| 1. |
- Blixt, Maria K. E., et al.
(författare)
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Zinc finger gene nolz1 regulates the formation of retinal progenitor cells and suppresses the Lim3/Lhx3 phenotype of retinal bipolar cells in chicken retina
- 2018
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Ingår i: Developmental Dynamics. - : WILEY. - 1058-8388 .- 1097-0177. ; 247:4, s. 630-641
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The zinc-finger transcription factor Nolz1 regulates spinal cord neuron development by interacting with the transcription factors Isl1, Lim1, and Lim3, which are also important for photoreceptors, horizontal and bipolar cells during retinal development. We, therefore, studied Nolz1 during retinal development.Results: Nolz1 expression was seen in two waves during development: one early (peak at embryonic day 3-4.5) in retinal progenitors and one late (embryonic day 8) in newly differentiated cells in the inner nuclear layer. Overexpression and knockdown showed that Nolz1 decreases proliferation and stimulates cell cycle withdrawal in retinal progenitors with effects on the generation of retinal ganglion cells, photoreceptors, and horizontal cells without triggering apoptosis. Overexpression of Nolz1 gave more p27 positive cells. Sustained overexpression of Nolz1 in the retina gave fewer Lim3/Lhx3 bipolar cells.Conclusions: We conclude that Nolz1 has multiple functions during development and suggest a mechanism in which Nolz1 initially regulates the proliferation state of the retinal progenitor cells and then acts as a repressor that suppresses the Lim3/Lhx3 bipolar cell phenotype at the time of bipolar cell differentiation.
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| 2. |
- Blixt, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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MYCN induces cell-specific tumorigenic growth in RB1-proficient human retinal organoid and chicken retina models of retinoblastoma
- 2022
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Ingår i: Oncogenesis. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2157-9024. ; 11:1, s. 34-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Retinoblastoma is a rare, intraocular paediatric cancer that originates in the neural retina and is most frequently caused by bi-allelic loss of RB1 gene function. Other oncogenic mutations, such as amplification and increased expression of the MYCN gene, have been found even with proficient RB1 function. In this study, we investigated whether MYCN over-expression can drive carcinogenesis independently of RB1 loss-of-function mutations. The aim was to elucidate the events that result in carcinogenesis and identify the cancer cell-of-origin. We used the chicken retina, a well-established model for studying retinal neurogenesis, and established human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal organoids as model systems. We over-expressed MYCN by electroporation of piggyBac genome-integrating expression vectors. We found that over-expression of MYCN induced tumorigenic growth with high frequency in RB1-proficient chicken retinas and human organoids. In both systems, the tumorigenic cells expressed markers for undifferentiated cone photoreceptor/horizontal cell progenitors. The over-expression resulted in metastatic retinoblastoma within 7–9 weeks in chicken. Cells expressing MYCN could be grown in vitro and, when orthotopically injected, formed tumours that infiltrated the sclera and optic nerve and expressed markers for cone progenitors. Investigation of the tumour cell phenotype determined that the potential for neoplastic growth was embryonic stage-dependent and featured a cell-specific resistance to apoptosis in the cone/horizontal cell lineage, but not in ganglion or amacrine cells. We conclude that MYCN over-expression is sufficient to drive tumorigenesis and that a cell-specific resistance to apoptosis in the cone/horizontal cell lineage mediates the cancer phenotype.
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| 3. |
- Brusini, Irene, et al.
(författare)
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Changes in brain architecture are consistent with altered fear processing in domestic rabbits
- 2018
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 115:28, s. 7380-7385
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The most characteristic feature of domestic animals is their change in behavior associated with selection for tameness. Here we show, using high-resolution brain magnetic resonance imaging in wild and domestic rabbits, that domestication reduced amygdala volume and enlarged medial prefrontal cortex volume, supporting that areas driving fear have lost volume while areas modulating negative affect have gained volume during domestication. In contrast to the localized gray matter alterations, white matter anisotropy was reduced in the corona radiata, corpus callosum, and the subcortical white matter. This suggests a compromised white matter structural integrity in projection and association fibers affecting both afferent and efferent neural flow, consistent with reduced neural processing. We propose that compared with their wild ancestors, domestic rabbits are less fearful and have an attenuated flight response because of these changes in brain architecture.
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| 4. |
- Edwards, Steven J., et al.
(författare)
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High-Resolution Imaging of Tumor Spheroids and Organoids Enabled by Expansion Microscopy
- 2020
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2296-889X. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Three-dimensional cell cultures are able to better mimic the physiology and cellular environments found in tissuesin vivocompared to cells grown in two dimensions. In order to study the structure and function of cells in 3-D cultures, light microscopy is frequently used. The preparation of 3-D cell cultures for light microscopy is often destructive, including physical sectioning of the samples, which can result in the loss of 3-D information. In order to probe the structure of 3-D cell cultures at high resolution, we have explored the use of expansion microscopy and compared it to a simple immersion clearing protocol. We provide a practical method for the study of spheroids, organoids and tumor-infiltrating immune cells at high resolution without the loss of spatial organization. Expanded samples are highly transparent, enabling high-resolution imaging over extended volumes by significantly reducing light scatter and absorption. In addition, the hydrogel-like nature of expanded samples enables homogenous antibody labeling of dense epitopes throughout the sample volume. The improved labeling and image quality achieved in expanded samples revealed details in the center of the organoid which were previously only observable following serial sectioning. In comparison to chemically cleared spheroids, the improved signal-to-background ratio of expanded samples greatly improved subsequent methods for image segmentation and analysis.
