63 research outputs found
Celeganser: Automated Analysis of Nematode Morphology and Age
The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) serves as an important model
organism in a wide variety of biological studies. In this paper we introduce a
pipeline for automated analysis of C. elegans imagery for the purpose of
studying life-span, health-span and the underlying genetic determinants of
aging. Our system detects and segments the worm, and predicts body coordinates
at each pixel location inside the worm. These coordinates provide dense
correspondence across individual animals to allow for meaningful comparative
analysis. We show that a model pre-trained to perform body-coordinate
regression extracts rich features that can be used to predict the age of
individual worms with high accuracy. This lays the ground for future research
in quantifying the relation between organs' physiologic and biochemical state,
and individual life/health-span.Comment: Computer Vision for Microscopy Image Analysis (CVMI) 202
Predicting all-cause mortality from basic physiology in the Framingham Heart Study
Using longitudinal data from a cohort of 1349 participants in the Framingham Heart Study, we show that as early as 28â38Â years of age, almost 10% of variation in future lifespan can be predicted from simple clinical parameters. Specifically, we found diastolic and systolic blood pressure, blood glucose, weight, and body mass index (BMI) to be relevant to lifespan. These and similar parameters have been wellâcharacterized as risk factors in the relatively narrow context of cardiovascular disease and mortality in middle to old age. In contrast, we demonstrate here that such measures can be used to predict allâcause mortality from midâadulthood onward. Further, we find that different clinical measurements are predictive of lifespan in different age regimes. Specifically, blood pressure and BMI are predictive of allâcause mortality from ages 35 to 60, while blood glucose is predictive from ages 57 to 73. Moreover, we find that several of these parameters are best considered as measures of a rate of âdamage accrualâ, such that total historical exposure, rather than current measurement values, is the most relevant risk factor (as with packâyears of cigarette smoking). In short, we show that simple physiological measurements have broader lifespanâpredictive value than indicated by previous work and that incorporating information from multiple time points can significantly increase that predictive capacity. In general, our results apply equally to both men and women, although some differences exist
A microRNA feedback loop regulates global microRNA abundance during aging
Expression levels of many microRNAs (miRNAs) change during aging, notably declining globally in a number of organisms and tissues across taxa. However, little is known about the mechanisms or the biological relevance for this change. We investigated the network of genes that controls miRNA transcription and processing during C. elegans aging. We found that miRNA biogenesis genes are highly networked with transcription factors and aging-associated miRNAs. In particular, miR-71, known to influence life span and itself up-regulated during aging, represses alg-1/Argonaute expression post-transcriptionally during aging. Increased ALG-1 abundance in mir-71 loss-of-function mutants led to globally increased miRNA expression. Interestingly, these mutants demonstrated widespread mRNA expression dysregulation and diminished levels of variability both in gene expression and in overall life span. Thus, the progressive molecular decline often thought to be the result of accumulated damage over an organism's life may be partially explained by a miRNA-directed mechanism of age-associated decline.</jats:p
Transcriptional (dys)regulation and aging in Caenorhabditis elegans
New work could link laboratory-defined longevity pathways to the process of normal aging
High temporal resolution measurements of movement reveal novel early-life physiological decline in C. elegans
Age-related physiological changes are most notable and best-studied late in life, while the nature of aging in early- or middle-aged individuals has not been explored as thoroughly. In C. elegans, many studies of movement vs. age generally focus on three distinct phases: sustained, youthful movement; onset of rapidly progressing impairment; and gross immobility. We investigated whether this first period of early-life adult movement is a sustained healthy level of high function followed by a discrete movement catastrophe -or whether there are early-life changes in movement that precede future physiological declines. To determine how movement varies during early adult life, we followed isolated individuals throughout life with a previously unachieved combination of duration and temporal resolution. By tracking individuals across the first six days of adulthood, we observed declines in movement starting as early as the first two days of adult life, as well as high interindividual variability in total daily movement. These findings suggest that movement is a highly dynamic behavior early in life, and that factors driving movement decline may begin acting as early as the first day of adulthood. Using simulation studies based on acquired data, we suggest that too-infrequent sampling in common movement assays limits observation of early-adult changes in motility, and we propose feasible strategies and a framework for designing assays with increased sensitivity for early movement declines
