Tag Archives: gonad

DNA Isolation & Quantification – C. virginica Gonad gDNA

I isolated DNA from the Crassotrea virginica gonad samples sent by Katie Lotterhos using the E.Z.N.A. Mollusc Kit with the following modifications:

  • Samples were homogenized with plastic, disposable pestle in 350μL of ML1 Buffer
  • No optional steps were used
  • Eluted each in 100μL of Elution Buffer and pooled into a single sample

NOTE: Sample 034 did not process properly (no phase separation after 24:1 chlorform:IAA addition – along with suggested additions of ML1 Buffer) and was discarded.

Quantified the DNA using the Qubit dsDNA BR Kit (Invitrogen). Used 2μL of DNA sample.

Samples were stored in the same box the tissue was delivered in and stored in the same location in our -80C: rack 8, row 5, column 4.

Results:

Qubit (Google Sheet): 20171114_qubit_Cvirginica_gDNA

Ample DNA in all samples for MBDseq. (Refer to “Original Sample Conc.” column in spreadsheet.)

Will let Steven & Katie know.

RNA Isolation – Olympia oyster gonad tissue in paraffin histology blocks

UPDATE 20170712: The RNA I isolated below is from incorrect regions of tissue. I misunderstood exactly what this tissue was, and admittedly, jumped the gun. The tissue is actually collected from the visceral mass – which contains gonad (a small amount) and digestive gland (a large amount). The RNA isolated below will be stored in one of the Shellfish RNA boxes and I will isolate RNA from the correct regions indicated by Grace

Isolated RNA from Olympia oyster gonad previously preserved with the PAXgene Tissue Fixative and Stabilizer and then embedded in paraffin blocks. See Laura’s notebook for full details on samples and preservation.

 

RNA was isolated from the following samples using the PAXgene Tissue RNA Kit (Qiagen). Gouged samples from the blocks weighing ~10mg from each of the tissues and processed according the protocol for isolating RNA from blocks of paraffin-embedded tissues.

Tissue identification is available in this GitHub Issue

NF-10-22
NF-10-23
NF-10-24
NF-10-26
NF-10-28
NF-10-30
SN-10-16
SN-10-17
SN-10-20
SN-10-25
SN-10-26
SN-10-31

IMPORTANT:

  • Prior to beginning, I prepared an aliquot of Buffer TR1 by adding 40μL of β-mercaptoethanol (β-ME) to 4000μL of Buffer TR1).
  • Reconstituted DNase I with 550μL of RNase-free H2O. Aliquoted in 100μL volumes and stored @ -20C in the “-20C Kit Components” box.

Isolated RNA according to the PAXgene Tissue RNA Kit protocol with the following alterations:

  • “Max speed” spins were performed at 20,000g.
  • Tissue disruption was performed by adding ~25-50 glass beads (425 – 600μm diameter) with the Disruptor Genie @ 45C for 15mins (in the Friedman Lab).
  • Shaking incubation step was performed with Disruptor Genie
  • Samples were eluted with 27μL of Buffer TR4 x 2, incubated @ 65C for 5mins, immediately placed on ice and quantified on the Roberts Lab Qubit 3.0 with the RNA High Sensitivity Assay (ThermoFisher Scientific) using 5μL of each sample.

Results:

Concentrations (Google Sheet): 20170710_RNA_qubit_oly_histo_blocks

Well, the good news is that there’s RNA from all the samples and it seems to be in relatively high concentrations!

The bad news is that the concentrations for 10 of the 12 samples were too high and outside the range of the Qubit RNA HS Assay! Since we don’t have the broad range RNA assay, I can’t properly quantify the remaining samples. However, these samples are being sent to Katherine Silliman at some point, so I’ll leave it up to her to quantify the samples. I’m also guessing that she’ll run them on a Bioanalyzer to assess their integrity prior to beginning library construction, so that will also yield concentrations for the samples.

Samples were stored at -80C temporarily.

