scholarly journals Changes in Gene Expression during Pituitary Morphogenesis and Organogenesis in the Chick Embryo

Endocrinology ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 152 (3) ◽  
pp. 989-1000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Proszkowiec-Weglarz ◽  
Stacy E. Higgins ◽  
Tom E. Porter

The anterior pituitary gland plays an important role in the regulation of many physiological processes. Formation of Rathke's pouch (RP), the precursor of the anterior pituitary, involves evagination of the oral ectoderm in a multi-step process regulated by cell interactions, signaling pathways, and transcription factors. Chickens are an excellent model to study development because of the availability of large sample sizes, accurate timing of development, and embryo accessibility. The aim of this study was to quantify mRNA expression patterns in the developing chicken anterior pituitary to evaluate the chicken embryo as a model for mammalian pituitary development. The expression profiles of 16 genes differentially expressed in RP and neuroectoderm were determined in this study. Among these, Pitx1, Pitx2, and Hesx1 mRNA levels were high on embryonic days (e) 2.5 to e3 in RP and decreased during development. Expression of Pit1 and Tbx19 mRNA in RP reached the highest levels by e7 and e6.5, respectively. Levels of glycoprotein subunit α mRNA increased beginning at e4. FGF8 mRNA showed the highest expression at e3 to e3.5 in neuroectoderm. BMP2 showed slight decreases in mRNA expression in both tissues during development, while Isl1 and Noggin mRNA expression increased in later development. Taken together, we present the first quantitative transcriptional profile of pituitary organogenesis. Our results will help further understanding of the functional development of this gland. Moreover, because of the high similarity in gene expression patterns observed between chicken and mouse, chickens could serve as an excellent model to study genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying pituitary development.

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. 763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Han-Seung Kang ◽  
Chae-Kwan Lee ◽  
Ju-Ran Kim ◽  
Seong-Jin Yu ◽  
Sung-Goo Kang ◽  
...  

In the present study, differential gene expression in the uteri of ovariectomised (OVX) and pro-oestrous rats (OVX v. pro-oestrus pair) was investigated using cDNA expression array analysis. Differential uterine gene expression in OVX rats and progesterone (P4)-injected OVX rats (OVX v. OVX + P4 pair) was also examined. The uterine gene expression profiles of these two sets of animals were also compared for the effects of P4 treatment. RNA samples were extracted from uterine tissues and reverse transcribed in the presence of [α32P]-dATP. Membrane sets of rat arrays were hybridised with cDNA probe sets. Northern blot analysis was used to validate the relative gene expression patterns obtained from the cDNA array. Of the 1176 cDNAs examined, 23 genes showed significant (>two-fold) changes in expression in the OVX v. pro-oestrus pair. Twenty of these genes were upregulated during pro-oestrus compared with their expression in the OVX rat uterus. In the OVX v. OVX + P4 pair, 22 genes showed significant (>two-fold) changes in gene expression. Twenty of these genes were upregulated in the OVX + P4 animals. The genes for nuclear factor I–XI, afadin, neuroligin 2, semaphorin Z, calpain 4, cyclase-associated protein homologue, thymosin β-4X and p8 were significantly upregulated in the uteri of the pro-oestrus and OVX + P4 rats of both experimental pairs compared with the OVX rat uteri. These genes appear to be under the control of P4. One of the most interesting findings of the present study is the unexpected and marked expression of the neuroligin 2 gene in the rat uterus. This gene is expressed at high levels in the central nervous system and acts as a nerve cell adhesion factor. According to Northern blot analysis, neuroligin 2 gene expression was higher during the pro-oestrus and metoestrus stages than during the oestrus and dioestrus stages of the oestrous cycle. In addition, neuroligin 2 mRNA levels were increased by both 17β-oestradiol (E2) and P4, although P4 administration upregulated gene expression to a greater extent than injection of E2. These results indicate that neuroligin 2 gene expression in the rat uterus is under the control of both E2 and P4, which are secreted periodically during the oestrous cycle.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1291
Author(s):  
Deni Ramljak ◽  
Martina Vukoja ◽  
Marina Curlin ◽  
Katarina Vukojevic ◽  
Maja Barbaric ◽  
...  

