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Biomedical subjects

Nathan Mise

Publications and source records attributed to Nathan Mise.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Comparison of gene expression in male and female mouse blastocysts revealed imprinting of the X-linked gene, Rhox5/Pem, at preimplantation stages.

Mammalian male preimplantation embryos develop more quickly than females . Using enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-tagged X chromosomes to identify the sex of the embryos, we compared gene expression patterns between male and female mouse blastocysts by DNA microarray. We detected nearly 600 genes with statistically significant sex-linked expression; most differed by 2-fold or less. Of 11 genes showing greater than 2.5-fold differences, four were expressed exclusively or nearly exclusively sex dependently. Two genes (Dby and Eif2s3y) were mapped to the Y chromosome and were expressed in male blastocysts. The remaining two (Rhox5/Pem and Xist) were mapped to the X chromosome and were predominantly expressed in female blastocysts. Moreover, Rhox5/Pem was expressed predominantly from the paternally inherited X chromosome, indicating sex differences in early epigenetic gene regulation.

Animals↗

Transient strong reduction of PTEN expression by specific RNAi induces loss of adhesion of the cells.

The tumor suppressor gene pten encodes a lipid phosphatase that dephosphorylates D3 of phosphatidylinositol(3,4,5)trisphosphate, producing phosphatidylinositol(4,5)bisphosphate. Although PTEN has been implicated in cell adhesion and migration, the underlying molecular mechanism is unknown. To investigate the role of PTEN in cell adhesion, we designed three different siRNAs (siRNA PTEN-a, siRNA PTEN-b, and siRNA PTEN-c) and transfected into 293T cells. Two days later, only the cells transfected with siRNA PTEN-b became round and detached from the culture dishes, whereas cells transfected with a control siRNA against GFP or the two other siRNAs against PTEN did not. Evaluation of the RNAi effect revealed that siRNA PTEN-b inhibited >95% of PTEN expression, the most effective among the three siRNAs. To check for non-specific effects such as interferon response and inhibition of off-target genes, we then used quantitative PCR analysis and DNA microarray analysis. None was detected, indicating that the RNAi system was highly specific. Immunofluorescence studies using PTEN-knockdown HeLa cells revealed that the loss of adhesion was accompanied by a reduction in the number of focal adhesion plaques and disorganization of the actin cytoskeleton. Transient and near-complete loss of PTEN expression induces loss of adhesion of the cells.

Apoptosis↗

Disclosing hidden transcripts: mouse natural sense-antisense transcripts tend to be poly(A) negative and nuclear localized.

Genome-wide in silico analysis identified thousands of natural sense-antisense transcript (SAT) pairs in the mouse transcriptome. We investigated their expression using strand-specific oligo-microarray that distinguishes expression of sense and antisense RNA from 1947 SAT pairs. The majority of the predicted SATs are expressed at various steady-state levels in various tissues, and cluster analysis of the array data demonstrated that the ratio of sense and antisense expression for some of the SATs fluctuated markedly among these tissues, while the rest was unchanged. Surprisingly, further analyses indicated that vast amounts of multiple-sized transcripts are expressed from the SAT loci, which tended to be poly(A) negative, and nuclear localized. The tendency that the SATs are often not polyadenylated is conserved, even in the randomly chosen SAT genes in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Such common characteristics imply general roles of the SATs in regulation of gene expression.

Animals↗

Birth of mice produced by germ cell nuclear transfer.

That mammals can be cloned by nuclear transfer indicates that it is possible to reprogram the somatic cell genome to support full development. However, the developmental plasticity of germ cells is difficult to assess because genomic imprinting, which is essential for normal fetal development, is being reset at this stage. The anomalous influence of imprinting is corroborated by the poor development of mouse clones produced from primordial germ cells (PGCs) during imprinting erasure at embryonic day 11.5 or later. However, this can also be interpreted to mean that, unlike somatic cells, the genome of differentiated germ cells cannot be fully reprogrammed. We used younger PGCs (day 10.5) and eventually obtained four full-term fetuses. DNA methylation analyses showed that only embryos exhibiting normal imprinting developed to term. Thus, germ cell differentiation is not an insurmountable barrier to cloning, and imprinting status is more important than the origin of the nucleus donor cell per se as a determinant of developmental plasticity following nuclear transfer.

Animals↗