Samples will be sent to Katherine Silliman for high-throughput library construction and sequencing once I hear back from her regarding her availability to receive the samples.

Sample Annotation – Olympia oyster histology blocks (from Laura Spencer)

I’ve been asked to isolate RNA from some paraffin-embedded Olympia oyster gonad tissue.

Despite some excellent documentation by Laura Spencer (images of tissue layouts in histology cassettes and a corresponding cassette mapping key file), the histology facility seems to have flipped some things around and/or repositioned/split the contents of each cassette. This makes ID-ing the proper tissues tedious and, at times, difficult.

The list of tissues that needs to be processed is listed in this GitHub Issue #648. I’ve also added the list below:

NF-10 22
NF-10-23
NF-10-24
NF-10-26
NF-10-28
NF-10-30
SN-10-16
SN-10-17
SN-10-20
SN-10-25
SN-10-26
SN-10-31

Prior to beginning RNA isolations, I have annotated images of the histology blocks and will be waiting for Laura to confirm that my annotations are correct. I will be posting a link to this notebook entry in the GitHub issue listed above for her to view and wait for her confirmation.

UPDATE 201700707 – Laura has indicated that many of my annotations are incorrect. Katie has gone through and made proper identification: https://github.com/sr320/LabDocs/issues/648#issuecomment-313792588

 

Additionally, as indicated in the GitHub Issue above, histology block “Oly 14″ does not have a corresponding tissue cassette photo (containing sample NF-10 26). Without the original image, I don’t think I can make an accurate guess on how the tissues are oriented in the resulting two histo blocks (see below).

 

BLOCKS 5

 

BLOCK 6

 

 

BLOCK 9

 

 

BLOCK 10

 

 

BLOCKS 14 (unable to annotate at time of posting)

 

 

 

BLOCK 15

 

 

 

BLOCK 21

 

 

 

 

BLOCK 22

RNAseq Data Receipt – Geoduck Gonad RNA 100bp PE Illumina

Received notification that the samples sent on 20150601 for RNAseq were completed.

Downloaded the following files from the GENEWIZ servers using FileZilla FTP and stored them on our server (owl/web/nightingales/P_generosa):

Geo_Pool_F_GGCTAC_L006_R1_001.fastq.gz
Geo_Pool_F_GGCTAC_L006_R2_001.fastq.gz
Geo_Pool_M_CTTGTA_L006_R1_001.fastq.gz
Geo_Pool_M_CTTGTA_L006_R2_001.fastq.gz

Generated md5 checksums for each file:

$for i in *; do md5 $i >> checksums.md5; done

Made a readme.md file for the directory.

Sample Submission – Geoduck Gonad for RNA-seq

Prepared two pools of geoduck RNA for RNA-seq (Illumina HiSeq2500, 100bp, PE) with GENEWIZ, Inc.

I pooled a set of female and a set of male RNAs that had been selected by Steven based on the Bioanalyzer results from Friday.

The female RNA pool used 210ng of each sample, with the exception being sample #08. This sample used 630ng. The reason for this was due to the fact that there weren’t any other female samples to use from this developmental time point. The two other developmental time points each had three samples contributing to the pool. So, three times the quantity of the other individual samples was used to help equalize the time point contribution to the pooled sample. Additionally, 630ng used the entirety of sample #08.

The male RNA pool used 315ng of each sample. This number differs from the 210ng used for the female RNAs so that the two pools would end up with the same total quantity of RNA. However, now that I’ve typed this, this doesn’t matter since the libraries will be equalized before being run on the Illumina HiSeq2500. Oh well. As long as each sample in each pool contributed to the total amount of RNA, then it’s all good.

The two pools were shipped O/N on dry ice.

  • Geo_pool_M
  • Geo_pool_F

Calculations (Google Sheet): 20150601_Geoduck_GENEWIZ_calcs

Bioanalyzer – Geoduck Gonad RNA Quality Assessment

Before proceeding with transcriptomics for this project, we need to assess the integrity of the RNA via Bioanalyzer.

