... Melody S. Clark · Keiron PP Fraser · Gavin Burns · Lloyd S. Peck ... and treated samples were... more ... Melody S. Clark · Keiron PP Fraser · Gavin Burns · Lloyd S. Peck ... and treated samples were derived using the Relative Expression Software tool (REST) (http:// www.gene-quantification.info/), which incorporates the PfaZ method and also uses a Pair Wise Fixed Reallocation ...
Harpagifer antarcticus (the Antarctic plunderfish), a shallow-water benthic fish distributed arou... more Harpagifer antarcticus (the Antarctic plunderfish), a shallow-water benthic fish distributed around the Antarctic Peninsula, is a member of the notothenioid family, one of whose adaptations to the cold waters of Antarctica has been the loss of the classic heat shock response. In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of temperature stress on H. antarcticus, we constructed a liver cDNA library and a 10,371 feature microarray. This was hybridized with material from a time course series of animals held at 6°C for 48h. The resulting expression profiles show that this fish displays the classical vertebrate acute inflammatory response. There was also a pronounced signal for increased energy requirements via up-regulation of genes involved in the β oxidation of fatty acids and also a strong signature of response to oxidative stress. Genes in the latter category did not include the "classic" antioxidants such as glutathione S-transferase, but genes involved in the production of reducing potential in the form of NADPH, peroxisome proliferation via peroxisomal acyl co-enzyme A oxidase 1 and genes known to be up-regulated by hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF1). These identifications provide clear support for oxygen being the whole animal limiting factor at least in acute short-term temperature challenges. The classical heat shock proteins were not up-regulated during this trial, although numerous clones for each were present on the gene chip, confirming the lack of this response in this species. These data significantly increase our knowledge of the cellular stress response from animals in this unique environment.
Brittle stars are included within a whole range of species, which contribute to knowledge in the ... more Brittle stars are included within a whole range of species, which contribute to knowledge in the medically important area of tissue regeneration. All brittle stars regenerate lose limbs, but the rate at which this occurs is highly variable and species-specific. One of the slowest rates of arm regeneration reported so far is that of the Antarctic Ophionotus victoriae. Additionally, O. victoriae also has an unusual delay in the onset of regeneration of about 5months. Both processes are of interest for the areas of regeneration biology and adaptation to cold environments. One method of understanding the details of regeneration events in brittle stars is to characterise the genes involved. In the largest transcriptome study of any ophiuroid to date, we describe the results of mRNA pyrosequencing from pooled samples of regenerating arms of O. victoriae. The sequencing reads resulted in 18,000 assembled contiguous sequences of which 19% were putatively annotated by blast sequence similarity searching. We focus on the identification of major gene families and pathways with potential relevance to the regenerative processes including the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, Hox genes, the SOX gene family and the TGF beta signalling pathways. These data significantly increase the amount of ophiuroid sequences publicly available and provide candidate transcripts for the further investigation of the unusual regenerative process in this Antarctic ophiuroid.
The ability of the Antarctic microarthropod Cryptopygus antarcticus (Collembola, Isotomidae) to s... more The ability of the Antarctic microarthropod Cryptopygus antarcticus (Collembola, Isotomidae) to survive low temperatures has been well studied at the physiological level, with recent investigations indicating the importance of the moulting process in conferring this ability. This study investigated gene expression in groups of C. antarcticus that have distinct differences in their ability to survive low temperatures. A microarray containing c. 5400 C. antarcticus expressed sequence tags was used to investigate gene expression differences between groups of animals with different supercooling points (SCP), and to low temperatures close to their SCP. By demonstrating the involvement of moult-related genes in the differential survival of two groups of C. antarcticus with distinct SCP profiles, the results of this investigation add support to the suggestion that moulting plays a role in conferring cold tolerance in C. antarcticus.
Histone modifications influence gene expression in complex ways. The RNA interference (RNAi) mach... more Histone modifications influence gene expression in complex ways. The RNA interference (RNAi) machinery can repress transcription by recruiting histone-modifying enzymes to chromatin, although it is not clear whether this is a general mechanism for gene silencing or whether it requires repeated sequences such as long terminal repeats (LTRs). We analyzed the global effects of the Clr3 and Clr6 histone deacetylases, the Clr4 methyltransferase, the zinc finger protein Clr1, and the RNAi proteins Dicer, RdRP, and Argonaute on the transcriptome of Schizosaccharomyces pombe (fission yeast). The clr mutants derepressed similar subsets of genes, many of which also became transcriptionally activated in cells that were exposed to environmental stresses such as nitrogen starvation. Many genes that were repressed by the Clr proteins clustered in extended regions close to the telomeres. Surprisingly few genes were repressed by both the silencing and RNAi machineries, with transcripts from centrom...
