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Setting up zebrafish electroretinography in the lab

Sunday, December 29, 2013
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Image courtesy: Lue Xiang @ Leung lab

We have been hoping to set up the zebrafish electroretinography in the lab to facilitate our drug discovery program for a while. When Prof. Kwoon Wong  from the Kellogg Eye Center at the University of Michigan visited our department in early December, we seized the opportunity to learn from him and asked for his help to put the components together.

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Image courtesy: Lue Xiang @ Leung lab

Dr. Don Ready kindly let us used his fly ERG setup for our test. Dr. Wong spent an afternoon trying different parameters and finally we have obtained a very decent ERG trace.  Many more friends and colleagues contributed to this endeavour, including Dr. Woody Walls who gathered a number of components and laid down the foundation over a period of time, lab members Prahatha Venkatraman and Lue Xiang who collected ample healthy embryos for the test, and Lue Xiang as the assistant of Dr. Wong during the course of experimentation. We would like to optimize this system further and are seeking highly motivated students with physiology and/or engineering background. We are particularly interested in the talents who like electrophysiology and would like to contribute their effort to identify new drugs for patients.

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Left: Dr. Wong explained various ERG concepts to the lab members. Top right: lab members shared their research with Dr. Wong over lunch. Middle right: Dr. Wong worked on the ERG setup. Bottom right: Dr. Wong and Fai learned from Dr. Ready on several critical components of the ERG setup. Image courtesy: Lue Xiang @ Leung lab

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Dr. Woody Walls instructed us on using LabChart for data collection. Image courtesy: Lue Xiang @ Leung lab

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2013-12-28 New articles we read this week

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Neuroscience

  1. Widmann A, Schröger E. Filter effects and filter artifacts in the analysis of  electrophysiological data. Front Psychol. 2012 Jul 9;3:233. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00233. eCollection 2012. PubMed PMID: 22787453; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3391960.
  2. Hsiao EY, McBride SW, Hsien S, Sharon G, Hyde ER, McCue T, Codelli JA, Chow J, Reisman SE, Petrosino JF, Patterson PH, Mazmanian SK. Microbiota modulate behavioral and physiological abnormalities associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. Cell. 2013 Dec 19;155(7):1451-63. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.11.024. Epub 2013 Dec 5. PubMed PMID: 24315484.
  3. Stern P. The heavily connected brain. Connection, connection, connection… Introduction. Science. 2013 Nov 1;342(6158):577. doi: 10.1126/science.342.6158.577. PubMed PMID: 24179217.
  4. Zatorre RJ. Predispositions and plasticity in music and speech learning: neural correlates and implications. Science. 2013 Nov 1;342(6158):585-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1238414. Review. PubMed PMID: 24179219.
  5. Turk-Browne NB. Functional interactions as big data in the human brain.Science. 2013 Nov 1;342(6158):580-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1238409. Review. PubMed PMID: 24179218.
  6. DeCaen PG, Delling M, Vien TN, Clapham DE. Direct recording and molecular identification of the calcium channel of primary cilia. Nature. 2013 Dec 12;504(7479):315-8. doi: 10.1038/nature12832. PubMed PMID: 24336289.
  7. Delling M, DeCaen PG, Doerner JF, Febvay S, Clapham DE. Primary cilia are specialized calcium signalling organelles. Nature. 2013 Dec 12;504(7479):311-4. doi: 10.1038/nature12833. PubMed PMID: 24336288.

