The first site exhibiting hematopoietic activity in mammalian development is the yolk sac blood island, which originates from the hemangioblast. Here we performed differentiation assays, as well as genome-wide molecular and functional studies in BL-CFCs to gain insight into the function of the essential Ldb1 factor in early primitive hematopoietic development. We show that the previously reported lack of yolk sac hematopoiesis and vascular development in Ldb1-/- mouse result from a decreased number of hemangioblasts and a block in their ability to differentiate into erythroid and endothelial progenitor cells. Transcriptome analysis and correlation with the genome wide binding pattern of Ldb1 in hemangioblasts revealed a number of direct target genes and pathways misregulated in the absence of Ldb1. The regulation of essential developmental factors by Ldb1 defines it as an upstream transcriptional regulator of hematopoietic/endothelial development. We show the complex interplay that exists between transcription factors and signaling pathways during the very early stages of hematopoietic/endothelial development and the specific signalling occurring in hemangioblasts in contrast to more advanced hematopoietic developmental stages. Finally, by revealing novel genes and pathways, not previously associated with early development, our study provides novel candidate targets to manipulate the differentiation of hematopoietic and/or endothelial cells.
Genome-wide analysis shows that Ldb1 controls essential hematopoietic genes/pathways in mouse early development and reveals novel players in hematopoiesis.
Specimen part
View SamplesConjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a class of fatty acids found in beef and dairy products, has been shown to inhibit tumorigenesis in a variety of cancer model systems. Based on previously well-documented anti-tumor activity of CLA in rodent models of breast cancer, a pilot study was initiated to examine the effect of dietary CLA in a well-established transgenic model of breast cancer. Western blots were performed for the detection of AKT, c-Src, ERK1/2, and Cdc24. CLA significantly increased tumor burden (p<0.1) independent of an increase in oncogenic signaling. Mammary gland whole mounts indicated a loss of mammary adipose and extensive epithelial expansion in CLA-treated animals. Microarray analysis indicated a significant reduction in cytoskeletal related genes with at least a two-fold decrease in five out of six CLA-fed animals compared to untreated controls. Reduction of Cdc42, a key regulator of cell adhesion and cytoskeletal arrangements, was confirmed at the protein level by western blot (p<0.01). These findings suggest that dietary CLA may advance the malignant phenotype by promoting a loss of cell polarity and adhesion in the mammary gland epithelium. This action may have serious clinical implications for a subset high-risk population and warrants further investigation.
Pilot study on the effects of dietary conjugated linoleic acid on tumorigenesis and gene expression in PyMT transgenic mice.
Sex, Age, Specimen part
View SamplesThe transcriptional repressor Zbtb20 is essential for specification of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons. Moreover, ectopic expression of Zbtb20 is sufficient to transform subicular and retrosplenial areas of D6/Zbtb20S mice to CA1. We used microarrays to identify genes that are repressed by Zbtb20 in developing CA1 pyramidal neurons in the CA1-transformed cortex of D6/Zbtb20S mice.
Zbtb20 defines a hippocampal neuronal identity through direct repression of genes that control projection neuron development in the isocortex.
Specimen part
View SamplesPtf1a was identified as the essential transcription factor which controls pancreatic exocrine enzyme expression. With lineage tracing eperiments Ptf1a was recognized as an important pancreatic progenitor transcription factor and Ptf1a null mice do not develop a pancreas.
RNA profiling and chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing reveal that PTF1a stabilizes pancreas progenitor identity via the control of MNX1/HLXB9 and a network of other transcription factors.
Specimen part
View SamplesThe leading cause of death in human patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and malignant cancer in general is the dissemination of the primary tumor to secondary sites. The mechanisms by which RCC colonize the lung microenvironment during metastasis remain largely unknown. To investigate the mechanisms of lung colonization by tumor cells, we grafted human RCC cells with different lung metastatic activities in mice. Gene expression profiling of the mouse lung stromal compartment revealed a gene signature enriched for neutrophil-specific functions, induced preferentially by poorly metastatic cells. Analysis of the gene expression patterns in tumor cells and clinical specimens showed an inverse correlation between metastatic activity and the levels of a number of chemokines, including CXL5 ad IL8. Enforced depletion of CXCL5 and IL8 in tumor cells allowed us to establish a functional link between lung neutrophil infiltration, the secretion of chemokines by cancer cells and metastatic activity. Finally, we showed that human neutrophils displayed a higher cytotoxic activity toward poorly metastatic cells relative to highly metastatic cells. Together, these results support a model in which neutrophils recruited to the lung by tumor-secreted chemokines build an antimetastatic barrier and loss of those neutrophil chemokines in tumor cells is a critical rate-limiting step during lung metastatic seeding.
Neutrophil chemokines secreted by tumor cells mount a lung antimetastatic response during renal cell carcinoma progression.
Specimen part
View SamplesThis SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below.
Dynamic changes in 5-hydroxymethylation signatures underpin early and late events in drug exposed liver.
