Morphologically defined sub-stages of C. elegans vulval development in the fourth larval stage

Background: During the fourth larval (L4) stage, vulval cells of C. elegans undergo extensive morphogenesis accompanied by changes in gene expression. This phase of vulval development, occurring after the well-studied induction of vulval cells, is not well understood but is potentially a useful context in which to study how a complex temporal sequence of events is regulated during development. However, a system for precisely describing different phases of vulval development in the L4 stage has been lacking. Results: We defined ten sub-stages of L4 based on morphological criteria as observed using Nomarski microscopy (L4.0 ~ L4.9). Precise timing of each sub-stage at 20 °C was determined. We also re-examined the timing of expression for several gene expression markers, and correlated the sub-stages with the timing of other developmental events in the vulva and the uterus. Conclusions: This scheme allows the developmental timing of an L4 individual to be determined at approximately one-hour resolution without the need to resort to time course experiments. These well-defined developmental stages will enable more precise description of gene expression and other developmental events

Respiratory Infections by HMPV and RSV Are Clinically Indistinguishable but Induce Different Host Response in Aged Individuals

Background: Human metapneumovirus and respiratory syncytial virus can cause severe respiratory diseases, especially in infants, young children, and the elderly. So far it remains unclear why infections in the elderly become life threatening despite the presence of neutralizing antibodies in the serum, and to which extent double infections worsen the clinical course. Methods: Young and aged BALB/c-mice were infected with RSV or/and HMPV. Appearance of the mice was observed during course of infection. On day 5 p.i. animals were dispatched by cervical dislocation and levels of TNF-a and NF-kB were determined. Results: The observation of activity, weight and appearance of the different mice showed no differences among the tested groups. Despite this, the immunologic response depends on the animals ’ age and the virus they were infected with. In young animals, NF-kB levels were elevated if infected with HMPV and HMPV/RSV but remained low in RSV infections, whereas in aged animals the opposite was observed: solely RSV-infected animals showed elevated levels of NF-kB. TNF-a was slightly elevated in HMPV-infected young and old animals, but only in young animals this elevation was significant. Conclusions: Contrary to other studies, no weight loss or change in activity despite productive lung infection with the different viruses were observed. This may be due to the weaker anaesthesia or the lesser volume of virus solution used

A multimodal cell census and atlas of the mammalian primary motor cortex

ABSTRACT We report the generation of a multimodal cell census and atlas of the mammalian primary motor cortex (MOp or M1) as the initial product of the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN). This was achieved by coordinated large-scale analyses of single-cell transcriptomes, chromatin accessibility, DNA methylomes, spatially resolved single-cell transcriptomes, morphological and electrophysiological properties, and cellular resolution input-output mapping, integrated through cross-modal computational analysis. Together, our results advance the collective knowledge and understanding of brain cell type organization: First, our study reveals a unified molecular genetic landscape of cortical cell types that congruently integrates their transcriptome, open chromatin and DNA methylation maps. Second, cross-species analysis achieves a unified taxonomy of transcriptomic types and their hierarchical organization that are conserved from mouse to marmoset and human. Third, cross-modal analysis provides compelling evidence for the epigenomic, transcriptomic, and gene regulatory basis of neuronal phenotypes such as their physiological and anatomical properties, demonstrating the biological validity and genomic underpinning of neuron types and subtypes. Fourth, in situ single-cell transcriptomics provides a spatially-resolved cell type atlas of the motor cortex. Fifth, integrated transcriptomic, epigenomic and anatomical analyses reveal the correspondence between neural circuits and transcriptomic cell types. We further present an extensive genetic toolset for targeting and fate mapping glutamatergic projection neuron types toward linking their developmental trajectory to their circuit function. Together, our results establish a unified and mechanistic framework of neuronal cell type organization that integrates multi-layered molecular genetic and spatial information with multi-faceted phenotypic properties