Genetics

  1. Korf I. Genomics: the state of the art in RNA-seq analysis. Nat Methods. 2013 Nov 26;10(12):1165-6. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2735. PubMed PMID: 24296473.
  2. Steijger T, Abril JF, Engström PG, Kokocinski F; RGASP Consortium, Abril JF, Akerman M, Alioto T, Ambrosini G, Antonarakis SE, Behr J, Bertone P, Bohnert R, Bucher P, Cloonan N, Derrien T, Djebali S, Du J, Dudoit S, Engström PG, Gerstein M, Gingeras TR, Gonzalez D, Grimmond SM, Guigó R, Habegger L, Harrow J, Hubbard TJ, Iseli C, Jean G, Kahles A, Kokocinski F, Lagarde J, Leng J, Lefebvre G, Lewis S, Mortazavi A, Niermann P, Rätsch G, Reymond A, Ribeca P, Richard H, Rougemont J, Rozowsky J, Sammeth M, Sboner A, Schulz MH, Searle SM, Solorzano ND, Solovyev V, Stanke M, Steijger T, Stevenson BJ, Stockinger H, Valsesia A, Weese D, White S, Wold BJ, Wu J, Wu TD, Zeller G, Zerbino D, Zhang MQ, Hubbard TJ, Guigó R, Harrow J, Bertone P. Assessment of transcript reconstruction methods for RNA-seq. Nat Methods. 2013 Dec;10(12):1177-84. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2714. Epub 2013 Nov 3. PubMed PMID: 24185837; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3851240.
  3. Engström PG, Steijger T, Sipos B, Grant GR, Kahles A; RGASP Consortium, Alioto T, Behr J, Bertone P, Bohnert R, Campagna D, Davis CA, Dobin A, Engström PG, Gingeras TR, Goldman N, Grant GR, Guigó R, Harrow J, Hubbard TJ, Jean G, Kahles A, Kosarev P, Li S, Liu J, Mason CE, Molodtsov V, Ning Z, Ponstingl H, Prins JF, Rätsch G, Ribeca P, Seledtsov I, Sipos B, Solovyev V, Steijger T, Valle G, Vitulo N, Wang K, Wu TD, Zeller G, Rätsch G, Goldman N, Hubbard TJ, Harrow J, Guigó R, Bertone P. Systematic evaluation of spliced alignment programs for RNA-seq data.  Nat Methods. 2013 Dec;10(12):1185-91. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2722. Epub 2013 Nov 3. PubMed PMID: 24185836.
  4. Hnisz D, Abraham BJ, Lee TI, Lau A, Saint-André V, Sigova AA, Hoke HA, Young RA. Super-enhancers in the control of cell identity and disease. Cell. 2013 Nov 7;155(4):934-47. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.09.053. Epub 2013 Oct 10. PubMed PMID: 24119843; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3841062.
  5. Collins FS, Hamburg MA. First FDA authorization for next-generation sequencer. N Engl J Med. 2013 Dec 19;369(25):2369-71. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1314561. Epub 2013 Nov 19. PubMed PMID: 24251383.

Imaging

  1. Chen B, Gilbert LA, Cimini BA, Schnitzbauer J, Zhang W, Li GW, Park J, Blackburn EH, Weissman JS, Qi LS, Huang B. Dynamic Imaging of Genomic Loci in Living Human Cells by an Optimized CRISPR/Cas System. Cell. 2013 Dec 19;155(7):1479-91. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.12.001. PubMed PMID: 24360272.
  2. Ma H, Reyes-Gutierrez P, Pederson T. Visualization of repetitive DNA sequences in human chromosomes with transcription activator-like effectors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Dec 9. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24324157.
  3. Elia N, Ott C, Lippincott-Schwartz J. Incisive imaging and computation for cellular mysteries: lessons from abscission. Cell. 2013 Dec 5;155(6):1220-31. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.11.011. PubMed PMID: 24315094.
  4. Marx V. Is super-resolution microscopy right for you? Nat Methods. 2013 Nov 26;10(12):1157-63. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2756. PubMed PMID: 24296472.

Genome editing

  1. Auer TO, Duroure K, De Cian A, Concordet JP, Del Bene F. Highly efficient CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knock-in in zebrafish by homology-independent DNA repair. Genome Res. 2013 Dec 2. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24179142.
  2. Ran FA, Hsu PD, Wright J, Agarwala V, Scott DA, Zhang F. Genome engineering using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. Nat Protoc. 2013 Nov;8(11):2281-308. doi: 10.1038/nprot.2013.143. Epub 2013 Oct 24. PubMed PMID: 24157548.
  3. Cradick TJ, Fine EJ, Antico CJ, Bao G. CRISPR/Cas9 systems targeting ß-globin and CCR5 genes have substantial off-target activity. Nucleic Acids Res. 2013 Nov 1;41(20):9584-92. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkt714. Epub 2013 Aug 11. PubMed PMID: 23939622; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3814385.
  4. Zu Y, Tong X, Wang Z, Liu D, Pan R, Li Z, Hu Y, Luo Z, Huang P, Wu Q, Zhu Z, Zhang B, Lin S. TALEN-mediated precise genome modification by homologous recombination in zebrafish. Nat Methods. 2013 Apr;10(4):329-31. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2374. Epub 2013 Feb 24. PubMed PMID: 23435258.

Gene regulatory network

  1. Fuxman Bass JI, Diallo A, Nelson J, Soto JM, Myers CL, Walhout AJ. Using networks to measure similarity between genes: association index selection. Nat Methods. 2013 Nov 26;10(12):1169-76. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2728. PubMed PMID:24296474.

Genomics/Systems biology

  1. Monk JM, Charusanti P, Aziz RK, Lerman JA, Premyodhin N, Orth JD, Feist AM, Palsson BØ. Genome-scale metabolic reconstructions of multiple Escherichia coli strains highlight strain-specific adaptations to nutritional environments. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Dec 10;110(50):20338-43. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1307797110. Epub 2013 Nov 25. PubMed PMID: 24277855.
  2. Zhang Y, Wong CH, Birnbaum RY, Li G, Favaro R, Ngan CY, Lim J, Tai E, Poh HM, Wong E, Mulawadi FH, Sung WK, Nicolis S, Ahituv N, Ruan Y, Wei CL. Chromatin connectivity maps reveal dynamic promoter-enhancer long-range associations. Nature. 2013 Dec 12;504(7479):306-10. doi: 10.1038/nature12716. Epub 2013 Nov 10. PubMed PMID: 24213634.
  3. Markson JS, Piechura JR, Puszynska AM, O’Shea EK. Circadian Control of Global Gene Expression by the Cyanobacterial Master Regulator RpaA. Cell. 2013 Dec 5;155(6):1396-408. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.11.005. PubMed PMID: 24315105.

