scholarly journals Inferring Molecular Processes Heterogeneity from Transcriptional Data

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Gogolewski ◽  
Weronika Wronowska ◽  
Agnieszka Lech ◽  
Bogdan Lesyng ◽  
Anna Gambin

RNA microarrays and RNA-seq are nowadays standard technologies to study the transcriptional activity of cells. Most studies focus on tracking transcriptional changes caused by specific experimental conditions. Information referring to genes up- and downregulation is evaluated analyzing the behaviour of relatively large population of cells by averaging its properties. However, even assuming perfect sample homogeneity, different subpopulations of cells can exhibit diverse transcriptomic profiles, as they may follow different regulatory/signaling pathways. The purpose of this study is to provide a novel methodological scheme to account for possible internal, functional heterogeneity in homogeneous cell lines, including cancer ones. We propose a novel computational method to infer the proportion between subpopulations of cells that manifest various functional behaviour in a given sample. Our method was validated using two datasets from RNA microarray experiments. Both experiments aimed to examine cell viability in specific experimental conditions. The presented methodology can be easily extended to RNA-seq data as well as other molecular processes. Moreover, it complements standard tools to indicate most important networks from transcriptomic data and in particular could be useful in the analysis of cancer cell lines affected by biologically active compounds or drugs.

Author(s):  
Stefan Dimov ◽  
Anelia Ts. Mavrova ◽  
Denitsa Yancheva ◽  
Biliana Nikolova ◽  
Iana Tsoneva

Aims: The purpose was the synthesis of some new thienopyrimidines derivative of 1,3-disubstituted benzimidazoles and the evaluation of their cytotoxicity towards MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cell lines as well 3T3 cells. Background: An overexpression or mutational activation of TK receptors EGFR and HER2/neu are characteristic for tumors. It has been found that some thieno[2,3-d]pyrimidines exhibit better inhibitory activity against epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR/ErbB-2) tyrosine kinase in comparison to aminoquinazolines. Breast cancer activity towards MDAMB-231 and MCF-7 cell lines by inhibiting EGFR was revealed by a novel 2-arylbenzimidazole. This motivated the synthesis of new thienopyrimidines possessing benzimidazole fragment in order to evaluate their cytotoxicity to the above mentioned cell lines. Objective: The objectives were the design and synthesis of a novel series thieno[2,3-d]pyrimidines bearing biologically active moieties as 1,3-disubstituted-benzimidazole heterocycle structurally similar to diaryl ureas in order to evaluate their cytotoxicity against MDA-MB-231, MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines. Methods: N,N-disubstituted benzimidazole-2-one carbonitriles were synthesized by Aza-Michael addition and used as precursors to generate some of the new thieno[2,3-d]pyrimidines in acidic medium. The interaction of chloroethyl-2- thienopyrimidines and 2-amino-benzimidazole resp. benzimidazol-2-one nitriles under solid-liquid transfer catalysis conditions lead to obtaining of new thienopyrimidines. MTT assay for cells survival was performed in order to establish the cytotoxicity of the tested compounds. Fluorescence study was used to elucidate some aspect of mechanism. Results: The effect of nine of the synthesized compounds was investigated towards MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cells as well as to 3T3 cells. Thieno[2,3-d]pyirimidine-4-one 16 (IC50 – 0.058 μM) and 21 (IC50 – 0.029 μM) possess high cytotoxicity against MDA-MB-231 cells after 24h. The most toxic against breast cancer MCF-7 cells was compounds 21 (IC50 – 0.074 μM), revealing lower cytotoxicity towards mouse fibroblast 3T3 cells with IC50 – 0.20 μM. SAR analisys was performed. Fluorescence study of the treatment of MDA-MB cells with compound 21 was carried out in order to clarify some aspects of mechanism of action. Conclusion: The relationship between cytotoxicity of compounds 14 and 20 against MCF-7 and 3T3 cells can suggest a similar mechanism of action. The antitumor potential of the tested compounds proves the necessity for further investigation to estimate the exact inhibition pathway in the cellular processes. The fluorescence study of the treatment of MDA-MB cells with compound 21 showed a rapid process of apoptosis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 5902
Author(s):  
Stefan Nagel ◽  
Claudia Pommerenke ◽  
Corinna Meyer ◽  
Hans G. Drexler