The effects of aging on host resistance and disease tolerance to SARS-CoV-2 infection

10.1111/febs.15613FEBS Journal288175055-507

Dysregulated metabolism underpins Zika-virus-infection-associated impairment in fetal development

10.1016/j.celrep.2021.110118Cell Reports371111011

A multimodal cell census and atlas of the mammalian primary motor cortex

none258Here we report the generation of a multimodal cell census and atlas of the mammalian primary motor cortex as the initial product of the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN). This was achieved by coordinated large-scale analyses of single-cell transcriptomes, chromatin accessibility, DNA methylomes, spatially resolved single-cell transcriptomes, morphological and electrophysiological properties and cellular resolution input-output mapping, integrated through cross-modal computational analysis. Our results advance the collective knowledge and understanding of brain cell-type organization1-5. First, our study reveals a unified molecular genetic landscape of cortical cell types that integrates their transcriptome, open chromatin and DNA methylation maps. Second, cross-species analysis achieves a consensus taxonomy of transcriptomic types and their hierarchical organization that is conserved from mouse to marmoset and human. Third, in situ single-cell transcriptomics provides a spatially resolved cell-type atlas of the motor cortex. Fourth, cross-modal analysis provides compelling evidence for the transcriptomic, epigenomic and gene regulatory basis of neuronal phenotypes such as their physiological and anatomical properties, demonstrating the biological validity and genomic underpinning of neuron types. We further present an extensive genetic toolset for targeting glutamatergic neuron types towards linking their molecular and developmental identity to their circuit function. Together, our results establish a unifying and mechanistic framework of neuronal cell-type organization that integrates multi-layered molecular genetic and spatial information with multi-faceted phenotypic properties.openCallaway, Edward M.; Dong, Hong-Wei; Ecker, Joseph R.; Hawrylycz, Michael J.; Huang, Z. Josh; Lein, Ed S.; Ngai, John; Osten, Pavel; Ren, Bing; Tolias, Andreas Savas; White, Owen; Zeng, Hongkui; Zhuang, Xiaowei; Ascoli, Giorgio A.; Behrens, M. Margarita; Chun, Jerold; Feng, Guoping; Gee, James C.; Ghosh, Satrajit S.; Halchenko, Yaroslav O.; Hertzano, Ronna; Lim, Byung Kook; Martone, Maryann E.; Ng, Lydia; Pachter, Lior; Ropelewski, Alexander J.; Tickle, Timothy L.; Yang, X. William; Zhang, Kun; Bakken, Trygve E.; Berens, Philipp; Daigle, Tanya L.; Harris, Julie A.; Jorstad, Nikolas