Healthy and controlled immune response in COVID-19 is crucial for mild forms of the disease. Although CD8+ T cells play important role in this response, there is still a lack of studies showing the gene expression profiles in those cells at the beginning of the disease as potential predictors of more severe forms after the first week. We investigated a proportion of different subpopulations of CD8+ T cells and their gene expression patterns for cytotoxic proteins (perforin-1 (PRF1), granulysin (GNLY), granzyme B (GZMB), granzyme A (GZMA), granzyme K (GZMK)), cytokine interferon-γ (IFN-γ), and apoptotic protein Fas ligand (FASL) in CD8+ T cells from peripheral blood in first weeks of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Sixteen COVID-19 patients and nine healthy controls were included. The absolute counts of total lymphocytes (p = 0.007), CD3+ (p = 0.05), and CD8+ T cells (p = 0.01) in COVID-19 patients were significantly decreased compared to healthy controls. In COVID-19 patients in CD8+ T cell compartment, we observed lower frequency effector memory 1 (EM1) (p = 0.06) and effector memory 4 (EM4) (p < 0.001) CD8+ T cells. Higher mRNA expression of PRF1 (p = 0.05) and lower mRNA expression of FASL (p = 0.05) at the fifth day of the disease were found in COVID-19 patients compared to healthy controls. mRNA expression of PRF1 (p < 0.001) and IFN-γ (p < 0.001) was significantly downregulated in the first week of disease in COVID-19 patients who progressed to moderate and severe forms after the first week, compared to patients with mild symptoms during the entire disease course. GZMK (p < 0.01) and FASL (p < 0.01) mRNA expression was downregulated in all COVID-19 patients compared to healthy controls. Our results can lead to a better understanding of the inappropriate immune response of CD8+ T cells in SARS-CoV2 with the faster progression of the disease.


2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 10539-10539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Chieh Wang ◽  
Daniel Ramskold ◽  
Shujun Luo ◽  
Robin Li ◽  
Qiaolin Deng ◽  
...  

10539 Background: Melanoma is the most aggressive type of skin cancer. Late-stage melanoma is highly metastatic and currently lacks effective treatment. This discouraging clinical observation highlights the need for a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying melanoma initiation and progression and for developing new therapeutic approaches based on novel targets. Although genome-wide transcriptome analyses have been frequently used to study molecular alterations in clinical samples, it has been technically challenging to obtain the transcriptomic profiles at single-cell level. Methods: Using antibody-mediated magnetic activated cell separation (MACS), we isolated and individualized putative circulating melanoma cells (CMCs) from the blood samples of the melanoma patients at advance stages. The transcriptomic analysis based on a novel and robust mRNA-Seq protocol (Smart-Seq) was established and applied to the putative CMCs for single-cell profiling. Results: We have discovered distinct gene expression patterns, including new putative markers for CMCs. Meanwhile, the gene expression profiles derived of the CMC candidates isolated from the patient’s blood samples are closely-related to the expression profiles of other cells originated from human melanocytes, including normal melanocytes in primary culture and melanoma cell lines. Compared with existing methods, Smart-Seq has improved read coverage across transcripts, which provides advantage for better analyzing transcript isoforms and SNPs. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the techniques developed in this research for cell isolation and transcriptomic analyses can potentially be used for addressing many biological and clinical questions requiring genomewide transcriptome profiling in rare cells.


2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (4_suppl) ◽  
pp. 383-383
Author(s):  
Martin K. H. Maus ◽  
Craig Stephens ◽  
Stephanie H. Astrow ◽  
Peter Philipp Grimminger ◽  
Dongyun Yang ◽  
...  

383 Background: Gene expression levels of ERCC1, TS, EGFR and VEGFR2 may have predictive value for the personalized use of standard chemotherapeutics as well as agents targeting the EGFR and VEGF pathways and the efficacy of EGFR directed monoclonal antibodies like panitumumab and cetuximab has been confirmed to be dependent on wt KRAS and wt BRAF in patients with advanced colorectal cancer. We investigated the correlations between KRAS/BRAF mutational status and the mRNA expression levels of these genes. Methods: Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor specimens from 600 patients with advanced colorectal adenocarcinoma were microdissected and DNA and RNA was extracted. Specifically designed primers and probes were used to detect 7 different base substitutions in codon 12 and 13 of KRAS, V600E mutations in BRAF and the expression levels of ERCC1, TS, EGFR and VEGFR2 by RT-PCR. Results: Mt KRAS tumors had significantly lower TS and EGFR gene expression levels compared with wt KRAS (p<0,001), whereas mt BRAF tumors showed significantly increased TS and EGFR mRNA levels compared to wt BRAF (p<0,001). Mt BRAF tumors showed significantly higher mRNA levels than mt KRAS tumors (p<0,001). ERCC1 and VEGFR2 mRNA levels were significantly down-regulated in mt KRAS specimen (p<0,001), but showed no significant correlation with BRAF mutational status. Conclusions: KRAS and BRAF mutations are associated with opposite mRNA expression levels for TS and EGFR. Recently, resistance to BRAF inhibition in mt BRAF colorectal tumors has been shown in preclinical models to be associated with up-regulation of EGFR. Our data suggests that BRAF mutants are associated with high EGFR levels at the time of diagnosis, and not necessarily part of an acquired mechanism of resistance. Significantly lower mRNA expression levels of VEGFR2 in mt KRAS tumors may explain lower response to angiogenesis inhibition seen in the TML study.


