@article {410, title = {LRH-1 agonism favours an immune-islet dialogue which protects against diabetes mellitus.}, journal = {Nat Commun}, volume = {9}, year = {2018}, month = {2018 04 16}, pages = {1488}, abstract = {

Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is due to the selective destruction of islet beta cells by immune cells. Current therapies focused on repressing the immune attack or stimulating beta cell regeneration still have limited clinical efficacy. Therefore, it is timely to identify innovative targets to dampen the immune process, while promoting beta cell survival and function. Liver receptor homologue-1 (LRH-1) is a nuclear receptor that represses inflammation in digestive organs, and protects pancreatic islets against apoptosis. Here, we show that BL001, a small LRH-1 agonist, impedes hyperglycemia progression and the immune-dependent inflammation of pancreas in murine models of T1DM, and beta cell apoptosis in islets of type 2 diabetic patients, while increasing beta cell mass and insulin secretion. Thus, we suggest that LRH-1 agonism favors a dialogue between immune and islet cells, which could be druggable to protect against diabetes mellitus.

}, keywords = {Animals, Apoptosis, Cell Communication, Cell Survival, Diabetes Mellitus, Experimental, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Female, Gene Expression Regulation, Humans, Hypoglycemic Agents, Immunity, Innate, insulin, Insulin-Secreting Cells, Islets of Langerhans, Islets of Langerhans Transplantation, Macrophages, Male, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Phenalenes, Receptors, Cytoplasmic and Nuclear, Streptozocin, T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory, Transplantation, Heterologous}, issn = {2041-1723}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-018-03943-0}, author = {Cobo-Vuilleumier, Nadia and Lorenzo, Petra I and Rodr{\'\i}guez, Noelia Garc{\'\i}a and Herrera G{\'o}mez, Irene de Gracia and Fuente-Martin, Esther and L{\'o}pez-Noriega, Livia and Mellado-Gil, Jos{\'e} Manuel and Romero-Zerbo, Silvana-Yanina and Baqui{\'e}, Mathurin and Lachaud, Christian Claude and Stifter, Katja and Perdomo, German and Bugliani, Marco and De Tata, Vincenzo and Bosco, Domenico and Parnaud, Geraldine and Pozo, David and Hmadcha, Abdelkrim and Florido, Javier P and Toscano, Miguel G and de Haan, Peter and Schoonjans, Kristina and S{\'a}nchez Palaz{\'o}n, Luis and Marchetti, Piero and Schirmbeck, Reinhold and Mart{\'\i}n-Montalvo, Alejandro and Meda, Paolo and Soria, Bernat and Berm{\'u}dez-Silva, Francisco-Javier and St-Onge, Luc and Gauthier, Benoit R} } @article {850, title = {A large scale survey reveals that chromosomal copy-number alterations significantly affect gene modules involved in cancer initiation and progression}, journal = {BMC Medical Genomics}, volume = {4}, year = {2011}, month = {06/05/2011}, pages = {37}, type = {Research article}, abstract = {

Background

Recent observations point towards the existence of a large number of neighborhoods composed of functionally-related gene modules that lie together in the genome. This local component in the distribution of the functionality across chromosomes is probably affecting the own chromosomal architecture by limiting the possibilities in which genes can be arranged and distributed across the genome. As a direct consequence of this fact it is therefore presumable that diseases such as cancer, harboring DNA copy number alterations (CNAs), will have a symptomatology strongly dependent on modules of functionally-related genes rather than on a unique \"important\" gene.

Methods

We carried out a systematic analysis of more than 140,000 observations of CNAs in cancers and searched by enrichments in gene functional modules associated to high frequencies of loss or gains.

Results

The analysis of CNAs in cancers clearly demonstrates the existence of a significant pattern of loss of gene modules functionally related to cancer initiation and progression along with the amplification of modules of genes related to unspecific defense against xenobiotics (probably chemotherapeutical agents). With the extension of this analysis to an Array-CGH dataset (glioblastomas) from The Cancer Genome Atlas we demonstrate the validity of this approach to investigate the functional impact of CNAs.

Conclusions

The presented results indicate promising clinical and therapeutic implications. Our findings also directly point out to the necessity of adopting a function-centric, rather a gene-centric, view in the understanding of phenotypes or diseases harboring CNAs.