Recently, we documented a hematopoietic NKL-code mapping physiological expression patterns of NKL homeobox genes in human myelopoiesis including monocytes and their derived dendritic cells (DCs). Here, we enlarge this map to include normal NKL homeobox gene expressions in progenitor-derived DCs. Analysis of public gene expression profiling and RNA-seq datasets containing plasmacytoid and conventional dendritic cells (pDC and cDC) demonstrated HHEX activity in both entities while cDCs additionally expressed VENTX. The consequent aim of our study was to examine regulation and function of VENTX in DCs. We compared profiling data of VENTX-positive cDC and monocytes with VENTX-negative pDC and common myeloid progenitor entities and revealed several differentially expressed genes encoding transcription factors and pathway components, representing potential VENTX regulators. Screening of RNA-seq data for 100 leukemia/lymphoma cell lines identified prominent VENTX expression in an acute myelomonocytic leukemia cell line, MUTZ-3 containing inv(3)(q21q26) and t(12;22)(p13;q11) and representing a model for DC differentiation studies. Furthermore, extended gene analyses indicated that MUTZ-3 is associated with the subtype cDC2. In addition to analysis of public chromatin immune-precipitation data, subsequent knockdown experiments and modulations of signaling pathways in MUTZ-3 and control cell lines confirmed identified candidate transcription factors CEBPB, ETV6, EVI1, GATA2, IRF2, MN1, SPIB, and SPI1 and the CSF-, NOTCH-, and TNFa-pathways as VENTX regulators. Live-cell imaging analyses of MUTZ-3 cells treated for VENTX knockdown excluded impacts on apoptosis or induced alteration of differentiation-associated cell morphology. In contrast, target gene analysis performed by expression profiling of knockdown-treated MUTZ-3 cells revealed VENTX-mediated activation of several cDC-specific genes including CSFR1, EGR2, and MIR10A and inhibition of pDC-specific genes like RUNX2. Taken together, we added NKL homeobox gene activities for progenitor-derived DCs to the NKL-code, showing that VENTX is expressed in cDCs but not in pDCs and forms part of a cDC-specific gene regulatory network operating in DC differentiation and function.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 117822342110349
Author(s):  
Namita Kundu ◽  
Xinrong Ma ◽  
Stephen Hoag ◽  
Fang Wang ◽  
Ahmed Ibrahim ◽  
...  

The taro plant, Colocasia esculenta, contains bioactive proteins with potential as cancer therapeutics. Several groups have reported anti-cancer activity in vitro and in vivo of taro-derived extracts (TEs). We reported that TE inhibits metastasis in a syngeneic murine model of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC). Purpose: We sought to confirm our earlier studies in additional models and to identify novel mechanisms by which efficacy is achieved. Methods: We employed a panel of murine and human breast and ovarian cancer cell lines to determine the effect of TE on tumor cell viability, migration, and the ability to support cancer stem cells. Two syngeneic models of TNBC were employed to confirm our earlier report that TE potently inhibits metastasis. Cancer stem cell assays were employed to determine the ability of TE to inhibit tumorsphere-forming ability and to inhibit aldehyde dehydrogenase activity. To determine if host immunity contributes to the mechanism of metastasis inhibition, efficacy was assessed in immune-compromised mice. Results: We demonstrate that viability of some, but not all cell lines is inhibited by TE. Likewise, tumor cell migration is inhibited by TE. Using 2 immune competent, syngeneic models of TNBC, we confirm our earlier findings that tumor metastasis is potently inhibited by TE. We also demonstrate, for the first time, that TE directly inhibits breast cancer stem cells. Administration of TE to mice elicits expansion of several spleen cell populations but it was not known if host immune cells contribute to the mechanism by which TE inhibits tumor cell dissemination. In novel findings, we now show that the ability of TE to inhibit metastasis relies on immune T-cell-dependent, but not B cell or Natural Killer (NK)-cell-dependent mechanisms. Thus, both tumor cell-autonomous and host immune factors contribute to the mechanisms underlying TE efficacy. Our long-term goal is to evaluate TE efficacy in clinical trials. Most of our past studies as well as many of the results reported in this report were carried out using an isolation protocol described earlier (TE). In preparation for a near future clinical trial, we have now developed a strategy to isolate an enriched taro fraction, TE-method 2, (TE-M2) as well as a more purified subfraction (TE-M2F1) which can be scaled up under Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) conditions for evaluation in human subjects. We demonstrate that TE-M2 and TE-M2F1 retain the anti-metastatic properties of TE. Conclusions: These studies provide further support for the continued examination of biologically active components of Colocasia esculenta as potential new therapeutic entities and identify a method to isolate sufficient quantities under GMP conditions to conduct early phase clinical studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen R. Mifsud ◽  
Clare L. M. Kennedy ◽  
Silvia Salatino ◽  
Eshita Sharma ◽  
Emily M. Price ◽  
...  