RNA that was previously isolated on 20150508, 20150505, 20150427, and 20150424 (those notebook entries have been updated to report this consolidation and have a link to this notebook entry) were consolidated into single samples (if there had been multiple isolations of the same sample) and spec’d on the Roberts Lab NanoDrop1000:

Google Sheet: 20150528_geoduck_histo_RNA_ODs

NOTE: Screwed up consolidation of Geoduck Block 03 sample (added one of the 04 dupes to the tube, so discarded 03).

RNA was stored in Shellfish RNA Box #5.

RNA was submitted to to Jesse Tsai at University of Washington Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Science Functional Genomics Laboratory for running on the Agilent Bioanalyzer 2100, using either the RNA Pico or RNA Nano chips, depending on RNA concentration (Pico for lower concentrations and Nano for higher concentrations – left decision up to Jesse).

 

Results:

Bioanalzyer 2100 Pico Data File (XAD): SamWhite_Eukaryote Total RNA Pico_2015-05-28_12-50-00.xad
Bioanalzyer 2100 Nano Data File (XAD): SamWhite_Eukaryote Total RNA Nano_2015-05-28_13-22-53.xad

 

Pico Gel Representation

 

Pico Electropherogram

 

Nano Gel Representation

 

Nano Electropherogram

 

Jesse alerted me to the fact that they did not have any ladder to use on the Nano chip, as someone had used the remainder, but failed to order more. I OK’d him to go ahead with the Nano chip despite lacking ladder, as we primarily needed to assess RNA integrity.

 

Bad Samples:

  • Geo 04 – No RNA detected
  • Geo 65, 67, 68 – These three samples show complete degradation of the RNA (i.e. no ribosomal band present, significant smearing on the gel representation).

All other samples look solid. Will discuss with Steven and Brent on how they want to proceed.

Full list of samples for this project (including the Block 03 sample not included in this analysis; see above). Grace’s notebook will have details on what the numbering indicates (e.g. developmental stage).

  • block 02
  • block 03 (no RNA)
  • block 04 (no RNA)
  • block 07
  • block 08
  • block 09
  • block 34
  • block 35
  • block 38
  • block 41
  • block 42
  • block 46
  • block 51
  • block 65 (degraded RNA)
  • block 67 (degraded RNA)
  • block 68 (degraded RNA)
  • block 69
  • block 70

RNA Isolation – Geoduck Gonad in Paraffin Histology Blocks

UPDATE 20150528: The RNA isolated in this notebook entry may have been consolidated on 20150528.

The RNA isolation I performed earlier this week proved to be better for some of the samples (scraping tissue directly from the blocks), but still exhibited low yields from some samples. I will perform a final RNA isolation attempt (the kit only has six columns left) from the following samples:

  • 02
  • 03
  • 04
  • 07
  • 08
  • 09

Instead of full sections from each histology cassette, I gouged samples directly from the tissue in each of the blocks to maximize the amount of tissue input.

IMPORTANT:

Samples were then processed with the PAXgene Tissue RNA Kit in a single group.

Isolated RNA according to the PAXgene Tissue RNA Kit protocol with the following alterations:

  • “Max speed” spins were performed at 19,000g.
  • Tissue disruption was performed with the Disruptor Genie @ 45C for 15mins.
  • Shaking incubation step was performed with Disruptor Genie
  • Samples were eluted with 40μL of Buffer TR4, incubated @ 65C for 5mins, immediately placed on ice and quantified on the Roberts Lab NanoDrop1000.

 

All samples were stored @ -80C in Shellfish RNA Box #5.

Results:

 

Two samples (02 and 07) produced great yields and perfect RNA (260/280 and 260/230 of ~2.0). The remainder of the samples showed little improvement compared to what I’ve been obtaining from the previous three attempts. Will discuss with Steven and Brent about how to proceed with this project.