L.; Kalmbach, Brian E.; Kobak, Dmitry; Li, Yang Eric; Liu, Hanqing; Matho, Katherine S.; Mukamel, Eran A.; Naeemi, Maitham; Scala, Federico; Tan, Pengcheng; Ting, Jonathan T.; Xie, Fangming; Zhang, Meng; Zhang, Zhuzhu; Zhou, Jingtian; Zingg, Brian; Armand, Ethan; Yao, Zizhen; Bertagnolli, Darren; Casper, Tamara; Crichton, Kirsten; Dee, Nick; Diep, Dinh; Ding, Song-Lin; Dong, Weixiu; Dougherty, Elizabeth L.; Fong, Olivia; Goldman, Melissa; Goldy, Jeff; Hodge, Rebecca D.; Hu, Lijuan; Keene, C. Dirk; Krienen, Fenna M.; Kroll, Matthew; Lake, Blue B.; Lathia, Kanan; Linnarsson, Sten; Liu, Christine S.; Macosko, Evan Z.; McCarroll, Steven A.; McMillen, Delissa; Nadaf, Naeem M.; Nguyen, Thuc Nghi; Palmer, Carter R.; Pham, Thanh; Plongthongkum, Nongluk; Reed, Nora M.; Regev, Aviv; Rimorin, Christine; Romanow, William J.; Savoia, Steven; Siletti, Kimberly; Smith, Kimberly; Sulc, Josef; Tasic, Bosiljka; Tieu, Michael; Torkelson, Amy; Tung, Herman; van Velthoven, Cindy T. J.; Vanderburg, Charles R.; Yanny, Anna Marie; Fang, Rongxin; Hou, Xiaomeng; Lucero, Jacinta D.; Osteen, Julia K.; Pinto-Duarte, Antonio; Poirion, Olivier; Preissl, Sebastian; Wang, Xinxin; Aldridge, Andrew I.; Bartlett, Anna; Boggeman, Lara; O’Connor, Carolyn; Castanon, Rosa G.; Chen, Huaming; Fitzpatrick, Conor; Luo, Chongyuan; Nery, Joseph R.; Nunn, Michael; Rivkin, Angeline C.; Tian, Wei; Dominguez, Bertha; Ito-Cole, Tony; Jacobs, Matthew; Jin, Xin; Lee, Cheng-Ta; Lee, Kuo-Fen; Miyazaki, Paula Assakura; Pang, Yan; Rashid, Mohammad; Smith, Jared B.; Vu, Minh; Williams, Elora; Biancalani, Tommaso; Booeshaghi, A. Sina; Crow, Megan; Dudoit, Sandrine; Fischer, Stephan; Gillis, Jesse; Hu, Qiwen; Kharchenko, Peter V.; Niu, Sheng-Yong; Ntranos, Vasilis; Purdom, Elizabeth; Risso, Davide; de Bézieux, Hector Roux; Somasundaram, Saroja; Street, Kelly; Svensson, Valentine; Vaishnav, Eeshit Dhaval; Van den Berge, Koen; Welch, Joshua D.; An, Xu; Bateup, Helen S.; Bowman, Ian; Chance, Rebecca K.; Foster, Nicholas N.; Galbavy, William; Gong, Hui; Gou, Lin; Hatfield, Joshua T.; Hintiryan, Houri; Hirokawa, Karla E.; Kim, Gukhan; Kramer, Daniel J.; Li, Anan; Li, Xiangning; Luo, Qingming; Muñoz-Castañeda, Rodrigo; Stafford, David A.; Feng, Zhao; Jia, Xueyan; Jiang, Shengdian; Jiang, Tao; Kuang, Xiuli; Larsen, Rachael; Lesnar, Phil; Li, Yaoyao; Li, Yuanyuan; Liu, Lijuan; Peng, Hanchuan; Qu, Lei; Ren, Miao; Ruan, Zongcai; Shen, Elise; Song, Yuanyuan; Wakeman, Wayne; Wang, Peng; Wang, Yimin; Wang, Yun; Yin, Lulu; Yuan, Jing; Zhao, Sujun; Zhao, Xuan; Narasimhan, Arun; Palaniswamy, Ramesh; Banerjee, Samik; Ding, Liya; Huilgol, Dhananjay; Huo, Bingxing; Kuo, Hsien-Chi; Laturnus, Sophie; Li, Xu; Mitra, Partha