}, issn = {1755-8794}, doi = {10.1186/1755-8794-4-37}, url = {http://www.biomedcentral.com/1755-8794/4/37}, author = {Alloza, E. and Fatima Al-Shahrour and Cigudosa, J. C. and Dopazo, J.} } @article {535, title = {Large-scale transcriptional profiling and functional assays reveal important roles for Rho-GTPase signalling and SCL during haematopoietic differentiation of human embryonic stem cells.}, journal = {Hum Mol Genet}, volume = {20}, year = {2011}, month = {2011 Dec 15}, pages = {4932-46}, abstract = {

Understanding the transcriptional cues that direct differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human-induced pluripotent stem cells to defined and functional cell types is essential for future clinical applications. In this study, we have compared transcriptional profiles of haematopoietic progenitors derived from hESCs at various developmental stages of a feeder- and serum-free differentiation method and show that the largest transcriptional changes occur during the first 4 days of differentiation. Data mining on the basis of molecular function revealed Rho-GTPase signalling as a key regulator of differentiation. Inhibition of this pathway resulted in a significant reduction in the numbers of emerging haematopoietic progenitors throughout the differentiation window, thereby uncovering a previously unappreciated role for Rho-GTPase signalling during human haematopoietic development. Our analysis indicated that SCL was the 11th most upregulated transcript during the first 4 days of the hESC differentiation process. Overexpression of SCL in hESCs promoted differentiation to meso-endodermal lineages, the emergence of haematopoietic and erythro-megakaryocytic progenitors and accelerated erythroid differentiation. Importantly, intrasplenic transplantation of SCL-overexpressing hESC-derived haematopoietic cells enhanced recovery from induced acute anaemia without significant cell engraftment, suggesting a paracrine-mediated effect.

}, keywords = {Acute Disease, Anemia, Hemolytic, Animals, Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Transcription Factors, Cell Differentiation, Cell Line, Cell Lineage, Cluster Analysis, Embryonic Stem Cells, Erythroid Cells, Flow Cytometry, Gene Expression Profiling, Hematopoietic Stem Cells, Humans, Mice, Myeloid Cells, Paracrine Communication, Proto-Oncogene Proteins, Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction, rho GTP-Binding Proteins, Signal Transduction, Stem Cell Transplantation, T-Cell Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Protein 1, Transcriptome}, issn = {1460-2083}, doi = {10.1093/hmg/ddr431}, author = {Yung, Sun and Ledran, Maria and Moreno-Gimeno, Inmaculada and Conesa, Ana and Montaner, David and Dopazo, Joaquin and Dimmick, Ian and Slater, Nicholas J and Marenah, Lamin and Real, Pedro J and Paraskevopoulou, Iliana and Bisbal, Viviana and Burks, Deborah and Santibanez-Koref, Mauro and Moreno, Ruben and Mountford, Joanne and Menendez, Pablo and Armstrong, Lyle and Lako, Majlinda} } @article {18652646, title = {Large-scale Gene Ontology analysis of plant transcriptome-derived sequences retrieved by AFLP technology}, journal = {BMC Genomics}, volume = {9}, year = {2008}, note = {

Botton, Alessandro Galla, Giulio Conesa, Ana Bachem, Christian Ramina, Angelo Barcaccia, Gianni England BMC genomics BMC Genomics. 2008 Jul 24;9:347.

}, pages = {347}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: After 10-year-use of AFLP (Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism) technology for DNA fingerprinting and mRNA profiling, large repertories of genome- and transcriptome-derived sequences are available in public databases for model, crop and tree species. AFLP marker systems have been and are being extensively exploited for genome scanning and gene mapping, as well as cDNA-AFLP for transcriptome profiling and differentially expressed gene cloning. The evaluation, annotation and classification of genomic markers and expressed transcripts would be of great utility for both functional genomics and systems biology research in plants. This may be achieved by means of the Gene Ontology (GO), consisting in three structured vocabularies (i.e. ontologies) describing genes, transcripts and proteins of any organism in terms of their associated cellular component, biological process and molecular function in a species-independent manner. In this paper, the functional annotation of about 8,000 AFLP-derived ESTs retrieved in the NCBI databases was carried out by using GO terminology. RESULTS: Descriptive statistics on the type, size and nature of gene sequences obtained by means of AFLP technology were calculated. The gene products associated with mRNA transcripts were then classified according to the three main GO vocabularies. A comparison of the functional content of cDNA-AFLP records was also performed by splitting the sequence dataset into monocots and dicots and by comparing them to all annotated ESTs of Arabidopsis and rice, respectively. On the whole, the statistical parameters adopted for the in silico AFLP-derived transcriptome-anchored sequence analysis proved to be critical for obtaining reliable GO results. Such an exhaustive annotation may offer a suitable platform for functional genomics, particularly useful in non-model species. CONCLUSION: Reliable GO annotations of AFLP-derived sequences can be gathered through the optimization of the experimental steps and the statistical parameters adopted. The Blast2GO software was shown to represent a comprehensive bioinformatics solution for an annotation-based functional analysis. According to the whole set of GO annotations, the AFLP technology generates thorough information for angiosperm gene products and shares common features across angiosperm species and families. The utility of this technology for structural and functional genomics in plants can be implemented by serial annotation analyses of genome-anchored fragments and organ/tissue-specific repertories of transcriptome-derived fragments.