RNA Isolation – Geoduck Gonad in Paraffin Histology Blocks

UPDATE 20150528: The RNA isolated in this notebook entry may have been consolidated on 20150528.

Last week’s RNA isolation failed for more than half of the samples I processed. I will re-isolate RNA from the following samples:

  • 02
  • 03
  • 04
  • 07
  • 08
  • 09
  • 35
  • 38
  • 46
  • 65
  • 67
  • 68

IMPORTANT:

Five 5μm sections were taken from each block. A new blade was used for each block.

Samples were then processed with the PAXgene Tissue RNA Kit in two groups of six.

Isolated RNA according to the PAXgene Tissue RNA Kit protocol with the following alterations:

  • “Max speed” spins were performed at 19,000g.
  • Tissue disruption was performed with the Disruptor Genie @ 45C for 15mins.
  • Shaking incubation step was performed with Disruptor Genie
  • Samples were eluted with 40μL of Buffer TR4, incubated @ 65C for 5mins, immediately placed on ice and quantified on the Roberts Lab NanoDrop1000.

Results:

 

 

 

Well, these results are very consistent with the data from the last isolation performed on these samples. This fact suggests that the problem lies with the tissue samples and not the isolation (since the isolation has been performed two separate times on these same samples and the results have come out virtually identical both times).

All samples with concentrations < 5ng/μL were discarded. The remaining samples were stored @ -80C in Shellfish RNA Box #5:

  • 35
  • 38
  • 65
  • 67

Will discuss with Steven, look at Grace’s notebook to review the preservation process for these samples, and review the PAXgene Tissue RNA Kit to see if it will accommodate a greater number of microtome sections to use for isolation.

 

 

RNA Isolation – Geoduck Gonad in Paraffin Histology Blocks

UPDATE 20150528: The RNA isolated in this notebook entry may have been consolidated on 20150528.

Isolated RNA from geoduck gonad previously preserved with the PAXgene Tissue Fixative and Stabilizer and then embedded in paraffin blocks. See Grace’s notebook for full details on samples and preservation.

RNA was isolated from the following samples using the PAXgene Tissue RNA Kit (Qiagen) from the following geoduck sample blocks:

  • 02
  • 03
  • 04
  • 07
  • 08
  • 09
  • 35
  • 38
  • 41
  • 46
  • 51
  • 65
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70

IMPORTANT:

Five 5μm sections were taken from each block. A new blade was used for each block.

Samples were then processed with the PAXgene Tissue RNA Kit in two groups of eight.

Isolated RNA according to the PAXgene Tissue RNA Kit protocol with the following alterations:

  • “Max speed” spins were performed at 19,000g.
  • Tissue disruption was performed with the Disruptor Genie @ 45C for 15mins.
  • Shaking incubation step was performed with Disruptor Genie
  • Samples were eluted with 40μL of Buffer TR4, incubated @ 65C for 5mins, immediately placed on ice and quantified on the Roberts Lab NanoDrop1000.

Results:

 

 

Well, these results are certainly not good.

The first set of eight samples I processed yielded no RNA (except #38, which is only marginally better than nothing). All the samples (excluding #38) have been discarded.

The second set of eight samples I processed range from amazing to poor (#68 was barely worth keeping).

I’ll review the protocol, but at the moment I’m at a loss to explain why the first set of eight samples came up empty. Will perform another on these blocks on Monday. Grrrrr.

Samples were stored at -80C in Shellfish RNA Box #5.

Bioanalyzer Submission – Geoduck Gonad RNA from Histology Blocks

Submitted 3μL (~75ng) of RNA from each of the two gonad samples isolated from foot tissue embedded in paraffin histology blocks 20150408 (to assess quality of RNA) to Jesse Tsai at University of Washington Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Science Functional Genomics Laboratory:

  • Geoduck Block 34
  • Geoduck Block 42

Jesse will determine if the samples should be run on the RNA Pico or the RNA Nano chips.