Sex, Specimen part, Treatment, Time
View Samples29-32 days old male mice where either treated with Phenobarbital or untreated
Dynamic changes in 5-hydroxymethylation signatures underpin early and late events in drug exposed liver.
Sex, Specimen part, Treatment, Time
View SamplesThe process for evaluating chemical safety is inefficient, costly, and animal intensive. There is growing consensus that the current process of safety testing needs to be significantly altered to improve efficiency and reduce the number of untested chemicals. In this study, the use of short-term gene expression profiles was evaluated for predicting the increased incidence of mouse lung tumors. Animals were exposed to a total of 26 diverse chemicals with matched vehicle controls over a period of three years. Upon completion, significant batch-related effects were observed. Adjustment for batch effects significantly improved the ability to predict increased lung tumor incidence. For the best statistical model, the estimated predictive accuracy under honest five-fold cross-validation was 79.3% with a sensitivity and specificity of 71.4 and 86.3%, respectively. A learning curve analysis demonstrated that gains in model performance reached a plateau at 25 chemicals, indicating that the size of the current data set was sufficient to provide a robust classifier. The classification results showed a small subset of chemicals contributed disproportionately to the misclassification rate. For these chemicals, the misclassification was more closely associated with genotoxicity status than efficacy in the original bioassay. Statistical models were also used to predict dose-response increases in tumor incidence for methylene chloride and naphthalene. The average posterior probabilities for the top models matched the results from the bioassay for methylene chloride. For naphthalene, the average posterior probabilities for the top models over-predicted the tumor response, but the variability in predictions were significantly higher. The study provides both a set of gene expression biomarkers for predicting chemically-induced mouse lung tumors as well as a broad assessment of important experimental and analysis criteria for developing microarray-based predictors of safety-related endpoints.
Use of short-term transcriptional profiles to assess the long-term cancer-related safety of environmental and industrial chemicals.
Sex, Age, Specimen part, Disease, Subject
View SamplesGenomic, proteomic, and metabolomic technologies continue to receive increasing interest from environmental toxicologists. This interest is due to the great potential of these technologies to identify detailed modes of action and to provide assistance in the evaluation of a contaminant’s risk to aquatic organisms. Our experimental model is the zebrafish (Danio rerio) exposed to reference endocrine disrupting compounds in order to investigate compound-induced changes in gene transcript profiles. Adult, female zebrafish were exposed to 0, 15, 40, and 100 ng/L of 17 alpha-ethynylestradiol (EE2) and concentration and time-dependent changes in hepatic gene expression were examined using Affymetrix GeneChip® Zebrafish Genome Microarrays. At 24, 48, and 168 hours, fish were sacrificed and liver mRNA was extracted for gene expression analysis (24 and 168 hours only). In an effort to link gene expression changes to effects on higher levels of biological organization, body and ovary weights were measured and blood was collected for measurement of plasma steroid hormones (17 beta-estradiol (E2), testosterone (T)) and vitellogenin (VTG) using ELISA. EE2 exposure significantly affected GSI, E2, T, VTG and gene expression. We observed 1575 genes that were significantly affected (up- or down-regulated by at least 1.5-fold (p ? 0.001) in a concentration-dependent manner by EE2 exposure at either 24 or 168 hours. EE2 exposure altered transcription of genes involved in steroid hormone homeostasis, cholesterol homeostasis, retinoic acid metabolism, and cell growth and proliferation. Plasma VTG was significantly increased at 24, 48, and 168 hours (p<0.05) at 40 and 100 ng/L and at 15 ng/L at 168 hours. E2 and T were significantly reduced following EE2 exposure at 48 and 168 hours. GSI was decreased in a dose-dependent manner at 168 hours. In this study, we identified genes involved in a variety of biological functions that have the potential to be used as markers of exposure to estrogenic substances. Future work will evaluate the use of these genes in zebrafish exposed to weak estrogens to determine if these genes are indicative of exposure to estrogens with varying potencies.
Hepatic gene expression profiling using Genechips in zebrafish exposed to 17alpha-ethynylestradiol.
None
Sex, Specimen part, Compound, Time
View SamplesThe QSi5 inbred strain of mice was established from an outbred Quackenbush-Swiss strain by full-sib inbreeding and selection on the basis of increased litter size and shortened inter-litter interval in the Department of Veterinary Physiology (later REPROGEN) , University of Sydney (Holt et al., 2004). The strain has an average litter size of more than 13 pups, and females commonly nurse up to 18 pups with greater than 90% survival to weaning. Along with an increased body weight (BW), these traits are clearly indicative of enhanced lactation performance (Knight et al., 1986). Indeed lactation performance, assessed by a weigh-suckle-weigh method, was 3-fold greater in QSi5 mice than the CBA strain (Riley et al., 2006). In this study, we utilize the divergent phenotypes of QSi5 and CBA/CaH mice to identify genes associated with enhanced mammary gland capacity.
Transcriptome analysis identifies pathways associated with enhanced maternal performance in QSi5 mice.
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