}, url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve\&db=PubMed\&dopt=Citation\&list_uids=18652646}, author = {Botton, A. and Galla, G. and A. Conesa and Bachem, C. and Ramina, A. and Barcaccia, G.} } @inbook {480, title = {La clasificaci{\'o}n de los organismos}, booktitle = {Invitaci{\'o}n a la Biolog{\'\i}a}, year = {2006}, publisher = {Curtis, Barnes, Schnek \& Flores. 2da, Editorial Medica Panamericana}, organization = {Curtis, Barnes, Schnek \& Flores. 2da, Editorial Medica Panamericana}, chapter = {22}, address = {Buenos Aires}, author = {H. Dopazo} } @article {16963645, title = {Localization of binding sites in protein structures by optimization of a composite scoring function}, journal = {Protein Sci}, volume = {15}, number = {10}, year = {2006}, note = {Rossi, Andrea Marti-Renom, Marc A Sali, Andrej P01 AI035707/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States R01 GM54762/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov{\textquoteright}t United States Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society Protein Sci. 2006 Oct;15(10):2366-80. Epub 2006 Sep 8.}, pages = {2366-80}, abstract = {The rise in the number of functionally uncharacterized protein structures is increasing the demand for structure-based methods for functional annotation. Here, we describe a method for predicting the location of a binding site of a given type on a target protein structure. The method begins by constructing a scoring function, followed by a Monte Carlo optimization, to find a good scoring patch on the protein surface. The scoring function is a weighted linear combination of the z-scores of various properties of protein structure and sequence, including amino acid residue conservation, compactness, protrusion, convexity, rigidity, hydrophobicity, and charge density; the weights are calculated from a set of previously identified instances of the binding-site type on known protein structures. The scoring function can easily incorporate different types of information useful in localization, thus increasing the applicability and accuracy of the approach. To test the method, 1008 known protein structures were split into 20 different groups according to the type of the bound ligand. For nonsugar ligands, such as various nucleotides, binding sites were correctly identified in 55\%-73\% of the cases. The method is completely automated (http://salilab.org/patcher) and can be applied on a large scale in a structural genomics setting.}, keywords = {Amino Acid Sequence Binding Sites Biomechanics Hydrophobicity Ligands *Monte Carlo Method Protein Conformation Proteins/*chemistry Static Electricity}, url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve\&db=PubMed\&dopt=Citation\&list_uids=16963645}, author = {Rossi, A. and M. A. Marti-Renom and Sali, A.} } @article {16204094, title = {Lineage-specific gene loss following mitochondrial endosymbiosis and its potential for function prediction in eukaryotes}, journal = {Bioinformatics}, volume = {21 Suppl 2}, year = {2005}, note = {Gabaldon, Toni Huynen, Martijn A Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov{\textquoteright}t England Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) Bioinformatics. 2005 Sep 1;21 Suppl 2:ii144-50.}, pages = {ii144-50}, abstract = {MOTIVATION: The endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria has resulted in a massive horizontal transfer of genetic material from an alpha-proteobacterium to the early eukaryotes. Using large-scale phylogenetic analysis we have previously identified 630 orthologous groups of proteins derived from this event. Here we show that this proto-mitochondrial protein set has undergone extensive lineage-specific gene loss in the eukaryotes, with an average of three losses per orthologous group in a phylogeny of nine species. This gene loss has resulted in a high variability of the alphaproteobacterial-derived gene content of present-day eukaryotic genomes that might reflect functional adaptation to different environments. Proteins functioning in the same biochemical pathway tend to have a similar history of gene loss events, and we use this property to predict functional interactions among proteins in our set.}, keywords = {Animals Chromosome Mapping/*methods DNA, Mitochondrial/*genetics *Evolution, Molecular *Gene Deletion Genetic Variation/genetics Humans Linkage Disequilibrium/*genetics Mitochondrial Proteins/*genetics Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid Species Specificity Symbiosis/*genetics}, url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve\&db=PubMed\&dopt=Citation\&list_uids=16204094}, author = {Gabald{\'o}n, T. and M. A. Huynen} }