... Melody S. Clark · Keiron PP Fraser · Gavin Burns · Lloyd S. Peck ... and treated samples were... more ... Melody S. Clark · Keiron PP Fraser · Gavin Burns · Lloyd S. Peck ... and treated samples were derived using the Relative Expression Software tool (REST) (http:// www.gene-quantification.info/), which incorporates the PfaZ method and also uses a Pair Wise Fixed Reallocation ...
Harpagifer antarcticus (the Antarctic plunderfish), a shallow-water benthic fish distributed arou... more Harpagifer antarcticus (the Antarctic plunderfish), a shallow-water benthic fish distributed around the Antarctic Peninsula, is a member of the notothenioid family, one of whose adaptations to the cold waters of Antarctica has been the loss of the classic heat shock response. In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of temperature stress on H. antarcticus, we constructed a liver cDNA library and a 10,371 feature microarray. This was hybridized with material from a time course series of animals held at 6°C for 48h. The resulting expression profiles show that this fish displays the classical vertebrate acute inflammatory response. There was also a pronounced signal for increased energy requirements via up-regulation of genes involved in the β oxidation of fatty acids and also a strong signature of response to oxidative stress. Genes in the latter category did not include the "classic" antioxidants such as glutathione S-transferase, but genes involved in the production of reducing potential in the form of NADPH, peroxisome proliferation via peroxisomal acyl co-enzyme A oxidase 1 and genes known to be up-regulated by hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF1). These identifications provide clear support for oxygen being the whole animal limiting factor at least in acute short-term temperature challenges. The classical heat shock proteins were not up-regulated during this trial, although numerous clones for each were present on the gene chip, confirming the lack of this response in this species. These data significantly increase our knowledge of the cellular stress response from animals in this unique environment.
Brittle stars are included within a whole range of species, which contribute to knowledge in the ... more Brittle stars are included within a whole range of species, which contribute to knowledge in the medically important area of tissue regeneration. All brittle stars regenerate lose limbs, but the rate at which this occurs is highly variable and species-specific. One of the slowest rates of arm regeneration reported so far is that of the Antarctic Ophionotus victoriae. Additionally, O. victoriae also has an unusual delay in the onset of regeneration of about 5months. Both processes are of interest for the areas of regeneration biology and adaptation to cold environments. One method of understanding the details of regeneration events in brittle stars is to characterise the genes involved. In the largest transcriptome study of any ophiuroid to date, we describe the results of mRNA pyrosequencing from pooled samples of regenerating arms of O. victoriae. The sequencing reads resulted in 18,000 assembled contiguous sequences of which 19% were putatively annotated by blast sequence similarity searching. We focus on the identification of major gene families and pathways with potential relevance to the regenerative processes including the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, Hox genes, the SOX gene family and the TGF beta signalling pathways. These data significantly increase the amount of ophiuroid sequences publicly available and provide candidate transcripts for the further investigation of the unusual regenerative process in this Antarctic ophiuroid.
The ability of the Antarctic microarthropod Cryptopygus antarcticus (Collembola, Isotomidae) to s... more The ability of the Antarctic microarthropod Cryptopygus antarcticus (Collembola, Isotomidae) to survive low temperatures has been well studied at the physiological level, with recent investigations indicating the importance of the moulting process in conferring this ability. This study investigated gene expression in groups of C. antarcticus that have distinct differences in their ability to survive low temperatures. A microarray containing c. 5400 C. antarcticus expressed sequence tags was used to investigate gene expression differences between groups of animals with different supercooling points (SCP), and to low temperatures close to their SCP. By demonstrating the involvement of moult-related genes in the differential survival of two groups of C. antarcticus with distinct SCP profiles, the results of this investigation add support to the suggestion that moulting plays a role in conferring cold tolerance in C. antarcticus.
Histone modifications influence gene expression in complex ways. The RNA interference (RNAi) mach... more Histone modifications influence gene expression in complex ways. The RNA interference (RNAi) machinery can repress transcription by recruiting histone-modifying enzymes to chromatin, although it is not clear whether this is a general mechanism for gene silencing or whether it requires repeated sequences such as long terminal repeats (LTRs). We analyzed the global effects of the Clr3 and Clr6 histone deacetylases, the Clr4 methyltransferase, the zinc finger protein Clr1, and the RNAi proteins Dicer, RdRP, and Argonaute on the transcriptome of Schizosaccharomyces pombe (fission yeast). The clr mutants derepressed similar subsets of genes, many of which also became transcriptionally activated in cells that were exposed to environmental stresses such as nitrogen starvation. Many genes that were repressed by the Clr proteins clustered in extended regions close to the telomeres. Surprisingly few genes were repressed by both the silencing and RNAi machineries, with transcripts from centrom...
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