0000000000199487
AUTHOR
Garry Wong
Evolutionary conservation and function of the human embryonic stem cell specific miR-302/367 cluster
miRNA clusters define a group of related miRNAs closely localized in the genome with an evolution that remains poorly understood. The miR-302/367 cluster represents a single polycistronic transcript that produces five precursor miRNAs. The cluster is highly expressed and essential for maintenance of human embryonic stem cells. We found the cluster to be highly conserved and present in most mammals. In primates, seed sequence and miRNA structure are conserved, but inter-precursor sequences are evolving. Insertions of new miRNAs, deletions of individual miRNAs, and a cluster duplication observed in different species suggest an actively evolving cluster. Core transcriptional machinery consisti…
Selective MicroRNA-Offset RNA Expression in Human Embryonic Stem Cells
Small RNA molecules, including microRNAs (miRNAs), play critical roles in regulating pluri-potency, proliferation and differentiation of embryonic stem cells. miRNA-offset RNAs (moRNAs) are similar in length to miRNAs, align to miRNA precursor (pre-miRNA) loci and are therefore believed to derive from processing of the pre-miRNA hairpin sequence. Recent next generation sequencing (NGS) studies have reported the presence of moRNAs in human neurons and cancer cells and in several tissues in mouse, including pluripotent stem cells. In order to gain additional knowledge about human moRNAs and their putative development-related expression, we applied NGS of small RNAs in human embryonic stem cel…
De novo transcriptome assembly of a facultative parasitic nematode Pelodera (syn. Rhabditis) strongyloides
Pelodera strongyloides is a generally free-living gonochoristic facultative nematode. The whole genomic sequence of P. strongyloides remains unknown but 4 small subunit ribosomal RNA (ssrRNA) gene sequences are available. This project launched a de novo transcriptome assembly with 100 bp paired-end RNA-seq reads from normal, starved and wet-plate cultured animals. Trinity assembly tool generated 104,634 transcript contigs with N50 contig being 2195 bp and average contig length at 1103 bp. Transcriptome BLASTX matching results of five nematodes (C. elegans, Strongyloides stercoralis, Necator americanus, Trichuris trichiura, and Pristionchus pacificus) were consistent with their evolutionary …
Effects of clozapine metabolites and chronic clozapine treatment on rat brain GABAA receptors
Abstract Similarly to clozapine, a clozapine metabolite, N -desmethylclozapine, but not clozapine N -oxide, antagonized brain γ-aminobutyric acid type A (GABA A ) receptors at high micromolar concentrations. However, daily subcutaneous injections of clozapine (10 and 25 mg/kg) and haloperidol (0.5 mg/kg) for 14 days failed to alter the modulation by GABA of rat cerebrocortical and cerebellar benzodiazepine ([ 3 H]flunitrazepam) or convulsant ( t -[ 35 S]bicyclophosphorothionate) binding sites of the GABA A receptor. The results thus suggest that the GABA A receptor antagonism exerted by chronic in vivo clozapine treatment is weak as compared to this treatment's actions on certain monoamine …
miRToolsGallery: a tag-based and rankable microRNA bioinformatics resources database portal
Abstract Hundreds of bioinformatics tools have been developed for MicroRNA (miRNA) investigations including those used for identification, target prediction, structure and expression profile analysis. However, finding the correct tool for a specific application requires the tedious and laborious process of locating, downloading, testing and validating the appropriate tool from a group of nearly a thousand. In order to facilitate this process, we developed a novel database portal named miRToolsGallery. We constructed the portal by manually curating > 950 miRNA analysis tools and resources. In the portal, a query to locate the appropriate tool is expedited by being searchable, filterable and …