Zebrafish

  1. Xu C, Tabebordbar M, Iovino S, Ciarlo C, Liu J, Castiglioni A, Price E, Liu M, Barton ER, Kahn CR, Wagers AJ, Zon LI. A Zebrafish Embryo Culture System Defines Factors that Promote Vertebrate Myogenesis across Species. Cell. 2013 Nov 7;155(4):909-21. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.10.023. PubMed PMID: 24209627.
  2. Wilkinson RN, Elworthy S, Ingham PW, van Eeden FJ. A method for high-throughput PCR-based genotyping of larval zebrafish tail biopsies. Biotechniques. 2013 Dec;55(6):314-6. doi: 10.2144/000114116. PubMed PMID: 24344681.
  3. Maaswinkel H, Zhu L, Weng W. Using an Automated 3D-tracking System to Record Individual and Shoals of Adult Zebrafish. J Vis Exp. 2013 Dec 5;(82). doi: 10.3791/50681. PubMed PMID: 24336189.

Evolution

  1. Williams TA, Foster PG, Cox CJ, Embley TM. An archaeal origin of eukaryotes supports only two primary domains of life. Nature. 2013 Dec 12;504(7479):231-6. doi: 10.1038/nature12779. PubMed PMID: 24336283.

Development

  1. Kearns NA, Genga RM, Enuameh MS, Garber M, Wolfe SA, Maehr R. Cas9 effector-mediated regulation of transcription and differentiation in human pluripotent stem cells. Development. 2014 Jan;141(1):219-23. doi: 10.1242/dev.103341. PubMed PMID: 24346702.
  2. Koyanagi-Aoi M, Ohnuki M, Takahashi K, Okita K, Noma H, Sawamura Y, Teramoto I, Narita M, Sato Y, Ichisaka T, Amano N, Watanabe A, Morizane A, Yamada Y, Sato T, Takahashi J, Yamanaka S. Differentiation-defective phenotypes revealed by large-scale analyses of human pluripotent stem cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Nov 20. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24259714.
  3. Plouhinec JL, Zakin L, Moriyama Y, De Robertis EM. Chordin forms a self-organizing morphogen gradient in the extracellular space between ectoderm and mesoderm in the Xenopus embryo. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Nov 27. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24284174.
  4. Tan L, Zong C, Xie XS. Rare event of histone demethylation can initiate singular gene expression of olfactory receptors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Dec 16. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24344257.

Retina

  1. Weber A, Hochmann S, Cimalla P, Gärtner M, Kuscha V, Hans S, Geffarth M, Kaslin J, Koch E, Brand M. Characterization of light lesion paradigms and optical coherence tomography as tools to study adult retina regeneration in zebrafish. PLoS One. 2013 Nov 26;8(11):e80483. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0080483. PubMed PMID: 24303018; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3841302.

Funding

  1. Mervis J, Malakoff D. Science funding. U.S. budget deal offers researchers some sequester relief. Science. 2013 Dec 20;342(6165):1426-7. doi: 10.1126/science.342.6165.1426. PubMed PMID: 24357280.

Medicine

  1. Johnson SC, Yanos ME, Kayser EB, Quintana A, Sangesland M, Castanza A, Uhde L, Hui J, Wall VZ, Gagnidze A, Oh K, Wasko BM, Ramos FJ, Palmiter RD, Rabinovitch PS, Morgan PG, Sedensky MM, Kaeberlein M. mTOR inhibition alleviates mitochondrial disease in a mouse model of Leigh syndrome. Science. 2013 Dec 20;342(6165):1524-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1244360. Epub 2013 Nov 14. PubMed PMID: 24231806.
    • Vafai SB, Mootha VK. Medicine. A common pathway for a rare disease? Science. 2013 Dec 20;342(6165):1453-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1248449. PubMed PMID: 24357304.

