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Abstract

The seminar will present the purpose, content and some notable results from the MDPI Genes Special Issue ?Genomic Fabric Remodeling in Neurological Diseases? guest-edited by Drs. DC Spray (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) and DA Iacobas (PVAMU).

Special Issue description: Hundreds of millions of people worldwide live with disorders affecting the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. Although neurological disorders have been intensively studied in humans and animal models, their underlying gene expression patterns (the transcriptomes) are still not fully understood. It has now become clear that the transcriptome is a multidimensional system composed of interacting, partially overlapping genomic fabrics, in which organizational principles are race/strain-, sex-, and age-dependent, and can be altered by strong external stimuli.

In this Special Issue, we define the organizational features of the genomic fabrics and their interplay in specialized cells and regions of the nervous system. We aim to provide the reader with updated experimental and theoretical methods to explore, analyze, and interpret gene expression data resulting from RNA sequencing and microarray studies. Contributing papers will present quantification of the genomic fabrics remodeling in several severe neurological diseases and restoration following targeted treatments (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/genes/special_issues/Genomic_Fabric)

The Special Issue will incorporate contributions of outstanding investigators from New York City, Valhalla and Old Westbury (NY), Prairie View (TX), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Jerusalem (Israel), Bari (Italy), Bochum (Germany), Sydney and Melbourne (Australia), York (Canada). The contributions will incorporate genomic studies on human cell lines and mouse, rat and rabbit models of: autism, epilepsy, experimental autoimmune encephalopathy, glioma, hypomyelination, infantile spasms, neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosum, pain and retinopathy.

The seminar will present the most recent speaker?s results included in the recent Genes publications:

• Iacobas DA, Iacobas S, Lee PR, Cohen JE, Fields RD (2019). Coordinated Activity of Transcriptional Networks Responding to the Pattern of Action Potential Firing in Neurons. Genes 10(10), 754. Doi:10.3390/genes10100754.

• Iacobas DA, Iacobas S, Stout R, Spray DC (2020 in press). Cellular environment remodels the genomic fabrics of functional pathways in astrocytes. Genes

• Victorino PH, Marra C, Iacobas DA, Iacobas S, Spray DC, Linden R, Adesse D, Petrs-Silva H (2020 in press). Optic nerve crush activates the genomic fabrics of the Complement cascade and Delta-Notch signaling. Genes

Speaker Bio

Dr. Dumtru Iacobas, Research Professor and Director of the CCSB Personalized Genomics Laboratory from 2018, is an expert of both experimental and computational genomics. Trained as a biophysicist (PhD of the University of Bucharest, Romania), he was on faculty positions at medical schools from Romania (1981-2001) and NY (Albert Einstein College of Medicine-Neuroscience 2001-2013, New York Medical College-Pathology 2013-2017). At NYMC he founded and directed the Systems Biology Core and at Einstein he was the Associate Director of the Neurogenomics Core and Biometry Core.

Out of his 240 scholar publications, 54 are as single author, 115 as first author and 32 as last author.