70 research outputs found
A high-throughput splinkerette-PCR method for the isolation and sequencing of retroviral insertion sites
Insertional mutagens such as viruses and transposons are a useful tool for performing forward genetic screens in mice to discover cancer genes. These screens are most effective when performed using hundreds of mice, however until recently a major limitation to performing screens on this scale has been the cost effective isolation and sequencing of insertion sites. Here we present a method for the high-throughput isolation of insertion sites using a highly efficient splinkerette-PCR method coupled with capillary or 454 sequencing. This protocol includes a description of the procedure for DNA isolation, DNA digestion, linker or splinkerette ligation, primary and secondary PCR amplification, and sequencing. This method, which takes about 1 week to perform, has allowed us to isolate hundreds of thousands of insertion sites from mouse tumours and, unlike other methods, has been specifically optimised for the isolation of insertion sites generated with the murine leukaemia virus (MuLV), and can easily be performed in 96 well plate format for the efficient multiplex isolation of insertion sites
Major Cellular and Physiological Impacts of Ocean Acidification on a Reef Building Coral
As atmospheric levels of CO2 increase, reef-building corals are under greater stress from both increased sea surface temperatures and declining sea water pH. To date, most studies have focused on either coral bleaching due to warming oceans or declining calcification due to decreasing oceanic carbonate ion concentrations. Here, through the use of physiology measurements and cDNA microarrays, we show that changes in pH and ocean chemistry consistent with two scenarios put forward by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) drive major changes in gene expression, respiration, photosynthesis and symbiosis of the coral, Acropora millepora, before affects on biomineralisation are apparent at the phenotype level. Under high CO2 conditions corals at the phenotype level lost over half their Symbiodinium populations, and had a decrease in both photosynthesis and respiration. Changes in gene expression were consistent with metabolic suppression, an increase in oxidative stress, apoptosis and symbiont loss. Other expression patterns demonstrate upregulation of membrane transporters, as well as the regulation of genes involved in membrane cytoskeletal interactions and cytoskeletal remodeling. These widespread changes in gene expression emphasize the need to expand future studies of ocean acidification to include a wider spectrum of cellular processes, many of which may occur before impacts on calcification
Insertional mutagenesis identifies multiple networks of cooperating genes driving intestinal tumorigenesis
The evolution of colorectal cancer suggests the involvement of many genes. We performed insertional mutagenesis with the Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon system in mice carrying germline or somatic Apc mutation. Analysis of common insertion sites (CISs) isolated from 446 tumors revealed many hundreds of candidate cancer drivers. Comparison to human datasets suggested that 234 CIS genes are also deregulated in human colorectal cancers. 183 CIS genes are candidate Wnt targets, and 20 are shown to be novel modifiers of canonical Wnt signaling. We also identified gene mutations associated with a subset of tumors containing an expanded number of Paneth cells, a hallmark of deregulated Wnt signaling, and genes associated with more severe dysplasia included members of the FGF signaling cascade. Some 70 genes showed pairwise co-occurrence clustering into 38 sub-networks that may regulate tumor development
Affiliation, equilibrium existence and the revenue ranking of auctions
We consider private value auctions where bidders’ types are dependent, a case usually
treated by assuming affiliation. We show that affiliation is a restrictive assumption in
three senses: topological, measure-theoretic and statistical (affiliation is a very
restrictive characterization of positive dependence). We also show that affiliation’s
main implications do not generalize for alternative definitions of positive dependence.
From this, we propose new approaches to the problems of pure strategy equilibrium
existence in first-price auctions (PSEE) and the characterization of the revenue ranking
of auctions. For equilibrium existence, we slightly restrict the set of distributions
considered, without loss of economic generality, and offer a complete characterization
of PSEE. For revenue ranking, we obtain a characterization of the expected revenue
differences between second and first price auctions with general dependence of types
Number of CISs per Scale Parameter
<p>Number of CISs for Various Scale Parameters (Corrected and Uncorrected), the csCISs, the Background-Corrected csCISs, and the CISs from the RTCGD. Background correction only has effect at larger scales.</p
Schematic Depiction of the Kernel Convolution Framework
<p>The insertions are convolved with a kernel function with a width determined by the scale parameter. In principle any kernel function can be used, but the Gaussian kernel function is depicted. The significance of the peaks is evaluated using a null-distribution computed by means of a random permutation of the data. This is done for a range of scale parameters to obtain the CISs in the scale space.</p
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