Transcriptomic Analysis of the Aged Nulliparous Mouse Ovary Suggests a Stress State That Promotes Pro-Inflammatory Lipid Signaling and Epithelial Cell Enrichment.

Ovarian cancer (OC) incidence and mortality peaks at post-menopause while OC risk is either reduced by parity or increased by nulliparity during fertile life. The long-term effect of nulliparity on ovarian gene expression is largely unknown. In this study, we describe a bioinformatic/data-mining analysis of 112 coding genes upregulated in the aged nulliparous (NP) mouse ovary compared to the aged multiparous one as reference.

Mutation of genes in zebrafish highlights the robustness of the retinal specification network.

Genetic studies in human and mice have established a dual role for genes in retina development: an early function in progenitors' specification, and a later requirement for bipolar-cells fate determination. Despite their conserved expression patterns, it is currently unclear to which extent functions are also conserved across vertebrates, as mutant models are available only in mammals. To gain insight into function in teleosts, we have generated and CRISPR/Cas9 double knockouts (KO) in zebrafish.

Analysis of the early response to spinal cord injury identified a key role for mTORC1 signaling in the activation of neural stem progenitor cells.

Xenopus laevis are able to regenerate the spinal cord during larvae stages through the activation of neural stem progenitor cells (NSPCs). Here we use high-resolution expression profiling to characterize the early transcriptome changes induced after spinal cord injury, aiming to identify the signals that trigger NSPC proliferation. The analysis delineates a pathway that starts with a rapid and transitory activation of immediate early genes, followed by migration processes and immune response genes, the pervasive increase of NSPC-specific ribosome biogenesis factors, and genes involved in stem cell proliferation.