Biology subjects

Gierlinski, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Gierlinski, M..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

Proteus: an R package for downstream analysis of MaxQuant output

Proteus is a package for downstream analysis of MaxQuant evidence data in the R environment. It provides tools for peptide and protein aggregation, quality checks, data exploration and visualisation. Interactive analysis is implemented in the Shiny framework, where individual peptides or protein may be examined in the context of a volcano plot. Proteus performs differential expression analysis with the well-established tool limma, which offers robust treatment of missing data, frequently encountered in label-free mass-spectrometry experiments. We demonstrate on real and simulated data that limma results in improved sensitivity over random imputation combined with a t-test as implemented in the popular package Perseus. Embedding Proteus in R provides access to a wide selection of statistical and graphical tools for further analysis and reproducibility by scripting. Availability and implementation: The open-source R package, including example data and tutorials, is available to install from GitHub (https://github.com/bartongroup/proteus).

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2018

Triggering MSR1 promotes JNK-mediated inflammation in IL-4 activated macrophages

Alternatively activated M2 macrophages play an important role in maintenance of tissue homeostasis by scavenging dead cells, cell debris and lipoprotein aggregates via phagocytosis. Using proteomics, we investigated how alternative activation, driven by IL-4, modulated the phagosomal proteome to control macrophage function. Our data indicate that alternative activation enhances homeostatic functions such as proteolysis, lipolysis and nutrient transport. Intriguingly, we identified the enhanced recruitment of the TAK1/MKK7/JNK signalling complex to phagosomes of IL-4 activated macrophages. The recruitment of this signalling complex was mediated through K63-polyubiquitylation of the macrophage scavenger receptor 1 (MSR1). Triggering of MSR1 in IL-4 activated macrophages leads to enhanced JNK activation, thereby promoting a phenotypic switch from an anti-inflammatory to a pro-inflammatory state, which was abolished upon MSR1 deletion or JNK inhibition. Moreover, MSR1 K63-polyubiquitylation correlated with the activation of JNK signalling in ovarian cancer tissue from human patients, suggesting that it may be relevant for macrophage phenotypic shift in vivo. Altogether, we identified that MSR1 signals through JNK via K63-polyubiquitylation and provide evidence for the receptors involvement in macrophage polarization.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2018

Live-cell imaging of marked chromosome regions reveals dynamics of mitotic chromosome resolution and compaction

When human cells enter mitosis, chromosomes undergo substantial changes in their organisation to resolve sister chromatids and compact chromosomes. Despite the fundamental importance of this phenomenon to genome stability, we still do not fully comprehend the timing and coordination of these events. To address these questions, we need to evaluate the progression of both sister chromatid resolution and chromosome compaction in one assay. We achieved this by analysing changes in configuration of marked chromosome regions over time, with high spatial and temporal resolution. This assay showed that sister chromatid resolution is an iterative process that begins in late G2 phase and completes in prophase. Cohesins and WAPL antagonistically regulate sister chromatid resolution in late G2 and prophase whilst local enrichment of cohesin on chromosomes prevents precocious sister chromatid resolution. Moreover, our assay allowed quantitative evaluation of the timing and efficiency of condensin II and I activities in promoting sister chromatid resolution and chromosome compaction, respectively. Thus, our real-time assay sheds new light on the dynamics of mitotic chromosome resolution and compaction.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2017

Thermal proteome profiling of breast cancer cells reveals proteasomal activation by CDK4/6 inhibitor palbociclib

Palbociclib is a CDK4/6 inhibitor approved for metastatic estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. In addition to G1 cell cycle arrest, palbociclib treatment results in cell senescence, a phenotype that are not readily explained by CDK4/6 inhibition. In order to identify a molecular mechanism responsible for palbociclib-induced senescence, we performed thermal proteome profiling of MCF7 breast cancer cells. In addition to affecting known CDK4/6 targets, palbociclib induces a thermal stabilization of the 20S proteasome, despite not directly binding to it. We further show that palbociclib treatment increases proteasome activity independently of the ubiquitin pathway. This leads to cellular senescence which can be counteracted by proteasome inhibitors. Palbociclib-induced proteasome activation and senescence is mediated by reduced proteasomal association of ECM29. Loss of ECM29 activates the proteasome, blocks cell proliferation and induces senescence. Finally, we find that ECM29 mRNA levels are predictive of relapse-free survival in breast cancer patients treated with endocrine therapy. In conclusion, thermal proteome profiling identifies the proteasome and ECM29 protein as mediators of palbociclib activity in breast cancer cells.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2017

Generation, selection and transcriptomic profiling of human neuromesodermal and spinal cord progenitors in vitro

Robust protocols for directed differentiation of human pluripotent cells are needed to establish the extent to which mechanisms operating in model organisms are relevant to our own development. Recent work in vertebrate embryos has identified neuromesodermal progenitors as a bipotent cell population that contributes to paraxial mesoderm and spinal cord. However, precise protocols for in vitro differentiation of human neuromesodermal progenitors are lacking. Informed by signalling activities during spinal cord generation in amniote embryos, we show here that transient dual-SMAD inhibition, together with retinoic acid (dSMADi-RA), provides rapid and reproducible induction of human spinal cord progenitors from neuromesodermal progenitors. We use CRISPR-Cas9 to engineer a GFP-reporter for a neuromesodermal progenitor-associated transcription factor Nkx1.2 in human embryonic stem cells, to facilitate selection of this cell population. RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq) was then used to identify human and conserved neuromesodermal progenitor transcriptional signatures, validate this differentiation protocol and implicate new pathways and processes in human neural differentiation. This optimised protocol, novel reporter line and transcriptomic data are useful resources with which to dissect cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating the generation of human spinal cord, allow scale-up of distinct cell populations for global analyses, including proteomic, biochemical and chromatin interrogation and open up translational opportunities.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2016

How well do RNA-Seq differential gene expression tools perform in higher eukaryotes?

RNA-seq experiments are usually carried out in three or fewer replicates. In order to work well with so few samples, Differential Gene Expression (DGE) tools typically assume the form of the underlying distribution of gene expression. A recent highly replicated study revealed that RNA-seq gene expression measurements in yeast are best represented as being drawn from an underlying negative binomial distribution. In this paper, the statistical properties of gene expression in the higher eukaryote Arabidopsis thaliana are shown to be essentially identical to those from yeast despite the large increase in the size and complexity of the transcriptome: Gene expression measurements from this model plant species are consistent with being drawn from an underlying negative binomial or log-normal distribution and the false positive rate performance of nine widely used DGE tools is not strongly affected by the additional size and complexity of the A. thaliana transcriptome. For RNA-seq data, we therefore recommend the use of DGE tools that are based on the negative binomial distribution.

genomics↗