Project description:Persistent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia is life-threatening and occurs in up to 30% of MRSA bacteremia cases despite appropriate antimicrobial therapy. Isolates of MRSA that cause antibiotic-persistent MRSA bacteremia (APMB) typically have in vitro antibiotic susceptibilities equivalent to those causing antibiotic-resolving MRSA bacteremia (ARMB). Thus, persistence reflects host-pathogen interactions occurring uniquely in context of antibiotic therapy in vivo. However, host factors and mechanisms involved in APMB remain unclear. We compared DNA methylomes in circulating immune cells from patients experiencing APMB vs. ARMB. Overall, methylation signatures diverged in the distinct patient cohorts. Differentially methylated sites intensified proximate to transcription factor binding sites, primarily in enhancer regions. In APMB patients, significant hypo-methylation was observed in binding sites for CCAAT enhancer binding protein (C/EBP) and signal transducer / activator of transcription 1 (STAT1). In contrast, hypo-methylation in ARMB patients localized to glucocorticoid receptor and histone acetyltransferase p300 binding sites. These distinct methylation signatures were enriched in neutrophils and achieved a mean area under the curve of 0.85 when used to predict APMB using a classification model. These findings differentiate epigenotypes in patients experiencing APMB vs. ARMB, and suggest a risk stratification strategy for antibiotic persistence in patients treated for MRSA bacteremia.
Project description:Genome sequencing of two strains of Bifidobacterium longum subspecies infantis causing bacteremia in neonates and six control strains
Project description:Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the second most common infections encountered in the pediatric population, second only to respiratory tract infections. UTIs are also a major cause of morbidity and mortality. UTIs can often ascend causing infection in the upper urinary tract or even progress to bacteremia or urosepsis. Urosepsis accounts for 10-30% of septic shock cases and Uropathogenic E.coli (UPEC) is responsible for almost 75% of cases. Therefore, increased understanding of the effects of urosepsis at the cellular and organ specific level will provide the foundation for improvements in clinical care.
Project description:Interventions: Analysis of bacteremia after ESD of the colon.
Primary outcome(s): Identification of bacteremia after ESD testing blood culture and 16SrRNA gene sequencing.
Study Design: Single arm Non-randomized
Project description:Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (HvKP) is an emerging human pathogen causing invasive infection in immune-competent hosts. The hypervirulence is strongly linked to the overproduction of hypermucovisous capsule, but the underlining regulatory mechanism of hypermucoviscosity (HMV) has been elusive, especially at the post-transcriptional level mediated by small RNAs (sRNAs). Using a recently developed RNA interactome profiling approach, we have investigated the Hfq-associated sRNA regulatory network and established the first in vivo RNA-RNA interactome in HvKP. Our data reveal numerous interactions between sRNAs and HMV-related mRNAs, and identify a plethora of sRNA that inhibit or promote HMV. One of the strongest repressors of HMV was ArcZ, a conserved sRNA in the Enterobacteriaceae family. We found that ArcZ is activated by the master regulator of catabolite repression Crp, and down-regulates the expression of mlaA encoding an outer-membrane lipoprotein, leading to decreased HMV and virulence attenuation in mice. ArcZ significantly reduced HMV in several carbapenem-resistant and hypervirulent clinical isolates with diverse genetic background, suggesting it is an antisense RNA inhibitor of HMV with therapeutic potential. In summary, our work provides a comprehensive map of the RNA-RNA interaction network of HvKP and identifies ArcZ as a conserved repressor of HMV, providing novel insights into the mechanisms of posttranscriptional regulations of virulence.
Project description:Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (hvKP) has raised grave concerns in recent years and can cause severe infections with diverse anatomic locations including liver abscess, meningitis, and endophthalmitis. However, there is limited data about neck abscess caused by hvKP. A K. pneumoniae strain Kp_whw was isolated from neck abscess. We characterized the genetic background, virulence determinates of the strain by genomic analysis and dertermined the virulence level by serum resistance assay. Kp_whw belonged to sequence type (ST) 1049 K locus (KL) 5. Kp_whw showed hypermucoviscosity phenotype and was resistant to ampicillin but susceptible to the majority of the other antimicrobial agents. A pLVPK-like virulence plasmid and a chromosomal ICEKp5-like mobile genetic element were carried by Kp_whw, resulting in the risk of dissemination of hypervirulence. The strain exhibited relative higher level of core genome allelic diversity than accessory genome profile, in comparison to hvKP of K1/K2 serotype. Kp_whw was finally demonstrated as virulent as the ST23 K1 serotype hvKP strain NTUH-K2044 in vitro. In conclusion, this work elaborates the genetic background of a clinical hvKP strain with an uncommon ST, reinforcing our understanding of virulence mechanisms of hvKP.
Project description:Using a mouse model with hepatocyte-specific deletion of transcription factor NF-κB RelA (p65), our group has previously revealed the important role of RelA in inducing the acute phase response, maintaining host defense, and preventing liver injury during sepsis. To goal of this study was determine the influence of RelA on hepatic gene changes that provide liver protection during infection. Mice were generated with functional deletion of NF-kappaB RelA (p56) in hepatocytes using a Cre-LoxP system. Mutant mice expressed Cre-recombinase under the transcriptional control of an albumin promotor and homozygous floxed RelA alleles. Wild type control mice lack the Cre-recombinase. Microarray analysis was performed on liver RNA collected from both genotypes of mice in the absence and presence of pneumococcal bacteremia.
Project description:Purpose: To determine how divergent strains of C. difficile respond to environmental changes, the transcriptomes of two historic and two recently isolated hypervirulent strains were analyzed following nutrient shift and osmotic shock. Methods: Following nutrient shift and osmotic shock, mRNA profile were determined using sequing of transcriptome in biological duplicates, using Illumina Hi-seq 2000. Results: After applying the quality control steps, for each sample, sequence reads were 90 nucleotides in length and the total number of reads per sample was ~ 26.6 million on average. Expression of more than 90% CDS was detected under the three experimental conditions combined. About 20% of these genes were indentified to be differentially expressed at 1.5 fold or more. Conclusions: Our results reveal that although C. difficile strains contain a large number of shared and strain specific genes, the majority of the differentially expressed genes were core genes. We also detected a number of transcriptionally active regions that were not part of the primary genome annotation. Some of these are likely to be small regulatory RNAs. Differential stress transcriptomes of two historic (strain 630 and 196) and two recently emerged hypervirulent strains (stain R20291 and 32g58) of C. difficile was determined by deep sequencing, in duplicate, using Illumina Hi-Seq 2000.