TDM is dead. Long live TCI!
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Holford N
PROVIDER: S-EPMC9290673 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Open research, data sharing and data re-use have become a priority for publicly- and charity-funded research. Efficient data management naturally requires computational resources that assist in data description, preservation and discovery. While it is possible to fund development of data management systems, currently it is more difficult to sustain data resources beyond the original grants. That puts the safety of the data at risk and undermines the very purpose of data gathering. PlaSMo stands for 'Plant Systems-biology Modelling' and the PlaSMo model repository was envisioned by the plant systems biology community in 2005 with the initial funding lasting until 2010. We addressed the sustainability of the PlaSMo repository and assured preservation of these data by implementing an exit strategy. For our exit strategy we migrated data to an alternative, public repository with secured funding. We describe details of our decision process and aspects of the implementation. Our experience may serve as an example for other projects in a similar situation. We share our reflections on the sustainability of biological data management and the future outcomes of its funding. We expect it to be a useful input for funding bodies.
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Project description:Emerging fungal pathogens pose a greater threat to biodiversity than any other parasitic group, causing declines of many taxa, including bats, corals, bees, snakes and amphibians. Currently, there is little evidence that wild animals can acquire resistance to these pathogens. Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is a pathogenic fungus implicated in the recent global decline of amphibians. Here we demonstrate that three species of amphibians can acquire behavioural or immunological resistance to B. dendrobatidis. Frogs learned to avoid the fungus after just one B. dendrobatidis exposure and temperature-induced clearance. In subsequent experiments in which B. dendrobatidis avoidance was prevented, the number of previous exposures was a negative predictor of B. dendrobatidis burden on frogs and B. dendrobatidis-induced mortality, and was a positive predictor of lymphocyte abundance and proliferation. These results suggest that amphibians can acquire immunity to B. dendrobatidis that overcomes pathogen-induced immunosuppression and increases their survival. Importantly, exposure to dead fungus induced a similar magnitude of acquired resistance as exposure to live fungus. Exposure of frogs to B. dendrobatidis antigens might offer a practical way to protect pathogen-naive amphibians and facilitate the reintroduction of amphibians to locations in the wild where B. dendrobatidis persists. Moreover, given the conserved nature of vertebrate immune responses to fungi and the fact that many animals are capable of learning to avoid natural enemies, these results offer hope that other wild animal taxa threatened by invasive fungi might be rescued by management approaches based on herd immunity.
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Project description:BackgroundMalaria is a major health and socio-economical problem in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world. Several methodologies have been used to assess parasite viability during the adaption of field strains to culture or the assessment of drug potential, but these are in general not able to provide an accurate real-time assessment of whether parasites are alive or dead.MethodsDifferent commercial dyes and kits were assessed for their potential to allow for the real-time detection of whether a blood stage malaria parasite is dead or alive.ResultsHere, a methodology is presented based on the potential-sensitive mitochondrial probe JC-1, which allows for the real-time visualization of live (red staining) and/or dead (absence of red staining) blood stage parasites in vitro and ex vivo. This method is applicable across malaria parasite species and strains and allows to visualize all parasite blood stages including gametocytes. Further, this methodology has been assessed also for use in drug sensitivity testing.ConclusionsThe JC-1 staining approach is a versatile methodology that can be used to assess parasite viability during the adaptation of field samples to culture and during drug treatment. It was found to hold promise in the assessment of drugs expected to lead to delayed death phenotypes and it currently being evaluated as a method for the assessment of parasite viability during the adaptation of patient-derived Plasmodium vivax to long-term in vitro culture.
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2015-08-30 | GSE16021 | GEO
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