Anxiety and depression are major chronic mood disorders, and the etiopathology for each appears to be repeated exposure to diverse unpredictable stress factors. Most of the studies on anxiety and related mood disorders are performed in rodents, and a good model is chronic unpredictable stress (CUS). In this study, we have attempted to understand the molecular basis of the neuroglial and behavioral changes underlying CUS-induced mood disorders in the simplest vertebrate model, the zebrafish, Danio rerio. Zebrafish were subjected to a CUS paradigm in which two different stressors were used daily for 15 days, and thorough behavioral analyses were performed to assess anxiety and related mood disorder phenotypes using the novel tank test, shoal cohesion and scototaxis. Fifteen days of exposure to chronic stressors appears to induce an anxiety and related mood disorder phenotype. Decreased neurogenesis, another hallmark of anxiety and related disorders in rodents, was also observed in this zebrafish model. The common molecular markers of rodent anxiety and related disorders, corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), calcineurin (ppp3r1a) and phospho cyclic AMP response element binding protein (pCREB), were also replicated in the fish model. Finally, using 2DE FTMS/ITMSMS proteomics analyses, 18 proteins were found to be deregulated in zebrafish anxiety and related disorders. The most affected process was mitochondrial function, 4 of the 18 differentially regulated proteins were mitochondrial proteins: PHB2, SLC25A5, VDAC3 and IDH2, as reported in rodent and clinical samples. Thus, the zebrafish CUS model and proteomics can facilitate not only uncovering new molecular targets of anxiety and related mood disorders but also the routine screening of compounds for drug development.

The epimorphic regeneration of zebrafish caudal fin is rapid and complete. We have analyzed the biomechanism of zebrafish caudal fin regeneration at various time points based on differential proteomics approaches. The spectrum of proteome changes caused by regeneration were analyzed among controls (0 h) and 1, 12, 24, 48, and 72 h postamputation involving quantitative differential proteomics analysis based on two-dimensional gel electrophoresis matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization and differential in-gel electrophoresis Orbitrap analysis. A total of 96 proteins were found differentially regulated between the control nonregenerating and regenerating tissues of different time points for having at least 1.5-fold changes. 90 proteins were identified as differentially regulated for regeneration based on differential in-gel electrophoresis analysis between the control and regenerating tissues. 35 proteins were characterized for its expression in all of the five regenerating time points against the control samples. The proteins identified and associated with regeneration were found to be directly allied with various molecular, biological, and cellular functions. Based on network pathway analysis, the identified proteome data set for regeneration was majorly associated in maintaining cellular structure and architecture. Also the proteins were found associated for the cytoskeleton remodeling pathway and cellular immune defense mechanism. The major proteins that were found differentially regulated during zebrafish caudal fin regeneration includes keratin and its 10 isoforms, cofilin 2, annexin a1, skeletal ␣1 actin, and structural proteins. Annexin A1 was found to be exclusively undergoing phosphorylation during regeneration. The obtained differential proteome and the direct association of the various proteins might lead to a new understanding of the regeneration mechanism. Molecular & Cellular Proteomics 11: 10.1074/mcp.M111.014118, 1-19, 2012.Regeneration is an important mechanism found among most of the animals including humans in various tissues and organs towards growth, regrowth, repair, reproduction, and survival. The biomechanism of regeneration has been widely studied but poorly understood because of its different extents in various animals. Understanding the basic molecular mechanism of regeneration in the wound environment is of high significance, because it can lead to an applied possibility of making nonregenerating to a regenerating system.Tissue regeneration in vertebrates is found with extensive capabilities. Regeneration of limbs in urodele and caudal fin in zebrafish are the most projected regeneration studies among vertebrates. Zebrafish regenerates a wide variety of tissue structures including heart, fin, spinal cord, and optic nerve (1-3) based on the characteristic regeneration mechanism involving epithelialization, mesenchymal disorganization, blastema formation, regenerative outgrowth, and termination.A great number of gene families, counting wnt, hox, fgf, fgfr, and msx genes, were shown to...

Tumor tissue biopsies are invasive, costly, and collect a limited cell population not completely reflective of patient cancer cell diversity. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can be isolated from a simple blood draw and may be representative of the diverse biology from multiple tumor sites. The VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System was designed to automate the isolation of clinically relevant CTC populations, making the CTCs available for easy analysis. We present here the transition from a cutting-edge microfluidic innovation in the lab to a commercial, automated system for isolating CTCs directly from whole blood. As the technology evolved into a commercial system, flexible polydimethylsiloxane microfluidic chips were replaced by rigid poly(methyl methacrylate) chips for a 2.2-fold increase in cell recovery. Automating the fluidic processing with the VTX-1 further improved cancer cell recovery by nearly 1.4-fold, with a 2.8-fold decrease in contaminating white blood cells and overall improved reproducibility. Two isolation protocols were optimized that favor either the cancer cell recovery (up to 71.6% recovery) or sample purity (≤100 white blood cells/mL). The VTX-1's performance was further tested with three different spiked breast or lung cancer cell lines, with 69.0% to 79.5% cell recovery. Finally, several cancer research applications are presented using the commercial VTX-1 system.

Genomic characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) may prove useful as a surrogate for conventional tissue biopsies. This is particularly important as studies have shown different mutational profiles between CTCs and ctDNA in some tumor subtypes. However, isolating rare CTCs from whole blood has significant hurdles. Very limited DNA quantities often can’t meet NGS requirements without whole genome amplification (WGA). Moreover, white blood cells (WBC) germline contamination may confound CTC somatic mutation analyses. Thus, a good CTC enrichment platform with an efficient WGA and NGS workflow are needed. Here, Vortex label-free CTC enrichment platform was used to capture CTCs. DNA extraction was optimized, WGA evaluated and targeted NGS tested. We used metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) as the clinical target, HCT116 as the corresponding cell line, GenomePlex® and REPLI-g as the WGA methods, GeneRead DNAseq Human CRC Panel as the 38 gene panel. The workflow was further validated on metastatic CRC patient samples, assaying both tumor and CTCs. WBCs from the same patients were included to eliminate germline contaminations. The described workflow performed well on samples with sufficient DNA, but showed bias for rare cells with limited DNA input. REPLI-g provided an unbiased amplification on fresh rare cells, enabling an accurate variant calling using the targeted NGS. Somatic variants were detected in patient CTCs and not found in age matched healthy donors. This demonstrates the feasibility of a simple workflow for clinically relevant monitoring of tumor genetics in real time and over the course of a patient’s therapy using CTCs.