Biochemistry

  1. Xie XS. Biochemistry. Enzyme kinetics, past and present. Science. 2013 Dec 20;342(6165):1457-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1248859. PubMed PMID: 24357307.
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2013-12-08 New articles we read this week

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Genomics

  1. Horvath S. DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types. Genome Biol. 2013 Oct 21;14(10):R115. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24138928.
  2. News: FDA Tells Google-Backed 23andMe to Halt DNA Test Service

Evolution

  1. Kolb AW, Ané C, Brandt CR. Using HSV-1 Genome Phylogenetics to Track Past Human Migrations. PLoS One. 2013 Oct 16;8(10):e76267. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0076267. PubMed PMID: 24146849; PubMed Central PMCID:PMC3797750.
Neuroscience
  1. Clark C, Austen O, Poparic I, Guthrie S. a2-Chimaerin Regulates a Key Axon Guidance Transition during Development of the Oculomotor Projection. J Neurosci.  2013 Oct 16;33(42):16540-51. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1869-13.2013. PubMed PMID:24133258.
  2. Lange M, Neuzeret F, Fabreges B, Froc C, Bedu S, Bally-Cuif L, Norton WH. Inter-individual and inter-strain variations in zebrafish locomotor ontogeny. PLoS One. 2013;8(8):e70172. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0070172. eCollection 2013.  PubMed PMID: 23950910; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3739779.

 HIV/AIDS

  1. News: Two famously ‘cured’ Boston HIV sufferers are found to STILL have the virus ‘hiding’ in their blood 

 

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2013-10-12 New articles we read this week

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Genetics/Genomics

  1. Mali P, Esvelt KM, Church GM. Cas9 as a versatile tool for engineering biology. Nat Methods. 2013 Sep 27;10(10):957-63. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2649. PubMed  PMID: 24076990.
  2. Esvelt KM, Mali P, Braff JL, Moosburner M, Yaung SJ, Church GM. Orthogonal Cas9 proteins for RNA-guided gene regulation and editing. Nat Methods. 2013 Sep 29. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2681. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24076762.
  3. Jao LE, Wente SR, Chen W. Efficient multiplex biallelic zebrafish genome editing using a CRISPR nuclease system. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Aug 20;110(34):13904-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1308335110. Epub 2013 Aug 5. PubMed PMID: 23918387; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3752207.
  4. Pennisi E. The CRISPR craze. Science. 2013 Aug 23;341(6148):833-6. doi: 10.1126/science.341.6148.833. PubMed PMID: 23970676.
  5. Koboldt DC, Steinberg KM, Larson DE, Wilson RK, Mardis ER. The next-generation sequencing revolution and its impact on genomics. Cell. 2013 Sep 26;155(1):27-38. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.09.006. PubMed PMID: 24074859.
  6. Rivera CM, Ren B. Mapping human epigenomes. Cell. 2013 Sep 26;155(1):39-55. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.09.011. PubMed PMID: 24074860.
  7. Bauer DE, Kamran SC, Lessard S, Xu J, Fujiwara Y, Lin C, Shao Z, Canver MC, Smith EC, Pinello L, Sabo PJ, Vierstra J, Voit RA, Yuan GC, Porteus MH, Stamatoyannopoulos JA, Lettre G, Orkin SH. An Erythroid Enhancer of BCL11A Subject to Genetic Variation Determines Fetal Hemoglobin Level. Science. 2013 Oct 11;342(6155):253-257. PubMed PMID: 24115442.
    • Commentary: Hardison RC, Blobel GA. GWAS to Therapy by Genome Edits? Science. 2013 Oct 11;342(6155):206-207. PubMed PMID: 24115432.

Behaviour

  1. Deeti S, O’Farrell S, Kennedy BN. Early Safety Assessment of Human Oculotoxic Drugs Using the Zebrafish Visualmotor Response. J Pharmacol Toxicol Methods. 2013 Sep 30. doi:pii: S1056-8719(13)00299-2. 10.1016/j.vascn.2013.09.002. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24091134.

Disease

  1. Chakravarti A, Clark AG, Mootha VK. Distilling pathophysiology from complex disease genetics. Cell. 2013 Sep 26;155(1):21-6. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.09.001. PubMed PMID: 24074858.
  2. Moreno JA, Halliday M, Molloy C, Radford H, Verity N, Axten JM, Ortori CA, Willis AE, Fischer PM, Barrett DA, Mallucci GR. Oral Treatment Targeting the Unfolded Protein Response Prevents Neurodegeneration and Clinical Disease in Prion-Infected Mice. Sci Transl Med. 2013 Oct 9;5(206):206ra138. PubMed PMID: 24107777.

Vision

  1. Tappeiner C, Gerber S, Enzmann V, Balmer J, Jazwinska A, Tschopp M. Visual acuity and contrast sensitivity of adult zebrafish. Front Zool. 2012 May 29;9(1):10. PubMed PMID: 22643065; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3453526.
  2. Bianco IH, Kampff AR, Engert F. Prey capture behavior evoked by simple visual stimuli in larval zebrafish. Front Syst Neurosci. 2011;5:101. doi:10.3389/fnsys.2011.00101. PubMed PMID: 22203793; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3240898.

