Browsing by Subject "Mice"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 95
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    12-Lipoxygenase Promotes Obesity-Induced Oxidative Stress in Pancreatic Islets
    (American Society for Microbiology (ASM), 2014-10) Tersey, Sarah A.; Maier, Bernhard; Nishiki, Yurika; Maganti, Aarthi V.; Nadler, Jerry L.; Mirmira, Raghavendra G.; Department of Pediatrics, IU School of Medicine
    High-fat diets lead to obesity, inflammation, and dysglycemia. 12-Lipoxygenase (12-LO) is activated by high-fat diets and catalyzes the oxygenation of cellular arachidonic acid to form proinflammatory intermediates. We hypothesized that 12-LO in the pancreatic islet is sufficient to cause dysglycemia in the setting of high-fat feeding. To test this, we generated pancreas-specific 12-LO knockout mice and studied their metabolic and molecular adaptations to high-fat diets. Whereas knockout mice and control littermates displayed identical weight gain, body fat distribution, and macrophage infiltration into fat, knockout mice exhibited greater adaptive islet hyperplasia, improved insulin secretion, and complete protection from dysglycemia. At the molecular level, 12-LO deletion resulted in increases in islet antioxidant enzymes Sod1 and Gpx1 in response to high-fat feeding. The absence or inhibition of 12-LO led to increases in nuclear Nrf2, a transcription factor responsible for activation of genes encoding antioxidant enzymes. Our data reveal a novel pathway in which islet 12-LO suppresses antioxidant enzymes and prevents the adaptive islet responses in the setting of high-fat diets.
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    Absence of cardiomyocyte differentiation following transplantation of adult cardiac-resident Sca-1+ cells into infarcted mouse hearts
    (American Heart Association, 2018-12-18) Soonpaa, Mark H.; Lafontant, Pascal J.; Reuter, Sean; Scherschel, John A.; Srour, Edward F.; Zaruba, Marc-Michael; Rubart-von der Lohe, Michael; Field, Loren J.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Although several lines of evidence suggest that the glycosyl phosphatidylinositol-anchored cell surface protein Sca-1 marks cardiac-resident stem cells, a critical analysis of the literature raises some concerns regarding their cardiomyogenic potential.1 Here, isolated adult cardiac-resident Sca-1+ cells were engrafted into infarcted hearts and monitored for cardiomyogenic differentiation. Donor cells were prepared from ACT-EGFP; MHC-nLAC double-transgenic mice ([C57/Bl6J x DBA/2J]F1 genetic background; all procedures followed were in accordance with Institutional Guidelines). The ACT-EGFP transgene targets ubiquitous expression of an enhanced green fluorescent protein reporter, and the MHC-nLAC transgene targets cardiomyocyte-restricted expression of a nuclear-localized β-galactosidase reporter. Donor cell survival was monitored via EGFP fluorescence, while cardiomyogenic differentiation was monitored by reacting with the chromogenic β-galactosidase substrate 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl-β-D-galactoside (X-GAL), which gives rise to a blue product.2 Double-transgenic hearts were dispersed with Blendzyme and the resulting cells reacted with an APC-conjugated anti-Sca-1 antibody and a PE-conjugated cocktail of antibodies recognizing hematopoietic lineage markers.3 Sca-1+, EGFP+, lineage- cells were then isolated via fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS; characterization of the donor cells is provided in Figure 1A), and 100,000 cells were injected into the infarct border zone of non-transgenic [C57/Bl6J x DBA/2J]F1 mice immediately following permanent coronary artery occlusion.
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    Activation of OCT4 enhances ex vivo expansion of human cord blood hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells by regulating HOXB4 expression
    (SpringerNature, 2016-01) Huang, Xinxin; Lee, Man-Ryul; Cooper, Scott; Hangoc, Giao; Hong, Ki-Sung; Chung, Hyung-Min; Broxmeyer, Hal E.; Department of Microbiology & Immunology, IU School of Medicine
    Although hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) are the best characterized and the most clinically used adult stem cells, efforts are still needed to understand how to best ex vivo expand these cells. Here we present our unexpected finding that OCT4 is involved in the enhancement of cytokine-induced expansion capabilities of human cord blood (CB) HSC. Activation of OCT4 by Oct4-activating compound 1 (OAC1) in CB CD34(+) cells enhanced ex vivo expansion of HSC, as determined by a rigorously defined set of markers for human HSC, and in vivo short-term and long-term repopulating ability in NSG mice. Limiting dilution analysis revealed that OAC1 treatment resulted in 3.5-fold increase in the number of SCID repopulating cells (SRCs) compared with that in day 0 uncultured CD34(+) cells and 6.3-fold increase compared with that in cells treated with control vehicle. Hematopoietic progenitor cells, as assessed by in vitro colony formation, were also enhanced. Furthermore, we showed that OAC1 treatment led to OCT4-mediated upregulation of HOXB4. Consistently, siRNA-mediated knockdown of HOXB4 expression suppressed effects of OAC1 on ex vivo expansion of HSC. Our study has identified the OCT4-HOXB4 axis in ex vivo expansion of human CB HSC.