AbstractGlucocorticoid hormones (GCs) — acting through hippocampal mineralocorticoid receptors (MRs) and glucocorticoid receptors (GRs) — are critical to physiological regulation and behavioural adaptation. We conducted genome-wide MR and GR ChIP-seq and Ribo-Zero RNA-seq studies on rat hippocampus to elucidate MR- and GR-regulated genes under circadian variation or acute stress. In a subset of genes, these physiological conditions resulted in enhanced MR and/or GR binding to DNA sequences and associated transcriptional changes. Binding of MR at a substantial number of sites however remained unchanged. MR and GR binding occur at overlapping as well as distinct loci. Moreover, although the GC response element (GRE) was the predominant motif, the transcription factor recognition site composition within MR and GR binding peaks show marked differences. Pathway analysis uncovered that MR and GR regulate a substantial number of genes involved in synaptic/neuro-plasticity, cell morphology and development, behavior, and neuropsychiatric disorders. We find that MR, not GR, is the predominant receptor binding to >50 ciliary genes; and that MR function is linked to neuronal differentiation and ciliogenesis in human fetal neuronal progenitor cells. These results show that hippocampal MRs and GRs constitutively and dynamically regulate genomic activities underpinning neuronal plasticity and behavioral adaptation to changing environments.


Author(s):  
Yang Lin ◽  
Xiaoyong Pan ◽  
Hong-Bin Shen

Abstract Motivation Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are generally expressed in a tissue-specific way, and subcellular localizations of lncRNAs depend on the tissues or cell lines that they are expressed. Previous computational methods for predicting subcellular localizations of lncRNAs do not take this characteristic into account, they train a unified machine learning model for pooled lncRNAs from all available cell lines. It is of importance to develop a cell-line-specific computational method to predict lncRNA locations in different cell lines. Results In this study, we present an updated cell-line-specific predictor lncLocator 2.0, which trains an end-to-end deep model per cell line, for predicting lncRNA subcellular localization from sequences.We first construct benchmark datasets of lncRNA subcellular localizations for 15 cell lines. Then we learn word embeddings using natural language models, and these learned embeddings are fed into convolutional neural network, long short-term memory and multilayer perceptron to classify subcellular localizations. lncLocator 2.0 achieves varying effectiveness for different cell lines and demonstrates the necessity of training cell-line-specific models. Furthermore, we adopt Integrated Gradients to explain the proposed model in lncLocator 2.0, and find some potential patterns that determine the subcellular localizations of lncRNAs, suggesting that the subcellular localization of lncRNAs is linked to some specific nucleotides. Availability The lncLocator 2.0 is available at www.csbio.sjtu.edu.cn/bioinf/lncLocator2 and the source code can be found at https://github.com/Yang-J-LIN/lncLocator2. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 1060.2-1060
Author(s):  
T. Suto ◽  
K. Von Dalwigk ◽  
A. Platzer ◽  
B. Niederreiter ◽  
T. M. Karonitsch

Background:TNF-mediated fibroblast-like synoviocyte (FLS) activation is important for inflammation and joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The role of TNF-receptor 1 (TNFR1) in FLS activation has thoroughly been characterized. The functions of TNFR2 are, however, largely unknown.Objectives:To investigate the contribution of TNFR2 to the TNF-mediated activation of FLS.Methods:RA-FLS were transfected with TNFR2-targeting siRNA pools and transcriptional changes were determined by RNA-seq. QPCR, ELISA and immunoblotting were used to confirm the RNA-seq results and to gain insights into the pathways that regulate TNFR2-mediated changes in FLS.Results:TNF stimulation of FLS resulted in a strong upregulation of proinflammatory cytokines, chemokines, tissue-degrading enzymes and other genes that are associated with synovial inflammation in RA. Silencing of TNFR2 markedly diminished the TNF-response of RA-FLS. Especially, “interferon”-stimulated-genes (ISGs) including putative master regulators of joint inflammation, such as the CXCR3 chemokines CXCL9, CXCL10 and CXCL11 were affected by the knockdown of TNFR2. Consistently, immunoblots showed that TNFR2 was required for the TNF-induced phosphorylation of the transcription factor STAT1, which is known to mediate the transcription of ISGs, such as CXCR3 chemokines.Conclusion:TNFR2 regulates proinflammatory gene expression in RA-FLS via STAT1 and thereby contributes to the detrimental effects of TNF in synovial joint inflammation.Disclosure of Interests:None declared


2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 3634-3648
Author(s):  
Erika Koppányné Szabó ◽  
Krisztina Takács

