CNRS - Université Lyon 1

4 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Biology

In vitro and in vivo Bioluminescence Reporter Gene Imaging of Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Kitchener Wilson¹, Jin Yu¹, Andrew Lee¹, Joseph C. Wu¹

¹Departments of Radiology and Medicine (Cardiology), Stanford University School of Medicine

With the growing interest in stem cell therapies, molecular imaging techniques are ideal for monitoring stem cell behavior after transplantation. Luciferase reporter genes have enabled non-invasive, repetitive assessment of cell survival, location, and proliferation in vivo. This video will demonstrate how to track hESC proliferation in a living mouse.

Medicine

A Contusion Model of Severe Spinal Cord Injury in Rats

Vibhor Krishna¹, Hampton Andrews¹, Xing Jin², Jin Yu¹, Abhay Varma¹, Xuejun Wen³, Mark Kindy¹

¹Department of Neuroscience, Division of Neurosurgery, Medical University of South Carolina, ²Bioengineering, Clemson University, ³Clemson-MUSC Bioengineering Joint Program

A contusion model of severe spinal cord injury is described. Detailed pre-operative, operative and post-operative steps are described to obtain a consistent model.

Engineering

Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy: A New Approach for Nanoparticle's Mapping and Quantification in Organ Tissue

Lucie Sancey¹, Vincent Motto-Ros², Shady Kotb¹, Xiaochun Wang³, François Lux¹, Gérard Panczer³, Jin Yu², Olivier Tillement¹

¹ILM-FENNEC UMR 5306, CNRS - Université Lyon 1, ²ILM-PUBLI UMR 5306, CNRS - Université Lyon 1, ³ILM-SOPRANO UMR 5306, CNRS - Université Lyon 1

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy performed on thin organ and tumor tissue successfully detected natural elements and artificially injected gadolinium (Gd), issued from Gd-based nanoparticles. Images of chemical elements reached a resolution of 100 μm and quantitative sub-mM sensitivity. The compatibility of the setup with standard optical microscopy emphasizes its potential to provide multiple images of a same biological tissue.

Biology

Structure-Based Simulation and Sampling of Transcription Factor Protein Movements along DNA from Atomic-Scale Stepping to Coarse-Grained Diffusion

Chao E^*1, Liqiang Dai^*1,2, Jiaqi Tian^3,4, Lin-Tai Da⁴, Jin Yu^5,6,7

¹Beijing Computational Science Research Center, ²Shenzhen JL Computational Science and Applied Research Institute, ³School of Medical Informatics and Engineering, Xuzhou Medical University, ⁴Key Laboratory of Systems Biomedicine (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Center for Systems Biomedicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, ⁵Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, ⁶Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, ⁷NSF-Simons Center for Multiscale Cell Fate Research, University of California, Irvine

The goal of this protocol is to reveal structural dynamics of one-dimensional diffusion of protein along DNA, using a plant transcription factor WRKY domain protein as an exemplary system. To do this, both atomistic and coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations along with extensive computational samplings have been implemented.