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    Acute Cannabinoids Produce Robust Anxiety-Like and Locomotor Effects in Mice, but Long-Term Consequences Are Age- and Sex-Dependent
    (Frontiers Media, 2019-02-20) Kasten, Chelsea R.; Zhang, Yanping; Boehm, Stephen L., II; Department of Psychology, School of Science
    The rise in cannabinoid legalization and decriminalization in the US has been paired with an increase in adolescents that perceive marijuana as a "no risk" drug. However, a comprehensive review of human literature indicates that cannabinoid usage may have both beneficial and detrimental effects, with adolescent exposure being a critical window for harming cognitive development. Although the cannabinoids Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) are often used together for recreational and medical purposes, no study has previously observed the acute and long-lasting effects of THC+CBD in a battery of behavioral assays analogous to subjective human reports. The current study observed the acute and long-term effects of THC, CBD, and THC+CBD on object recognition memory, anxiety-like behavior, and activity levels in adolescent and adult mice of both sexes. Acute THC alone and in combination with CBD resulted in robust effects on anxiety-like and locomotor behavior. A history of repeated cannabinoid treatment followed by a period without drug administration resulted in minimal effects in these behavioral assays. Most notably, the strongest effects of repeated cannabinoid treatment were seen in adult females administered THC+CBD, which significantly impaired their object recognition. No effects of repeated cannabinoid history were present on hippocampal protein expression. These studies represent a detailed examination of age- and sex-effects of acute and repeated cannabinoid administration. However, the acute and long-term effects of THC with and without CBD on additional behaviors in adolescents and adults will need to be examined for a more complete picture of these drug effects.
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    Adaptive changes of the Insig1/SREBP1/SCD1 set point help adipose tissue to cope with increased storage demands of obesity
    (American Diabetes Association, 2013-11) Carobbio, Stefania; Hagen, Rachel M.; Lelliott, Christopher J.; Slawik, Marc; Medina-Gomez, Gema; Tan, Chong-Yew; Sicard, Audrey; Atherton, Helen J.; Barbarroja, Nuria; Bjursell, Mikael; Bohlooly-Y, Mohammad; Virtue, Sam; Tuthill, Antoinette; Lefai, Etienne; Laville, Martine; Wu, Tingting; Considine, Robert V.; Vidal, Hubert; Langin, Dominique; Oresic, Matej; Tinahones, Francisco J.; Manuel Fernandez-Real, Jose; Griffin, Julian L.; Sethi, Jaswinder K.; López, Miguel; Vidal-Puig, Antonio; Medicine, School of Medicine
    The epidemic of obesity imposes unprecedented challenges on human adipose tissue (WAT) storage capacity that may benefit from adaptive mechanisms to maintain adipocyte functionality. Here, we demonstrate that changes in the regulatory feedback set point control of Insig1/SREBP1 represent an adaptive response that preserves WAT lipid homeostasis in obese and insulin-resistant states. In our experiments, we show that Insig1 mRNA expression decreases in WAT from mice with obesity-associated insulin resistance and from morbidly obese humans and in in vitro models of adipocyte insulin resistance. Insig1 downregulation is part of an adaptive response that promotes the maintenance of SREBP1 maturation and facilitates lipogenesis and availability of appropriate levels of fatty acid unsaturation, partially compensating the antilipogenic effect associated with insulin resistance. We describe for the first time the existence of this adaptive mechanism in WAT, which involves Insig1/SREBP1 and preserves the degree of lipid unsaturation under conditions of obesity-induced insulin resistance. These adaptive mechanisms contribute to maintain lipid desaturation through preferential SCD1 regulation and facilitate fat storage in WAT, despite on-going metabolic stress.
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    Adeno-Associated Virus Overexpression of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme-2 Reverses Diabetic Retinopathy in Type 1 Diabetes in Mice
    (Elsevier, 2016) Dominguez, James M., II; Hu, Ping; Caballero, Sergio; Moldovan, Leni; Verma, Amrisha; Oudit, Gavin Y.; Li, Qiuhong; Grant, Maria B.; Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine
    Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE)-2 is the primary enzyme of the vasoprotective axis of the renin angiotensin system that regulates the classic renin angiotensin system axis. We aimed to determine whether local retinal overexpression of adenoassociated virus (AAV)-ACE2 prevents or reverses diabetic retinopathy. Green fluorescent protein (GFP)-chimeric mice were generated to distinguish resident (retinal) from infiltrating bone marrow-derived inflammatory cells and were made diabetic using streptozotocin injections. Retinal digestion using trypsin was performed and acellular capillaries enumerated. Capillary occlusion by GFP(+) cells was used to measure leukostasis. Overexpression of ACE2 prevented (prevention cohort: untreated diabetic, 11.3 ± 1.4; ACE2 diabetic, 6.4 ± 0.9 per mm(2)) and partially reversed (reversal cohort: untreated diabetic, 15.7 ± 1.9; ACE2 diabetic, 6.5 ± 1.2 per mm(2)) the diabetes-associated increase of acellular capillaries and the increase of infiltrating inflammatory cells into the retina (F4/80(+)) (prevention cohort: untreated diabetic, 24.2 ± 6.7; ACE2 diabetic, 2.5 ± 1.6 per mm(2); reversal cohort: untreated diabetic, 56.8 ± 5.2; ACE2 diabetic, 5.6 ± 2.3 per mm(2)). In both study cohorts, intracapillary bone marrow-derived cells, indicative of leukostasis, were only observed in diabetic animals receiving control AAV injections. These results indicate that diabetic retinopathy, and possibly other diabetic microvascular complications, can be prevented and reversed by locally restoring the balance between the classic and vasoprotective renin angiotensin system.