By 2050, 9.8 billion people are projected to live on Earth, which means that we need to double our current food production to keep pace with such a large population increase. In addition, rising greenhouse gas emissions and the associated climate change are placing a significant strain on the planet’s ability to sustain itself. However, in order to increase the quantity of proteins of plant origin, it is necessary to increase crop production areas, harvesting frequencies and the quantity of crops produced. Unfortunately, the optimization of these factors is already very close to the available maximum in the current situation. The developed cultivation systems and maximum utilization of the soil power leads to very serious environmental problems, soil destruction, loss of biodiversity and serious environmental pollution through the transport of the produced plant raw materials. This poses a serious challenge to food security and further increases the risk of hunger. There is therefore a need for agricultural practices that can lead to the cultivation of food and feed crops that have better sustainability indicators and are more resilient to climate change, which can be used to safely produce health-promoting feeds, as well as novel and value-added foods. Within this group, a particular problem is presented by the protein supply of the population, as currently about one billion people do not have adequate protein intake. However, conventional protein sources are not sufficient to meet growing protein needs. As mentioned above, food and feed proteins are based on plant proteins. In recent years, a prominent role has been played by the research into alternative proteins and the mapping of their positive and negative properties. Among alternative proteins, special attention has been paid to various yeasts, fungi, bacteria, algae, singe cell proteins (SCPs) and insects. In this paper, we focus on the presentation of algae, particularly microalgae, which are of paramount importance not only because of their significant protein content and favorable amino acid composition, but also because they are also sources of many valuable molecules, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids, pigments, antioxidants, drugs and other biologically active compounds. It is important to learn about microalgae biomass in order to be able to develop innovative health food products.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Christiaan Leeuwenburgh ◽  
Carlos G. Urzúa-Traslaviña ◽  
Arkajyoti Bhattacharya ◽  
Marthe T.C. Walvoort ◽  
Mathilde Jalving ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Patient-derived bulk expression profiles of cancers can provide insight into transcriptional changes that underlie reprogrammed metabolism in cancer. These profiles represent the average expression pattern of all heterogeneous tumor and non-tumor cells present in biopsies of tumor lesions. Hence, subtle transcriptional footprints of metabolic processes can be concealed by other biological processes and experimental artifacts. However, consensus Independent Component Analyses (c-ICA) can capture statistically independent transcriptional footprints, of both subtle and more pronounced metabolic processes. Methods: We performed c-ICA with 34,494 bulk expression profiles of patient-derived tumor biopsies, non-cancer tissues, and cell lines. Gene set enrichment analysis with 608 gene sets that describe metabolic processes was performed to identify transcriptional components enriched for metabolic processes (mTCs). The activity of these mTCs were determined in all samples to create a metabolic transcriptional landscape. Results: A set of 555 mTCs were identified of which many were robust across different datasets, platforms, and patient-derived tissues and cell lines. We demonstrate how the metabolic transcriptional landscape defined by the activity of these mTCs in samples can be used to explore associations between the metabolic transcriptome and drug sensitivities, patient outcomes, and the composition of the immune tumor microenvironment. Conclusions: To facilitate the use of our transcriptional metabolic landscape, we have provided access to all data via a web portal ( www.themetaboliclandscapeofcancer.com ). We believe this resource will contribute to the formulation of new hypotheses on how to metabolically engage the tumor or its (immune) microenvironment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 10436
Author(s):  
Taku Fukushima ◽  
Miho Takata ◽  
Ayano Kato ◽  
Takayuki Uchida ◽  
Takeshi Nikawa ◽  
...  

Exercise has beneficial effects on human health and is affected by two different pathways; motoneuron and endocrine. For the advancement of exercise research, in vitro exercise models are essential. We established two in vitro exercise models using C2C12 myotubes; EPS (electrical pulse stimulation) for a motoneuron model and clenbuterol, a specific β2 adrenergic receptor agonist, treatment for an endocrine model. For clenbuterol treatment, we found that Ppargc1a was induced only in low glucose media (1 mg/mL) using a 1-h treatment of 30 ng/mL clenbuterol. Global transcriptional changes of clenbuterol treatment were analyzed by RNA-seq and gene ontology analyses and indicated that mitogenesis and the PI3K-Akt pathway were enhanced, which is consistent with the effects of exercise. Cxcl1 and Cxcl5 were identified as candidate myokines induced by adrenaline. As for the EPS model, we compared 1 Hz of 1-pulse EPS and 1 Hz of 10-pulse EPS for 24 h and determined Myh gene expressions. Ten-pulse EPS induced higher Myh2 and Myh7 expression. Global transcriptional changes of 10-pulse EPS were also analyzed using RNA-seq, and gene ontology analyses indicated that CaMK signaling and hypertrophy pathways were enhanced, which is also consistent with the effects of exercise. In this paper, we provided two transcriptome results of in vitro exercise models and these databases will contribute to advances in exercise research.


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