P.; Mizrachi, Judith; Wang, Quanxin; Xie, Peng; Xiong, Feng; Yu, Yang; Eichhorn, Stephen W.; Berg, Jim; Bernabucci, Matteo; Bernaerts, Yves; Cadwell, Cathryn René; Castro, Jesus Ramon; Dalley, Rachel; Hartmanis, Leonard; Horwitz, Gregory D.; Jiang, Xiaolong; Ko, Andrew L.; Miranda, Elanine; Mulherkar, Shalaka; Nicovich, Philip R.; Owen, Scott F.; Sandberg, Rickard; Sorensen, Staci A.; Tan, Zheng Huan; Allen, Shona; Hockemeyer, Dirk; Lee, Angus Y.; Veldman, Matthew B.; Adkins, Ricky S.; Ament, Seth A.; Bravo, Héctor Corrada; Carter, Robert; Chatterjee, Apaala; Colantuoni, Carlo; Crabtree, Jonathan; Creasy, Heather; Felix, Victor; Giglio, Michelle; Herb, Brian R.; Kancherla, Jayaram; Mahurkar, Anup; McCracken, Carrie; Nickel, Lance; Olley, Dustin; Orvis, Joshua; Schor, Michael; Hood, Greg; Dichter, Benjamin; Grauer, Michael; Helba, Brian; Bandrowski, Anita; Barkas, Nikolaos; Carlin, Benjamin; D’Orazi, Florence D.; Degatano, Kylee; Gillespie, Thomas H.; Khajouei, Farzaneh; Konwar, Kishori; Thompson, Carol; Kelly, Kathleen; Mok, Stephanie; Sunkin, SusanCallaway, Edward M.; Dong, Hong-Wei; Ecker, Joseph R.; Hawrylycz, Michael J.; Huang, Z. Josh; Lein, Ed S.; Ngai, John; Osten, Pavel; Ren, Bing; Tolias, Andreas Savas; White, Owen; Zeng, Hongkui; Zhuang, Xiaowei; Ascoli, Giorgio A.; Behrens, M. Margarita; Chun, Jerold; Feng, Guoping; Gee, James C.; Ghosh, Satrajit S.; Halchenko, Yaroslav O.; Hertzano, Ronna; Lim, Byung Kook; Martone, Maryann E.; Ng, Lydia; Pachter, Lior; Ropelewski, Alexander J.; Tickle, Timothy L.; Yang, X. William; Zhang, Kun; Bakken, Trygve E.; Berens, Philipp; Daigle, Tanya L.; Harris, Julie A.; Jorstad, Nikolas L.; Kalmbach, Brian E.; Kobak, Dmitry; Li, Yang Eric; Liu, Hanqing; Matho, Katherine S.; Mukamel, Eran A.; Naeemi, Maitham; Scala, Federico; Tan, Pengcheng; Ting, Jonathan T.; Xie, Fangming; Zhang, Meng; Zhang, Zhuzhu; Zhou, Jingtian; Zingg, Brian; Armand, Ethan; Yao, Zizhen; Bertagnolli, Darren; Casper, Tamara; Crichton, Kirsten; Dee, Nick; Diep, Dinh; Ding, Song-Lin; Dong, Weixiu; Dougherty, Elizabeth L.; Fong, Olivia; Goldman, Melissa; Goldy, Jeff; Hodge, Rebecca D.; Hu, Lijuan; Keene, C. Dirk; Krienen, Fenna M.; Kroll, Matthew; Lake, Blue B.; Lathia, Kanan; Linnarsson, Sten; Liu, Christine S.; Macosko, Evan Z.; Mccarroll, Steven A.; Mcmillen, Delissa; Nadaf, Naeem M.; Nguyen, Thuc Nghi; Palmer, Carter R.; Pham, Thanh; Plongthongkum, Nongluk; Reed, Nora M.; Regev, Aviv; Rimorin, Christine; Romanow, William J.; Savoia, Steven; Siletti, Kimberly; Smith, Kimberly; Sulc, Josef; Tasic, Bosiljka; Tieu, Michael; Torkelson, Amy; Tung, Herman; van Velthoven, Cindy T. J.; Vanderburg, Charles R.; Yanny, Anna Marie; Fang, Rongxin; Hou, Xiaomeng; Lucero, Jacinta