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    Analysis of differentiation capacity of Cfp1 null embyronic stem cells
    (2014) Bowen, Tamara R.; Skalnik, David Gordon; Marrs, James; Chang, Hua-Chen
    Epigenetics is defined as “the study of stable, often heritable, changes that influence gene expression that are not mediated by DNA sequence” (Fingerman et al., 2013). Epigenetic marks such as covalent histone modifications and DNA methylation are important for maintaining chromatin structure and epigenetic inheritance. Several proteins have been found to bind and/ or regulate epigenetic marks. One such protein, CXXC finger protein 1 (Cfp1) is an important chromatin regulator that binds to unmethylated CpG islands. It has been found to be essential for mammalian development. Mice lacking Cfp1 exhibit an embryonic- lethal phenotype. However, the function of Cfp1 can be studied using Cfp1 Null mouse ES cells, which are viable. Thus far, Cfp1 has been shown to be important for cell growth, cytosine methylation, histone modifications, subnuclear localization of Set1A histone H3K4 methyltransferase, and cellular differentiation. When Cfp1 Null ES cells are induced to differentiate by removal of Leukemia Inhibitory Factor (LIF), the cells are not able to turn off pluripotency markers such as Oct4 and alkaline phosphatase and fail to express differentiation markers such as Gata4 and Brachyury. In this study, we used established protocols to further examine the differentiation capacity of Cfp1 Null cells. Specifically, we tested the ability of Cfp1 Null ES cells to retain stem cell properties in the absence of LIF, differentiate into cardiomyocytes in the presence of TGF-β2 and differentiate into neuron precursors in the presence of retinoic acid (RA). While the differentiation effects of RA were inconclusive, Null cells were able to start differentiating in the absence of LIF, either as individual cells or EBs, and the presence of TGF-β2 when seeded on gelatin coated tissue culture dishes. However, no difference was seen between cells treated without LIF and those treated with TGF-β2. In both conditions, only a small portion of cells were able to differentiate, while the majority of the cell population retained stem cell characteristics. Cell growth and the differentiation capacity of Cfp1 Null cells were also compromised in comparison to WT cells. Thus, further supporting the need for the correct epigenetic patterns maintained by Cfp1 during cellular differentiation.
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    An automated attentional set-shifting task in HAP, LAP, and alcohol-exposed cHAP mice
    (2018) Millie, Lauren A.; Grahame, Nicholas, J.
    Alcoholics often experience difficulties ceasing drinking, potentially related to excessive behavioral inflexibility that either precedes or results from high alcohol consumption. Components of the Wisconsin Card-Sorting Task (WCST) a type of Attentional Set-Shifting (AttSS) task measuring impairments in behavioral flexibility have been modified to measure similar constructs within animals. Previous work has shown impaired AttSS in abstinent alcoholics and nonalcoholic individuals with a family history of alcoholism, as well as in mice exposed to chronic-intermittent alcohol vapor (Gierski et al., 2013; Hu et al., 2015; Oscar-Berman et al., 2009). The aim of the current study was to assess whether selectively-bred High- vs. Low- Alcohol Preferring (HAP vs LAP) mice display behavioral inflexibility as measured by an operant AttSS task, and furthermore, whether a history of voluntary drinking in cross-bred HAP (cHAP) mice further increases inflexibility. Impairments in the AttSS task are assessed by evaluating the number of trials to reach criterion, as well as the number and types of errors committed during the second experimental phase. In Experiment 1, male and female HAP and LAP mice first learned to press one of two levers signaled by a visual cue, but random with respect to spatial orientation, for a 0.1% saccharin solution reward. The following experimental phase consisted of an egocentric discrimination, such that side (left or right) now signaled correct reinforcement and the location of the visual cue was irrelevant. In Experiment 2, prior to identical operant procedures as Experiment 1, male and female cHAP mice were given free-choice access to 10% alcohol or water for seven weeks. Ethanol-exposed animals drank an average of 29.6 g/kg/day.