification of chromatin composition by high-resolution microscopy revealed that ESCs contain significantly more euchromatin than HSPCs, with a further reduction in euchromatin as HSPCs transition into mature cells. Increased cellular maturation also led to heterochromatin localization to the nuclear periphery. Functionally, prevention of heterochromatin formation by inhibition of the histone methyltransferase G9a resulted in delayed hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) differentiation. Our results demonstrate significant global rearrangements of chromatin structure during embryonic and adult stem cell differentiation, and that heterochromatin formation by H3K9 methylation is an important regulator of HSC differentiation. Overall design: Examination of gene expression profile of in vitro cultured mouse HSC with the G9a inhibitor UNC0638
Progressive Chromatin Condensation and H3K9 Methylation Regulate the Differentiation of Embryonic and Hematopoietic Stem Cells.
Specimen part, Cell line, Treatment, Subject
View SamplesInfiltrating T-lymphocytes from the peripheral blood into the central nervous system (CNS) play a dynamic role in the development of a neurological immune-mediated diseases. HAM/TSP is a chronic progressive inflammatory neurological disorder associated with human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) infection. In this chronic myelopathy, virus-infected circulating T-cells infiltrate the CNS and an immune response is initiated against the components of CNS. As the HTLV-I proviral load (PVL) has been used as the best clinical marker for patient diagnostic with HAM/TSP, we hypothesized there might be a signature on T-cell receptor (TCR) clonal repertoire in these patients, which could distinguish HAM/TSP patients from the healthy population, as well as from patients with a more heterogeneous CNS-reactive inflammatory disease as multiple sclerosis (MS). With this in mind, we applied an innovative unbiased molecular technique – unique molecular identifier (UMI) library-strategy to investigate with high accuracy the TCR clonal repertoire by high throughput sequencing (HTS) technology. cDNA-TCR ß-chain libraries were sequenced from 2 million peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in 14 HAM/TSP patients, 34 MS patients and 20 healthy controls (HC). To address whether the clonal expansion correlates with the patient's PVL level, analysis of longitudinal TCR repertoire was performed in 2 HAM/TSP patients. Over 5.6 million TCR sequences were generated per sample on HiSeq 2500 Illumina system and analyzed through the molecular identifier groups-based error correction pipeline (MiGEC). Bioinformatic analysis showed that clones with more than 8 reads had a lower coefficient of variation (CV) and then could be used with confidence to evaluate the TCR clonal expansion. While HAM/TSP patients showed the higher clonal T-cell expansion compared to MS and HC, increase of the TCR clonal expansion was inversely correlated with the diversity of TCR repertoire in all subject's group. In addition, correlation of the PVL with TCR clonal expansion was observed in HAM/TSP patients at longitudinal time-points. Surprisingly, MS patients showed a higher diversity of TCR repertoire along with a very slight clonal T-cell expansion in comparison to either HAM/TSP patients or HC. Despite of the higher TCR clonal expansion in HAM/TSP patients, a non-shared or “private” TCR repertoire was observed in these patients. No clones that shared the same CDR3 amino acid sequences were seen in HC and MS patients. However, a cluster of related CDR3 amino acid sequences were observed for 18 out of 34 MS patients when evaluated by phylogenetic tree analysis. It suggestes that a TCR-repertoire signature might characterize patients with MS. Our findings suggest that even though a unique TCR-b repertoire shapes the immune response in patients with neurological immune-mediated disease, a relatedness on clonal T-cell repertoire exist in MS. Overall design: TCR-ß profiles for 68 human samples were generated via deep sequencing using the Illumina HiSeq 2500 system and reagents. Of those profiled, 20 were not diagnosed as having HAM/TSP or MS (i.e., Healthy Control, "HC"), 14 were diagnosied as having HAM/TSP, and 34 were diagnosed as having MS.
Comprehensive Analysis of TCR-β Repertoire in Patients with Neurological Immune-mediated Disorders.
Sex, Age, Specimen part, Disease, Race, Subject
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