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2013-09-29 new articles we read this week

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Stem cells

  1. Abad M, Mosteiro L, Pantoja C, Cañamero M, Rayon T, Ors I, Graña O, Megías D, Domínguez O, Martínez D, Manzanares M, Ortega S, Serrano M. Reprogramming in vivo produces teratomas and iPS cells with totipotency features. Nature. 2013 Sep 11. doi: 10.1038/nature12586. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24025773.
    • Commentary: De Los Angeles A, Daley GQ. Stem cells: Reprogramming in situ. Nature. 2013 Sep 11. doi: 10.1038/nature12559. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24025771.
    • News coverage: More-Primitive Stem Cells Produced

Ig Nobel price 2013

Medicine

  1. Sridhar S, Begom S, Bermingham A, Hoschler K, Adamson W, Carman W, Bean T, Barclay W, Deeks JJ, Lalvani A. Cellular immune correlates of protection against symptomatic pandemic influenza. Nat Med. 2013 Sep 22. doi: 10.1038/nm.3350. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24056771.

Development

  1. Lee MT, Bonneau AR, Takacs CM, Bazzini AA, Divito KR, Fleming ES, Giraldez AJ. Nanog, Pou5f1 and SoxB1 activate zygotic gene expression during the maternal-to-zygotic transition. Nature. 2013 Sep 22. doi: 10.1038/nature12632. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24056933.

 

Genetics

  1. Ran FA, Hsu PD, Lin CY, Gootenberg JS, Konermann S, Trevino AE, Scott DA, Inoue A, Matoba S, Zhang Y, Zhang F. Double Nicking by RNA-Guided CRISPR Cas9 for Enhanced Genome Editing Specificity. Cell. 2013 Sep 12;154(6):1380-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.08.021. Epub 2013 Aug 29. PubMed PMID: 23992846.
  2. Yang H, Wang H, Shivalila CS, Cheng AW, Shi L, Jaenisch R. One-Step Generation of Mice Carrying Reporter and Conditional Alleles by CRISPR/Cas-Mediated Genome Engineering. Cell. 2013 Sep 12;154(6):1370-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.08.022. Epub 2013 Aug 29. PubMed PMID: 23992847.
  3. Mali P, Aach J, Stranges PB, Esvelt KM, Moosburner M, Kosuri S, Yang L, Church GM. CAS9 transcriptional activators for target specificity screening and paired nickases for cooperative genome engineering. Nat Biotechnol. 2013 Sep;31(9):833-8. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2675. Epub 2013 Aug 1. PubMed PMID: 23907171.
  4. DiCarlo JE, Norville JE, Mali P, Rios X, Aach J, Church GM. Genome engineering in Saccharomyces cerevisiae using CRISPR-Cas systems. Nucleic Acids Res. 2013 Apr;41(7):4336-43. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkt135. Epub 2013 Mar 4. PubMed PMID: 23460208; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3627607.
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2013-09-03 new articles we read this week.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Genetics

  1. Xiao A, Wang Z, Hu Y, Wu Y, Luo Z, Yang Z, Zu Y, Li W, Huang P, Tong X, Zhu Z, Lin S, Zhang B. Chromosomal deletions and inversions mediated by TALENs and CRISPR/Cas in zebrafish. Nucleic Acids Res. 2013 Aug 1;41(14):e141.doi: 10.1093/nar/gkt464. Epub 2013 Jun 6. PubMed PMID: 23748566; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3737551.
  2. Wei C, Liu J, Yu Z, Zhang B, Gao G, Jiao R. TALEN or Cas9 – rapid, efficient and specific choices for genome modifications. J Genet Genomics. 2013 Jun 20;40(6):281-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jgg.2013.03.013. Epub 2013 Apr 12. PubMed PMID: 23790627. 
  3. Gaj T, Gersbach CA, Barbas CF 3rd. ZFN, TALEN, and CRISPR/Cas-based methods for genome engineering. Trends Biotechnol. 2013 Jul;31(7):397-405. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2013.04.004. Epub 2013 May 9. PubMed PMID: 23664777; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3694601.
  4. Ochiai H, Fujita K, Suzuki K, Nishikawa M, Shibata T, Sakamoto N, Yamamoto T. Targeted mutagenesis in the sea urchin embryo using zinc-finger nucleases. Genes Cells. 2010 Aug;15(8):875-85. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2443.2010.01425.x. Epub 2010 Jul 2. PubMed PMID: 20604805.
    • SSA assay
  5. Pattanayak V, Lin S, Guilinger JP, Ma E, Doudna JA, Liu DR. High-throughput profiling of off-target DNA cleavage reveals RNA-programmed Cas9 nuclease specificity. Nat Biotechnol. 2013 Aug 11. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2673. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23934178.
  6. Bruder CE, Piotrowski A, Gijsbers AA, Andersson R, Erickson S, Diaz de Ståhl T, Menzel U, Sandgren J, von Tell D, Poplawski A, Crowley M, Crasto C, Partridge EC, Tiwari H, Allison DB, Komorowski J, van Ommen GJ, Boomsma DI, Pedersen NL, den Dunnen JT, Wirdefeldt K, Dumanski JP. Phenotypically concordant and discordant monozygotic twins display different DNA copy-number-variation profiles. Am J Hum Genet. 2008 Mar;82(3):763-71. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.12.011. Epub 2008 Feb 14. PubMed PMID: 18304490; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2427204.
  7. Narlikar GJ, Sundaramoorthy R, Owen-Hughes T. Mechanisms and Functions of ATP-Dependent Chromatin-Remodeling Enzymes. Cell. 2013 Aug 1;154(3):490-503. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.07.011. PubMed PMID: 23911317.