PeerJ ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. e1814 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keren Maor-Landaw ◽  
Oren Levy

It is well-established that there is a hierarchy of susceptibilities amongst coral genera during heat-stress. However, molecular mechanisms governing these differences are still poorly understood. Here we explored if specific corals possessing different morphologies and different susceptibilities to heat stress may manifest varied gene expression patterns. We examined expression patterns of seven genes in the branching coralsStylophora pistillataandAcropora eurystomaand additionally in the massive robust coral,Poritessp. The tested genes are representatives of key cellular processes occurring during heat-stress in Cnidaria: oxidative stress, ER stress, energy metabolism, DNA repair and apoptosis. Varied response to the heat-stress, in terms of visual coral paling, algal maximum quantum yield and host gene expression was evident in the different growth forms. The two branching corals exhibited similar overall responses that differed from that of the massive coral.A. eurystomathat is considered as a susceptible species did not bleach in our experiment, but tissue sloughing was evident at 34 °C. Interestingly, in this species redox regulation genes were up-regulated at the very onset of the thermal challenge. InS. pistillata, bleaching was evident at 34 °C and most of the stress markers were already up-regulated at 32 °C, either remaining highly expressed or decreasing when temperatures reached 34 °C. The massivePoritesspecies displayed severe bleaching at 32 °C but stress marker genes were only significantly elevated at 34 °C. We postulate that by expelling the algal symbionts fromPoritestissues, oxidation damages are reduced and stress genes are activated only at a progressed stage. The differential gene expression responses exhibited here can be correlated with the literature well-documented hierarchy of susceptibilities amongst coral morphologies and genera in Eilat’s coral reef.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Supantha Dey ◽  
Harpreet Kaur ◽  
Elia Brodsky ◽  
Mohit Mazumder

Malaria is a life-threatening disease, and Africa is still one of the most affected endemic regions despite years of policy to limit infection and transmission rates. Further, studies into the variable efficacy of the vaccine are needed to provide a better understanding of protective immunity. Thus, the current study is designed to delineate the effect of the different vaccination doses on the transcriptional profiles of subjects to determine its efficacy and understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the protection this vaccine provides. Here, we used gene expression profiles of pre and post-vaccination patients after various doses of RTS,S based on 275 and 583 samples collected from the GEO datasets. At first, exploratory data analysis based Principal component analysis (PCA) shown the distinct pattern of different doses. Subsequently, differential gene expression analysis using edgeR revealed the significantly (FDR <0.005) 158 down-regulated and 61 upregulated genes between control vs. Controlled Human Malaria Infection (CHMI) samples. Further, enrichment analysis of significant genes using Annotation and GAGE tools delineate the involvement of CCL8, CXCL10, CXCL11, XCR1, CSF3, IFNB1, IFNE, IL12B, IL22, IL6, IL27, etc., genes which found to be upregulated after earlier doses but downregulated after the 3rd dose in cytokine-chemokine pathways. Notably, we identified 13 cytokine genes whose expression significantly varied during three doses. Eventually, these findings give insight into the dual role of cytokine responses in malaria pathogenesis and variations in their expression patterns after various doses of vaccination involved in protection.


2006 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 414-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura E. Ellestad ◽  
Wilfrid Carre ◽  
Michael Muchow ◽  
Sultan A. Jenkins ◽  
Xiaofei Wang ◽  
...  

The anterior pituitary is comprised of five major hormone-secreting cell types that differentiate during embryonic development in a temporally distinct manner. Microarrays containing 5,128 unique cDNAs expressed in the chicken neuroendocrine system were produced and used to identify genes with potential involvement in the onset of thyroid-stimulating hormone β-subunit (TSHβ), growth hormone (GH), and prolactin (PRL) mRNA during embryonic development. We identified 352 cDNAs that were differentially expressed (P ≤ 0.05) on embryonic day 10 (e10), e12, e14, or e17, the period of thyrotroph, somatotroph, and lactotroph differentiation. Self-organizing maps were used to identify genes that may function to initiate hormone gene transcription. Consistent with cellular ontogeny, TSHβ mRNA increased steadily between e10 and e17, GH mRNA increased between e12 and e17, and PRL mRNA did not increase until e17. Expression of 141 genes increased in a manner similar to TSHβ mRNA, and 64 genes decreased between e10 and e17. Although genes with these expression profiles are likely involved in development of the pituitary gland as a whole, some of these could be specifically associated with thyrotroph differentiation. Similarly, the expression profiles of 69 and 61 genes indicate a potential involvement in the induction of GH and PRL mRNA, respectively. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR was used to confirm microarray results for 31 genes. This is the first study to evaluate changes in anterior pituitary gene expression during embryonic development of any species using microarrays, and numerous transcription factors and signaling molecules not previously implicated in pituitary development were identified.