D.; Osteen, Julia K.; Pinto-Duarte, Antonio; Poirion, Olivier; Preissl, Sebastian; Wang, Xinxin; Aldridge, Andrew I.; Bartlett, Anna; Boggeman, Lara; O’Connor, Carolyn; Castanon, Rosa G.; Chen, Huaming; Fitzpatrick, Conor; Luo, Chongyuan; Nery, Joseph R.; Nunn, Michael; Rivkin, Angeline C.; Tian, Wei; Dominguez, Bertha; Ito-Cole, Tony; Jacobs, Matthew; Jin, Xin; Lee, Cheng-Ta; Lee, Kuo-Fen; Miyazaki, Paula Assakura; Pang, Yan; Rashid, Mohammad; Smith, Jared B.; Vu, Minh; Williams, Elora; Biancalani, Tommaso; Booeshaghi, A. Sina; Crow, Megan; Dudoit, Sandrine; Fischer, Stephan; Gillis, Jesse; Hu, Qiwen; Kharchenko, Peter V.; Niu, Sheng-Yong; Ntranos, Vasilis; Purdom, Elizabeth; Risso, Davide; de Bézieux, Hector Roux; Somasundaram, Saroja; Street, Kelly; Svensson, Valentine; Vaishnav, Eeshit Dhaval; Van den Berge, Koen; Welch, Joshua D.; An, Xu; Bateup, Helen S.; Bowman, Ian; Chance, Rebecca K.; Foster, Nicholas N.; Galbavy, William; Gong, Hui; Gou, Lin; Hatfield, Joshua T.; Hintiryan, Houri; Hirokawa, Karla E.; Kim, Gukhan; Kramer, Daniel J.; Li, Anan; Li, Xiangning; Luo, Qingming; Muñoz-Castañeda, Rodrigo; Stafford, David A.; Feng, Zhao; Jia, Xueyan; Jiang, Shengdian; Jiang, Tao; Kuang, Xiuli; Larsen, Rachael; Lesnar, Phil; Li, Yaoyao; Li, Yuanyuan; Liu, Lijuan; Peng, Hanchuan; Qu, Lei; Ren, Miao; Ruan, Zongcai; Shen, Elise; Song, Yuanyuan; Wakeman, Wayne; Wang, Peng; Wang, Yimin; Wang, Yun; Yin, Lulu; Yuan, Jing; Zhao, Sujun; Zhao, Xuan; Narasimhan, Arun; Palaniswamy, Ramesh; Banerjee, Samik; Ding, Liya; Huilgol, Dhananjay; Huo, Bingxing; Kuo, Hsien-Chi; Laturnus, Sophie; Li, Xu; Mitra, Partha P.; Mizrachi, Judith; Wang, Quanxin; Xie, Peng; Xiong, Feng; Yu, Yang; Eichhorn, Stephen W.; Berg, Jim; Bernabucci, Matteo; Bernaerts, Yves; Cadwell, Cathryn René; Castro, Jesus Ramon; Dalley, Rachel; Hartmanis, Leonard; Horwitz, Gregory D.; Jiang, Xiaolong; Ko, Andrew L.; Miranda, Elanine; Mulherkar, Shalaka; Nicovich, Philip R.; Owen, Scott F.; Sandberg, Rickard; Sorensen, Staci A.; Tan, Zheng Huan; Allen, Shona; Hockemeyer, Dirk; Lee, Angus Y.; Veldman, Matthew B.; Adkins, Ricky S.; Ament, Seth A.; Bravo, Héctor Corrada; Carter, Robert; Chatterjee, Apaala; Colantuoni, Carlo; Crabtree, Jonathan; Creasy, Heather; Felix, Victor; Giglio, Michelle; Herb, Brian R.; Kancherla, Jayaram; Mahurkar, Anup; Mccracken, Carrie; Nickel, Lance; Olley, Dustin; Orvis, Joshua; Schor, Michael; Hood, Greg; Dichter, Benjamin; Grauer, Michael; Helba, Brian; Bandrowski, Anita; Barkas, Nikolaos; Carlin, Benjamin; D’Orazi, Florence D.; Degatano, Kylee; Gillespie, Thomas H.; Khajouei, Farzaneh; Konwar, Kishori; Thompson, Carol; Kelly, Kathleen; Mok, Stephanie; Sunkin, Susa