Cell cycle

  1. Jonas K, Liu J, Chien P, Laub MT. Proteotoxic Stress Induces a Cell-Cycle Arrest by Stimulating Lon to Degrade the Replication Initiator DnaA. Cell. 2013 Aug 1;154(3):623-36. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.06.034. PubMed PMID: 23911325; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3749246.

 Disease gene mapping and sequencing

  1. Brunham LR, Hayden MR. Hunting human disease genes: lessons from the past, challenges for the future. Hum Genet. 2013 Jun;132(6):603-17. doi: 10.1007/s00439-013-1286-3. Epub 2013 Mar 17. Review. PubMed PMID: 23504071; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3654184.
  2. Shendure J, Lieberman Aiden E. The expanding scope of DNA sequencing. Nat Biotechnol. 2012 Nov;30(11):1084-94. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2421. Epub 2012 Nov 8. Review. PubMed PMID: 23138308.
  3. Gilissen C, Hoischen A, Brunner HG, Veltman JA. Disease gene identification strategies for exome sequencing. Eur J Hum Genet. 2012 May;20(5):490-7. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2011.258. Epub 2012 Jan 18. Review. PubMed PMID: 22258526; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3330229.
  4. Ku CS, Cooper DN, Polychronakos C, Naidoo N, Wu M, Soong R. Exome sequencing: dual role as a discovery and diagnostic tool. Ann Neurol. 2012 Jan;71(1):5-14. doi: 10.1002/ana.22647. Review. PubMed PMID: 22275248.
  5. Goldstein DB, Allen A, Keebler J, Margulies EH, Petrou S, Petrovski S, Sunyaev S. Sequencing studies in human genetics: design and interpretation. Nat Rev Genet. 2013 Jul;14(7):460-70. doi: 10.1038/nrg3455. Epub 2013 Jun 11. PubMed PMID: 23752795.
  6. Cirulli ET, Goldstein DB. Uncovering the roles of rare variants in common disease through whole-genome sequencing. Nat Rev Genet. 2010 Jun;11(6):415-25. doi: 10.1038/nrg2779. Review. PubMed PMID: 20479773.
  7. Rehm HL. Disease-targeted sequencing: a cornerstone in the clinic. Nat Rev Genet. 2013 Apr;14(4):295-300. doi: 10.1038/nrg3463. Epub 2013 Mar 12. PubMed PMID: 23478348.
  8. Gulsuner S, Walsh T, Watts AC, Lee MK, Thornton AM, Casadei S, Rippey C, Shahin H; Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia (COGS); PAARTNERS Study Group, Nimgaonkar VL, Go RC, Savage RM, Swerdlow NR, Gur RE, Braff DL, King MC, McClellan JM. Spatial and temporal mapping of de novo mutations in schizophrenia to a fetal prefrontal cortical network. Cell. 2013 Aug 1;154(3):518-29. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.06.049. PubMed PMID: 23911319.

Alzheimer’s Disease

  1. Mullard A. Sting of Alzheimer’s failures offset by upcoming prevention trials. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2012 Sep;11(9):657-60. doi: 10.1038/nrd3842. PubMed PMID: 22935790.
  2. Aisen PS, Vellas B, Hampel H. Moving towards early clinical trials for amyloid-targeted therapy in Alzheimer’s disease. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2013 Apr;12(4):324. doi: 10.1038/nrd3842-c1. Epub 2013 Mar 15. PubMed PMID: 23493086.
  3. Doody RS, Raman R, Farlow M, Iwatsubo T, Vellas B, Joffe S, Kieburtz K, He F, Sun X, Thomas RG, Aisen PS; Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study SteeringCommittee, Siemers E, Sethuraman G, Mohs R; Semagacestat Study Group. A phase 3 trial of semagacestat for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. N Engl J Med. 2013 Jul 25;369(4):341-50. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1210951. PubMed PMID: 23883379.
  4. Mullard A. Sting of Alzheimer’s failures offset by upcoming prevention trials. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2012 Sep;11(9):657-60. doi: 10.1038/nrd3842. PubMed PMID: 22935790.
  5. Jonsson T, Atwal JK, Steinberg S, Snaedal J, Jonsson PV, Bjornsson S, Stefansson H, Sulem P, Gudbjartsson D, Maloney J, Hoyte K, Gustafson A, Liu Y, Lu Y, Bhangale T, Graham RR, Huttenlocher J, Bjornsdottir G, Andreassen OA, Jönsson EG, Palotie A, Behrens TW, Magnusson OT, Kong A, Thorsteinsdottir U, Watts RJ, Stefansson K. A mutation in APP protects against Alzheimer’s disease and age-related cognitive decline. Nature. 2012 Aug 2;488(7409):96-9. doi: 10.1038/nature11283. PubMed PMID: 22801501.