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| 5. |
- Ring, Henrik, 1981-
(författare)
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Characterization of Retinal Progenitor Cells : Focus on Proliferation and the GABAA Receptor System
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- One strategy to repair an injured or degenerated retina is to stimulate the replacement of damaged or dead neurons with cells derived from endogenous stem- or progenitor cells. A successful strategy requires knowledge about how the proliferation and differentiation of the endogenous cells are regulated. In particular, this knowledge will be important in the establishment of protocols that produce sufficient numbers of specific neurons. The main aim of this thesis was to find and characterise factors regulating the proliferation and differentiation of retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) and hence, contribute to the knowledge of how to use progenitor cells for retinal repair. The major result in this thesis is that GABA contributes to and maintains RPC proliferation. Inhibition of GABAA receptors decreases the proliferation of non-pigmented ciliary epithelial (NPE) cells and RPCs in the intact retina. We propose that this effect is mediated through changes in the membrane potential and voltage-gated calcium channels, which in turn regulate components of the cell cycle. Furthermore, we show that one of the endogenous RPC sources, the Müller cells, consists of two subpopulations based on Pax2 expression. This is interesting because Pax2 may suppress the neurogenic potential, characterised by de-differentiation and proliferation, in Müller cells. Finally, we show that over-expression of FoxN4 induces differentiation-associated transcription factors in the developing chick retina. However, FoxN4 over-expression did not trigger differentiation of NPE cells. These results indicate that the intrinsic properties of the RPCs are determinant for FoxN4-induced differentiation.The results presented in this thesis advance our understanding of how specific cells may be generated from different sources of RPCs. Our results show that the different sources are highly diverse in their potential to proliferate and produce neurons. GABA, Pax2 and FoxN4 may be factors to consider when designing strategies for retinal repair. However, the results indicate that the specific responses to these factors are highly associated with the specific properties of the progenitor cells.
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| 6. |
- Sato, Daiki X., et al.
(författare)
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Brain Transcriptomics of Wild and Domestic Rabbits Suggests That Changes in Dopamine Signaling and Ciliary Function Contributed to Evolution of Tameness
- 2020
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Ingår i: Genome Biology and Evolution. - : OXFORD UNIV PRESS. - 1759-6653. ; 12:10, s. 1918-1928
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Domestication has resulted in immense phenotypic changes in animals despite their relatively short evolutionary history. The European rabbit is one of the most recently domesticated animals, but exhibits distinct morphological, physiological, and behavioral differences from their wild conspecifics. A previous study revealed that sequence variants with striking allele frequency differences between wild and domestic rabbits were enriched in conserved noncoding regions, in the vicinity of genes involved in nervous system development. This suggests that a large proportion of the genetic changes targeted by selection during domestication might affect gene regulation. Here, we generated RNA-sequencing data for four brain regions (amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, and parietal/temporal cortex) sampled at birth and revealed hundreds of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between wild and domestic rabbits. DEGs in amygdala were significantly enriched for genes associated with dopaminergic function and all 12 DEGs in this category showed higher expression in domestic rabbits. DEGs in hippocampus were enriched for genes associated with ciliary function, all 21 genes in this category showed lower expression in domestic rabbits. These results indicate an important role of dopamine signaling and ciliary function in the evolution of tameness during rabbit domestication. Our study shows that gene expression in specific pathways has been profoundly altered during domestication, but that the majority of genes showing differential expression in this study have not been the direct targets of selection.
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| 7. |
- Schwochow, Doreen, et al.
(författare)
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The evolution of Sex-linked barring alleles in chickens involves both regulatory and coding changes in CDKN2A
- 2017
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Ingår i: PLOS Genetics. - : PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE. - 1553-7390 .- 1553-7404. ; 13:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sex-linked barring is a fascinating plumage pattern in chickens recently shown to be associated with two non-coding and two missense mutations affecting the ARF transcript at the CDKN2A tumor suppressor locus. It however remained a mystery whether all four mutations are indeed causative and how they contribute to the barring phenotype. Here, we show that Sex-linked barring is genetically heterogeneous, and that the mutations form three functionally different variant alleles. The B0 allele carries only the two non-coding changes and is associated with the most dilute barring pattern, whereas the B1 and B2 alleles carry both the two non-coding changes and one each of the two missense mutations causing the Sex-linked barring and Sex-linked dilution phenotypes, respectively. The data are consistent with evolution of alleles where the non-coding changes occurred first followed by the two missense mutations that resulted in a phenotype more appealing to humans. We show that one or both of the non-coding changes are cis-regulatory mutations causing a higher CDKN2A expression, whereas the missense mutations reduce the ability of ARF to interact with MDM2. Caspase assays for all genotypes revealed no apoptotic events and our results are consistent with a recent study indicating that the loss of melanocyte progenitors in Sex-linked barring in chicken is caused by premature differentiation and not apoptosis. Our results show that CDKN2A is a major locus driving the differentiation of avian melanocytes in a temporal and spatial manner.
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