2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (16) ◽  
pp. 8707-8721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Guerra ◽  
José Luis Nájera ◽  
José Manuel González ◽  
Luis A. López-Fernández ◽  
Nuria Climent ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Although recombinants based on the attenuated poxvirus vectors MVA and NYVAC are currently in clinical trials, the nature of the genes triggered by these vectors in antigen-presenting cells is poorly characterized. Using microarray technology and various analysis conditions, we compared specific changes in gene expression profiling following MVA and NYVAC infection of immature human monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MDDC). Microarray analysis was performed at 6 h postinfection, since these viruses induced extensive cytopathic effects, rRNA breakdown, and apoptosis at late times postinfection. MVA- and NYVAC-infected MDDC shared upregulation of 195 genes compared to uninfected cells: MVA specifically upregulated 359 genes, and NYVAC upregulated 165 genes. Microarray comparison of NYVAC and MVA infection revealed 544 genes with distinct expression patterns after poxvirus infection and 283 genes specifically upregulated after MVA infection. Both vectors upregulated genes for cytokines, cytokine receptors, chemokines, chemokine receptors, and molecules involved in antigen uptake and processing, including major histocompatibility complex genes. mRNA levels for interleukin 12β (IL-12β), beta interferon, and tumor necrosis factor alpha were higher after MVA infection than after NYVAC infection. The expression profiles of transcription factors such as NF-κB/Rel and STAT were regulated similarly by both viruses; in contrast, OASL, MDA5, and IRIG-I expression increased only during MVA infection. Type I interferon, IL-6, and Toll-like receptor pathways were specifically induced after MVA infection. Following MVA or NYVAC infection in MDDC, we found similarities as well as differences between these virus strains in the expression of cellular genes with immunological function, which should have an impact when these vectors are used as recombinant vaccines.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Masahiro Asakawa ◽  
Michiko Itoh ◽  
Takayoshi Suganami ◽  
Takeru Sakai ◽  
Sayaka Kanai ◽  
...  

AbstractNon-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), characterized by chronic inflammation and fibrosis, is predicted to be the leading cause of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the next decade. Although recent evidence suggests the importance of fibrosis as the strongest determinant of HCC development, the molecular mechanisms underlying NASH-induced carcinogenesis still remain unclear. Here we performed RNA sequencing analysis to compare gene expression profiles of activated fibroblasts prepared from two distinct liver fibrosis models: carbon tetrachloride–induced fibrosis as a model without obesity and HCC and genetically obese melanocortin 4 receptor–deficient (MC4R-KO) mice fed Western diet, which develop steatosis, NASH, and eventually HCC. Our data showed that activated fibroblasts exhibited distinct gene expression patterns in each etiology, and that the ‘pathways in cancer’ were selectively upregulated in the activated fibroblasts from MC4R-KO mice. The most upregulated gene in these pathways was fibroblast growth factor 9 (FGF9), which was induced by metabolic stress such as palmitate. FGF9 exerted anti-apoptotic and pro-migratory effects in fibroblasts and hepatoma cells in vitro and accelerated tumor growth in a subcutaneous xenograft model. This study reveals upregulation of cancer-associated gene expression in activated fibroblasts in NASH, which would contribute to the progression from NASH to HCC.


2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (S2) ◽  
pp. 840-841
Author(s):  
Roger D. Madison, Ph.D.

Because the genes in all somatic cells of an individual are identical, it is the differential expression of the proteins encoded by particular genes that determines a cell's phenotype. There is now increasing interest in relating the simultaneous expression patterns of multiple proteins to complex biological processes. The goal is to develop ‘expression profiles’ of the proteins that are active within a cell or tissue during a particular condition. The ultimate control of functional protein expression is quite complex and may involve transcriptional, combinatorial, and postranslational mechanisms, as well as differences in protein degradation rates that vary under different conditions. Although mRNA levels do not always predict functional protein levels, they are a useful first step in determining the expression profile.The evolution of three key technologies offers the promise of obtaining quantitative analysis of gene expression from restricted amounts of nervous system tissue. Laser capture microdissection can accomplish harvesting of identified cell populations from histologically processed tissue.


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