TITLE:

Talk 1: EXPLORING CONTRACTILITY IN CARDIAC MYOCYTES: CURRENT METHODS AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
Talk 2: COMPREHENSIVE IDENTIFICATION OF MIR-124 TARGETS IN THE INVERTEBRATE CHORDATE CIONA INTESTINALIS REVEALS INSIGHTS INTO MICRORNA FUNCTION AND NEURAL DEVELOPMENT

DATE:

Friday, March 12th, 2010

TIME:

3:30 PM

LOCATION:

GMCS 214

SPEAKER:

Speaker 1 : David Torres-Barba, PhD Student, CSRC

Speaker 2 : Jerry Chen, PhD Student, CSRC

ABSTRACT:

Abstract 1: e have proposed two computational frameworks for the assessment of contractile responses of enzymatically dissociated adult and neonatal cardiac myocytes. The proposed methodologies are variants of mathematically sound and computationally robust algorithms very well established in the image processing community. The computational pipeline for assessing contractility in adult cardiocytes comprises the following stages: digital video recording of the contracting cell, edge preserving total variation-based image smoothing, segmentation of the smoothed images, contour extraction from the segmented images, shape representation by Fourier descriptors, and contractility assessment. For assessing contractility of neonatal cardiocytes, the stages in the computational framework consist of digital video recording of the contracting cell, signal masking, representation by polar Fourier descriptors, and contractility assessment.

The physiologic applications of the methodologies are evaluated by assessing the contractions in isolated adult and neonatal rat cardiocytes. Our results have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed approaches in characterizing the contraction process of the cardiocytes. The proposed methods provide a more comprehensive assessment of the myocyte contraction processes, and can be utilized to evaluate changes in contractile behavior resulting from drug intervention, disease modeling, transgeneity, or other common applications to mammalian cardiocytes. We are exploring possible enhancements to our image analysis methodology, the automation of the analysis process and the creation of a comprehensive cardiocyte analysis toolbox.

Abstract 2: In understanding of the mechanisms by which pluripotent epidermal precursor cells differentiate and develop into mature neurons requires detailed knowledge of the gene regulatory network (GRN) underlying neuronal differentiation. Using the invertebrate chordate Ciona intestinalis as a model organism, we are beginning to identify some of the fundamental components and linkages of the GRN driving neuronal specification in the developing embryo. Using both computational and experimental methods, we have discovered putative gene targets of the microRNA miR-124, an important conserved post-transcriptional regulator specifically expressed in the nervous system, which in mammals has been shown to drive neuronal differentiation primarily through silencing an anti-neural repressor complex called SCP1/REST. These and future studies should elucidate some of the fundamental conserved components of the nervous system and give us insight into the mechanisms behind neural disorders.

HOST:

Paul Paolini and Robert Zeller

DOWNLOAD:

PDF File