Dynamic expression of small non-coding RNAs, including novel microRNAs and piRNAs/21U-RNAs, during Caenorhabditis elegans development
A deep-sequencing approach to profiling gender-specific developmental regulation of small non-coding RNA expression in C. elegans reveals dynamic temporal expression and novel miRNAs and 21U RNAs
Global, cell non-autonomous gene regulation drives individual lifespan among isogenic C. elegans
Across species, lifespan is highly variable among individuals within a population. Even genetically identica
Functional trajectories during innate spinal cord repair
Adult zebrafish are capable of anatomical and functional recovery following severe spinal cord injury. Axon growth, glial bridging and adult neurogenesis are hallmarks of cellular regeneration during spinal cord repair. However, the correlation between these cellular regenerative processes and functional recovery remains to be elucidated. Whereas the majority of established functional regeneration metrics measure swim capacity, we hypothesize that gait quality is more directly related to neurological health. Here, we performed a longitudinal swim tracking study for 60 individual zebrafish spanning 8 weeks of spinal cord regeneration. Multiple swim parameters as well as axonal and glial bridging were integrated. We established rostral compensation as a new gait quality metric that highly correlates with functional recovery. Tensor component analysis of longitudinal data supports a correspondence between functional recovery trajectories and neurological outcomes. Moreover, our studies predicted and validated that a subset of functional regeneration parameters measured 1 to 2 weeks post-injury is sufficient to predict the regenerative outcomes of individual animals at 8 weeks post-injury. Our findings established new functional regeneration parameters and generated a comprehensive correlative database between various functional and cellular regeneration outputs
Emergence of Large-Scale Cell Morphology and Movement from Local Actin Filament Growth Dynamics
Variations in cell migration and morphology are consequences of changes in underlying cytoskeletal organization and dynamics. We investigated how these large-scale cellular events emerge as direct consequences of small-scale cytoskeletal molecular activities. Because the properties of the actin cytoskeleton can be modulated by actin-remodeling proteins, we quantitatively examined how one such family of proteins, enabled/vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (Ena/VASP), affects the migration and morphology of epithelial fish keratocytes. Keratocytes generally migrate persistently while exhibiting a characteristic smooth-edged âcanoeâ shape, but may also exhibit less regular morphologies and less persistent movement. When we observed that the smooth-edged canoe keratocyte morphology correlated with enrichment of Ena/VASP at the leading edge, we mislocalized and overexpressed Ena/VASP proteins and found that this led to changes in the morphology and movement persistence of cells within a population. Thus, local changes in actin filament dynamics due to Ena/VASP activity directly caused changes in cell morphology, which is coupled to the motile behavior of keratocytes. We also characterized the range of natural cell-to-cell variation within a population by using measurable morphological and behavioral featuresâcell shape, leading-edge shape, filamentous actin (F-actin) distribution, cell speed, and directional persistenceâthat we have found to correlate with each other to describe a spectrum of coordinated phenotypes based on Ena/VASP enrichment at the leading edge. This spectrum stretched from smooth-edged, canoe-shaped keratocytesâwhich had VASP highly enriched at their leading edges and migrated fast with straight trajectoriesâto more irregular, rounder cells migrating slower with less directional persistence and low levels of VASP at their leading edges. We developed a mathematical model that accounts for these coordinated cell-shape and behavior phenotypes as large-scale consequences of kinetic contributions of VASP to actin filament growth and protection from capping at the leading edge. This work shows that the local effects of actin-remodeling proteins on cytoskeletal dynamics and organization can manifest as global modifications of the shape and behavior of migrating cells and that mathematical modeling can elucidate these large-scale cell behaviors from knowledge of detailed multiscale protein interactions
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