Retinal development

  1. Suzuki SC, Bleckert A, Williams PR, Takechi M, Kawamura S, Wong RO. Cone photoreceptor types in zebrafish are generated by symmetric terminal divisions of dedicated precursors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Aug 26. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23980162.

Zebrafish

  1. Vignet C, Bégout ML, Péan S, Lyphout L, Leguay D, Cousin X. Systematic Screening of Behavioral Responses in Two Zebrafish Strains. Zebrafish. 2013 Jun 5. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23738739.
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2013-08-18 New articles we read this week

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Stem cells

  1. Hou P, Li Y, Zhang X, Liu C, Guan J, Li H, Zhao T, Ye J, Yang W, Liu K, Ge J, Xu J, Zhang Q, Zhao Y, Deng H. Pluripotent stem cells induced from mouse somatic cells by small-molecule compounds. Science. 2013 Aug 9;341(6146):651-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1239278. Epub 2013 Jul 18. PubMed PMID: 23868920.

Neuroscience

  1. Shomrat T, Levin M. An automated training paradigm reveals long-term memory in planaria and its persistence through head regeneration. J Exp Biol. 2013 Jul 2. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23821717.
  2. Esposti F, Johnston J, Rosa JM, Leung KM, Lagnado L. Olfactory Stimulation Selectively Modulates the OFF Pathway in the Retina of Zebrafish. Neuron. 2013 Jul 10;79(1):97-110. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2013.05.001. PubMed PMID: 23849198.
    • Commentary: “Dowling JE. Olfaction and Vision Meet in the Retina. Neuron. 2013 Jul 10;79(1):1-3. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2013.06.024. PubMed PMID: 23849191.

Retina

  1. Endeman D, Klaassen LJ, Kamermans M. Action spectra of zebrafish cone photoreceptors. PLoS One. 2013 Jul 5;8(7):e68540. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068540. Print 2013. PubMed PMID: 23861916; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3702584.

Genetics

  1. Poznik GD, Henn BM, Yee MC, Sliwerska E, Euskirchen GM, Lin AA, Snyder M, Quintana-Murci L, Kidd JM, Underhill PA, Bustamante CD. Sequencing Y chromosomes resolves discrepancy in time to common ancestor of males versus females. Science. 2013 Aug 2;341(6145):562-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1237619. PubMed PMID: 23908239.
  2. Francalacci P, Morelli L, Angius A, Berutti R, Reinier F, Atzeni R, Pilu R, Busonero F, Maschio A, Zara I, Sanna D, Useli A, Urru MF, Marcelli M, Cusano R, Oppo M, Zoledziewska M, Pitzalis M, Deidda F, Porcu E, Poddie F, Kang HM, Lyons R, Tarrier B, Gresham JB, Li B, Tofanelli S, Alonso S, Dei M, Lai S, Mulas A, Whalen MB, Uzzau S, Jones C, Schlessinger D, Abecasis GR, Sanna S, Sidore C, Cucca F. Low-pass DNA sequencing of 1200 Sardinians reconstructs European Y-chromosome phylogeny. Science. 2013 Aug 2;341(6145):565-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1237947. PubMed PMID: 23908240.
  3. Fu Y, Foden JA, Khayter C, Maeder ML, Reyon D, Joung JK, Sander JD. High-frequency off-target mutagenesis induced by CRISPR-Cas nucleases in human cells. Nat Biotechnol. 2013 Jun 23. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2623. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23792628.
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2013-07-13 Articles we read this week

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Neuroscience

  1. Cai D, Cohen KB, Luo T, Lichtman JW, Sanes JR. Improved tools for the Brainbow toolbox. Nat Methods. 2013 May 5;10(6):540-7. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2450. Epub 2013 May 5. PubMed PMID: 23817127.
  2. Pan YA, Freundlich T, Weissman TA, Schoppik D, Wang XC, Zimmerman S, Ciruna B, Sanes JR, Lichtman JW, Schier AF. Zebrabow: multispectral cell labeling for cell tracing and lineage analysis in zebrafish. Development. 2013 Jul;140(13):2835-46. doi: 10.1242/dev.094631. PubMed PMID: 23757414; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3678346.
    1. Blog post by the first author: Red fish, blue fish, Brainbow fish!

