Search

Age is the primary risk factor for many common human diseases. Here, we quantify the relative contributions of genetics and aging to gene expression patterns across 27 tissues from 948 humans. We show that the predictive power of expression quantitative trait loci is impacted by age in many tissues. Jointly modelling the contributions of age and genetics to transcript level variation we find expression heritability (h2) is consistent among tissues while the contribution of aging varies by >20-fold with R age 2 > h 2 in 5 tissues. We find that while the force of purifying selection is stronger on genes expressed early versus late in life (Medawar's hypothesis), several highly proliferative tissues exhibit the opposite pattern. These non-Medawarian tissues exhibit high rates of cancer and age-of-expression-associated somatic mutations. In contrast, genes under genetic control are under relaxed constraint. Together, we demonstrate the distinct roles of aging and genetics on expression phenotypes. Age is a risk factor for many diseases, but the impact of aging on molecular phenotypes is not fully understood. Here, the authors quantify the relative contributions of genetics and aging to gene expression patterns across 27 tissues in humans, showing that age and genetics each play distinct roles in shaping expression phenotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ventral visual stream (VVS) is a fundamental pathway involved in visual object identification and recognition. In this work, we present a hypothesis of a sequence of computations performed by the VVS during object recognition. The operations performed by the inferior temporal (IT) cortex are represented as not being akin to a neural-network, but rather in-line with a dynamic inference instantiation of the untangling notion. The presentation draws upon a technique for dynamic maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) sequence estimation based on the Viterbi algorithm. Simulation results are presented to show that the decoding portion of the architecture that is associated with the IT can effectively untangle object identity when presented with synthetic data. More importantly, we take a step forward in visual neuroscience by presenting a framework for an inference-based approach that is biologically inspired via attributes implicated in primate object recognition. The analysis will provide insight in explaining the exceptional proficiency of the VVS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insight into the function and regulation of biological molecules can often be obtained by determining which cell structures and other molecules they localize with (i.e. colocalization). Here we describe an open source plugin for ImageJ called EzColocalization to visualize and measure colocalization in microscopy images. EzColocalization is designed to be easy to use and customize for researchers with minimal experience in quantitative microscopy and computer programming. Features of EzColocalization include: (i) tools to select individual cells and organisms from images; (ii) filters to select specific types of cells and organisms based on physical parameters and signal intensity; (iii) heat maps and scatterplots to visualize the localization patterns of reporters; (iv) multiple metrics to measure colocalization for two or three reporters; (v) metric matrices to systematically measure colocalization at multiple combinations of signal intensity thresholds; and (vi) data tables that provide detailed information on each cell in a sample. These features make EzColocalization well-suited for experiments with low reporter signal, complex patterns of localization, and heterogeneous populations of cells and organisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]