Improving Productive and Reproductive Performance of Holstein Dairy Cows through Dry Period Management

To determine the effects of dry period (DP) length on milk yield, milk composition, some blood metabolites, complete blood count (CBC), body weight and score and follicular status, twenty five primiparous and multiparous Holstein cows were assigned to a completely randomized design with DP-60 (n = 13) and DP-20 (n = 12) dry period lengths. Cows in the DP-60 produced more milk, protein, SNF, serum non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) and beta hydroxyl butyrate acid (BHBA) compared with cows in DP-20 (p≤0.05). Serum glucose, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), urea, and glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT) were all similar among the treatments. Body Condition Score (BCS), body weight (BW), complete blood count (CBC) and health problems were similar between the treatments. Diameter of the first dominant follicle and diameter of the dominant follicle on d 14 were different among the treatments. Thus, results of this study showed that reducing the dry period length to DP-20 had a negative effect on milk production, milk composition and reproductive performance in Holstein dairy cows

The Specificity of the FOXL2 c.402C>G Somatic Mutation: A Survey of Solid Tumors

A somatic mutation in the FOXL2 gene is reported to be present in almost all (97%; 86/89) morphologically defined, adult-type, granulosa-cell tumors (A-GCTs). This FOXL2 c.402C>G mutation changes a highly conserved cysteine residue to a tryptophan (p.C134W). It was also found in a minority of other ovarian malignant stromal tumors, but not in benign ovarian stromal tumors or unrelated ovarian tumors or breast cancers.Herein we studied other cancers and cell lines for the presence of this mutation. We screened DNA from 752 tumors of epithelial and mesenchymal origin and 28 ovarian cancer cell lines and 52 other cancer cell lines of varied origin. We found the FOXL2 c.402C>G mutation in an unreported A-GCT case and the A-GCT-derived cell line KGN. All other tumors and cell lines analyzed were mutation negative.In addition to proving that the KGN cell line is a useful model to study A-GCTs, these data show that the c.402C>G mutation in FOXL2 is not commonly found in a wide variety of other cancers and therefore it is likely pathognomonic for A-GCTs and closely related tumors

Micro-ribonucleic acid-155 is a direct target of Meis1, but not a driver in acute myeloid leukemia

Micro-ribonucleic acid-155 (miR-155) is one of the first described oncogenic miRNAs. Although multiple direct targets of miR-155 have been identified, it is not clear how it contributes to the pathogenesis of acute myeloid leukemia. We found miR-155 to be a direct target of Meis1 in murine Hoxa9/Meis1 induced acute myeloid leukemia. The additional overexpression of miR-155 accelerated the formation of acute myeloid leukemia in Hoxa9 as well as in Hoxa9/Meis1 cells However, in the absence or following the removal of miR-155, leukemia onset and progression were unaffected. Although miR-155 accelerated growth and homing in addition to impairing differentiation, our data underscore the pathophysiological relevance of miR-155 as an accelerator rather than a driver of leukemogenesis. This further highlights the complexity of the oncogenic program of Meis1 to compensate for the loss of a potent oncogene such as miR-155. These findings are highly relevant to current and developing approaches for targeting miR-155 in acute myeloid leukemia

Exome sequencing of pleuropulmonary blastoma reveals frequent biallelic loss of TP53 and two hits in DICER1 resulting in retention of 5p-derived miRNA hairpin loop sequences

Pleuropulmonary blastoma is a rare childhood malignancy of lung mesenchymal cells that can remain dormant as epithelial cysts or progress to high-grade sarcoma. Predisposing germline loss-of-function DICER1 variants have been described. We sought to uncover additional contributors through whole exome sequencing of 15 tumor/normal pairs, followed by targeted resequencing, miRNA analysis and immunohistochemical analysis of additional tumors. In addition to frequent biallelic loss of TP53 and mutations of NRAS or BRAF in some cases, each case had compound disruption of DICER1: a germline (12 cases) or somatic (3 cases) loss-of-function variant plus a somatic missense mutation in the RNase IIIb domain. 5p-Derived microRNA (miRNA) transcripts retained abnormal precursor miRNA loop sequences normally removed by DICER1. This work both defines a genetic interaction landscape with DICER1 mutation and provides evidence for alteration in miRNA transcripts as a consequence of DICER1 disruption in cancer

deFuse: An Algorithm for Gene Fusion Discovery in Tumor RNA-Seq Data

Gene fusions created by somatic genomic rearrangements are known to play an important role in the onset and development of some cancers, such as lymphomas and sarcomas. RNA-Seq (whole transcriptome shotgun sequencing) is proving to be a useful tool for the discovery of novel gene fusions in cancer transcriptomes. However, algorithmic methods for the discovery of gene fusions using RNA-Seq data remain underdeveloped. We have developed deFuse, a novel computational method for fusion discovery in tumor RNA-Seq data. Unlike existing methods that use only unique best-hit alignments and consider only fusion boundaries at the ends of known exons, deFuse considers all alignments and all possible locations for fusion boundaries. As a result, deFuse is able to identify fusion sequences with demonstrably better sensitivity than previous approaches. To increase the specificity of our approach, we curated a list of 60 true positive and 61 true negative fusion sequences (as confirmed by RT-PCR), and have trained an adaboost classifier on 11 novel features of the sequence data. The resulting classifier has an estimated value of 0.91 for the area under the ROC curve. We have used deFuse to discover gene fusions in 40 ovarian tumor samples, one ovarian cancer cell line, and three sarcoma samples. We report herein the first gene fusions discovered in ovarian cancer. We conclude that gene fusions are not infrequent events in ovarian cancer and that these events have the potential to substantially alter the expression patterns of the genes involved; gene fusions should therefore be considered in efforts to comprehensively characterize the mutational profiles of ovarian cancer transcriptomes

The International Human Epigenome Consortium: A Blueprint for Scientific Collaboration and Discovery

The International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC) coordinates the generation of a catalog of high-resolution reference epigenomes of major primary human cell types. The studies now presented (see the Cell Press IHEC web portal at http://www.cell.com/consortium/IHEC) highlight the coordinated achievements of IHEC teams to gather and interpret comprehensive epigenomic datasets to gain insights in the epigenetic control of cell states relevant for human health and disease