Eye disease

  1. Berger W, Kloeckener-Gruissem B, Neidhardt J. The molecular basis of human retinal and vitreoretinal diseases. Prog Retin Eye Res. 2010 Sep;29(5):335-75. doi: 10.1016/j.preteyeres.2010.03.004. Epub 2010 Mar 31. Review. PubMed PMID: 20362068.
  2. Dalkara D, Byrne LC, Klimczak RR, Visel M, Yin L, Merigan WH, Flannery JG, Schaffer DV. In vivo-directed evolution of a new adeno-associated virus for therapeutic outer retinal gene delivery from the vitreous. Sci Transl Med. 2013 Jun 12;5(189):189ra76. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3005708. PubMed PMID: 23761039.
    1. News coverage: Genes Get in Your Eye.

Genetics

  1. A collection of seminal papers on CRISPR-CAS
    1. Qi LS, Larson MH, Gilbert LA, Doudna JA, Weissman JS, Arkin AP, Lim WA. Repurposing CRISPR as an RNA-guided platform for sequence-specific control of gene expression. Cell. 2013 Feb 28;152(5):1173-83. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.02.022. PubMed PMID: 23452860; PubMed Central PMCID:PMC3664290.
    2. Jinek M, Chylinski K, Fonfara I, Hauer M, Doudna JA, Charpentier E. A programmable dual-RNA-guided DNA endonuclease in adaptive bacterial immunity. Science. 2012 Aug 17;337(6096):816-21. doi: 10.1126/science.1225829. Epub 2012 Jun 28. PubMed PMID: 22745249.
    3. Horvath P, Barrangou R. CRISPR/Cas, the immune system of bacteria and archaea. Science. 2010 Jan 8;327(5962):167-70. doi: 10.1126/science.1179555. Review. PubMed PMID: 20056882.
    4. Sampson TR, Saroj SD, Llewellyn AC, Tzeng YL, Weiss DS. A CRISPR/Cas system mediates bacterial innate immune evasion and virulence. Nature. 2013 May 9;497(7448):254-7. doi: 10.1038/nature12048. Epub 2013 Apr 14. PubMed PMID: 23584588; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3651764.
  2. Ma AC, Lee HB, Clark KJ, Ekker SC. High Efficiency In Vivo Genome Engineering with a Simplified 15-RVD GoldyTALEN Design. PLoS One. 2013 May 29;8(5):e65259.doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0065259. Print 2013. PubMed PMID: 23734242.
  3. Lim S, Wang Y, Yu X, Huang Y, Featherstone MS, Sampath K. A simple strategy for heritable chromosomal deletions in zebrafish via the combinatorial action of  targeting nucleases. Genome Biol. 2013 Jul 1;14(7):R69. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23815890.

Funding

  1. Fortin JM, Currie DJ. Big Science vs. Little Science: How Scientific Impact Scales with Funding. PLoS One. 2013 Jun 19;8(6):e65263. Print 2013. PubMed PMID: 23840323; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3686789.

Philosophy of science

  1. Biesecker LG. Hypothesis-generating research and predictive medicine. Genome Res. 2013 Jul;23(7):1051-3. doi: 10.1101/gr.157826.113. PubMed PMID: 23817045; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3698497.

Stem cells

  1. Tachibana M, Amato P, Sparman M, Gutierrez NM, Tippner-Hedges R, Ma H, Kang E, Fulati A, Lee HS, Sritanaudomchai H, Masterson K, Larson J, Eaton D, Sadler-Fredd K, Battaglia D, Lee D, Wu D, Jensen J, Patton P, Gokhale S, Stouffer RL, Wolf D,  Mitalipov S. Human embryonic stem cells derived by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Cell. 2013 Jun 6;153(6):1228-38. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.05.006. Epub 2013 May 15. PubMed PMID: 23683578
    1. News coverage: Scientists create human embryos to make stem cells
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My visit to the Shenyang Eye Research Institute

Saturday, July 13, 2013

On 6/24-25, I visited Shenyang Eye Research Institute, a growing eye research institute in the Fourth People’s Hospital, Shenyang, China. During my visit, I shared our vision on using zebrafish to screen traditional Chinese medicines for better vision with the local eye doctors and research students. I am very impressed with the dedication of the students and leadership team in establishing a competitive research program. To improve their English skill, they have established a regular English debate on non-scientific subjects! I enjoyed participating in their lively discussion. I look forward to interact more with this enthusiastic group in the future!

Shenyang

With Drs Yang Qu and Shaodan Zhang, and the enthusiastic research students.

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Summer research project promotes collaboration between Statistics and Biological Sciences

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Robert Carmer, an HHMI Summer Undergrate Student, was featured in the press releases of the College of Science and Department of Biological Sciences.

Robert Carmer

Robert Carmer presenting the research work that he conducted with the other lab members, including Gaonan Zhang and Prahatha Venkatraman

Also see him describing his research experience in this video.

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