scholarly journals Differences in Gene Expression Profiles of Seven Target Proteins in Third-Stage Larvae of Anisakis simplex (Sensu Stricto) by Sites of Infection in Blue Whiting (Micromesistius poutassou)

Genes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marialetizia Palomba ◽  
Paolo Cipriani ◽  
Lucilla Giulietti ◽  
Arne Levsen ◽  
Giuseppe Nascetti ◽  
...  

The third-stage larvae of the parasitic nematode genus Anisakis tend to encapsulate in different tissues including the musculature of fish. Host tissue penetration and degradation involve both mechanic processes and the production of proteins encoded by an array of genes. Investigating larval gene profiles during the fish infection has relevance in understanding biological traits in the parasite’s adaptive ability to cope with the fish hosts’ defense responses. The present study aimed to investigate the gene expression levels of some proteins in L3 of A. simplex (s.s.) infecting different tissues of blue whiting Micromesistius poutassou, a common fish host of the parasite in the NE Atlantic. The following genes encoding for Anisakis spp. proteins were studied: Kunitz-type trypsin inhibitor (TI), hemoglobin (hb), glycoprotein (GP), trehalase (treh), zinc metallopeptidase 13 (nas 13), ubiquitin-protein ligase (hyd) and sideroflexin 2 (sfxn 2). Significant differences in gene transcripts (by quantitative real-time PCR, qPCR) were observed in larvae located in various tissues of the fish host, with respect to the control. ANOVA analysis showed that relative gene expression levels of the seven target genes in the larvae are linked to the infection site in the fish host. Genes encoding some of the target proteins seem to be involved in the host tissue migration and survival of the parasite in the hostile target tissues of the fish host.

Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 854
Author(s):  
Yishu Wang ◽  
Lingyun Xu ◽  
Dongmei Ai

DNA methylation is an important regulator of gene expression that can influence tumor heterogeneity and shows weak and varying expression levels among different genes. Gastric cancer (GC) is a highly heterogeneous cancer of the digestive system with a high mortality rate worldwide. The heterogeneous subtypes of GC lead to different prognoses. In this study, we explored the relationships between DNA methylation and gene expression levels by introducing a sparse low-rank regression model based on a GC dataset with 375 tumor samples and 32 normal samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. Differences in the DNA methylation levels and sites were found to be associated with differences in the expressed genes related to GC development. Overall, 29 methylation-driven genes were found to be related to the GC subtypes, and in the prognostic model, we explored five prognoses related to the methylation sites. Finally, based on a low-rank matrix, seven subgroups were identified with different methylation statuses. These specific classifications based on DNA methylation levels may help to account for heterogeneity and aid in personalized treatments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Weitong Cui ◽  
Huaru Xue ◽  
Lei Wei ◽  
Jinghua Jin ◽  
Xuewen Tian ◽  
...  

Abstract Background RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) has been widely applied in oncology for monitoring transcriptome changes. However, the emerging problem that high variation of gene expression levels caused by tumor heterogeneity may affect the reproducibility of differential expression (DE) results has rarely been studied. Here, we investigated the reproducibility of DE results for any given number of biological replicates between 3 and 24 and explored why a great many differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were not reproducible. Results Our findings demonstrate that poor reproducibility of DE results exists not only for small sample sizes, but also for relatively large sample sizes. Quite a few of the DEGs detected are specific to the samples in use, rather than genuinely differentially expressed under different conditions. Poor reproducibility of DE results is mainly caused by high variation of gene expression levels for the same gene in different samples. Even though biological variation may account for much of the high variation of gene expression levels, the effect of outlier count data also needs to be treated seriously, as outlier data severely interfere with DE analysis. Conclusions High heterogeneity exists not only in tumor tissue samples of each cancer type studied, but also in normal samples. High heterogeneity leads to poor reproducibility of DEGs, undermining generalization of differential expression results. Therefore, it is necessary to use large sample sizes (at least 10 if possible) in RNA-Seq experimental designs to reduce the impact of biological variability and DE results should be interpreted cautiously unless soundly validated.


Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Joon Seon Lee ◽  
Lexuan Gao ◽  
Laura Melissa Guzman ◽  
Loren H. Rieseberg

Approximately 10% of agricultural land is subject to periodic flooding, which reduces the growth, survivorship, and yield of most crops, reinforcing the need to understand and enhance flooding resistance in our crops. Here, we generated RNA-Seq data from leaf and root tissue of domesticated sunflower to explore differences in gene expression and alternative splicing (AS) between a resistant and susceptible cultivar under both flooding and control conditions and at three time points. Using a combination of mixed model and gene co-expression analyses, we were able to separate general responses of sunflower to flooding stress from those that contribute to the greater tolerance of the resistant line. Both cultivars responded to flooding stress by upregulating expression levels of known submergence responsive genes, such as alcohol dehydrogenases, and slowing metabolism-related activities. Differential AS reinforced expression differences, with reduced AS frequencies typically observed for genes with upregulated expression. Significant differences were found between the genotypes, including earlier and stronger upregulation of the alcohol fermentation pathway and a more rapid return to pre-flooding gene expression levels in the resistant genotype. Our results show how changes in the timing of gene expression following both the induction of flooding and release from flooding stress contribute to increased flooding tolerance.


Author(s):  
Chris A Glasbey ◽  
Thorsten Forster ◽  
Peter Ghazal

Digital images obtained by the laser scanning of spotted microarrays often include saturated pixel values. These arise when the scan settings are sufficiently high and some pixels exceed the limit L=65535 and are instead set to L. Failure to adjust for this censoring leads to biased estimates of gene expression levels. To impute censored values, we propose a linear model based on the principal components of uncensored spots on the same array. This is computationally fast, flexible to adapt to distinctive spot shapes and profiles on different arrays, and is shown to be more effective than the polynomial-hyperbolic model in correcting for the bias. The application to biological data demonstrates the potential for enhancing the dynamic range of detection. Fortran90 subroutines implementing these methods are available at http://www.bioss.ac.uk/~chris.


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