Project description:Expression profiling of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients comparing radio-sensitive samples with radio-resistant samples. Two condition-experiments, radio-sensitive and radio-resistant nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients. Biological replicates: 8 radio-sensitive, 12 radio-resistant, different donors in the same hospital. One patient per array.
Project description:Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has extremely skewed ethnic and geographic distributions, is poorly understood at the genetic level and is in need of effective therapeutic approaches. We determined the genomic landscape of 52 NPC cases with SNP-array analysis. This approach identified multiple recurrent SCNVs, with the most frequent deletion peak spanning the CDKN2A gene on 9p21. Additional SCNVs involving established cancer genes including CCND1, AKT2, MYC and TP53 were observed. Notably, we identified that one component of the SWI/SNF complex, ARID1A, was frequently deleted in NPC. Affymetrix SNP arrays were performed according to the manufacturer's directions on DNA extracted from fresh frozen nasopharyngeal carcinoma biopsy tissues Copy number analysis of Affymetrix 250K SNP arrays was performed for 52 nasopharyngeal carcinoma samples. Please note that the sample characteristics 'primary tumor size, metastasis, and regional lymph node' represents T, M and N in WHO TNM staging of nasopharyngeal cancer (according to American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC)), respectively.
Project description:Secondary bacterial pneumonia following influenza infection is a significant cause of mortality worldwide. Upper respiratory tract pneumococcal carriage is important as both determinants of disease and population transmission. The immunological mechanisms that contain pneumococcal carriage are well-studied in mice but remain unclear in humans. Loss of this control of carriage following influenza infection is associated with secondary bacterial pneumonia during seasonal and pandemic outbreaks. We used a human type 6B pneumococcal challenge model to show that carriage acquisition induces early degranulation of resident neutrophils and recruitment of monocytes to the nose. Monocyte function associated with clearance of pneumococcal carriage. Prior nasal infection with live attenuated influenza virus induced inflammation, impaired innate function and altered genome-wide nasal gene responses to pneumococcal carriage. Levels of the cytokine IP-10 promoted by viral infection at the time of pneumococcal encounter was positively associated with bacterial density. These findings provide novel insights in nasal immunity to pneumococcus and viral-bacterial interactions during co-infection.
Project description:A detailed proteomic analysis of the nasopharyngeal/oropharyngeal swab samples collected from normal individuals and individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 involving high throughput quantitative (iTRAQ) proteomics analysis.
Project description:To understand the genes and pathways that may potentially drive nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) pathogenesis, we sought out to analyze the transcriptomic data from the disease and control samples. We used RNA-sequencing based gene expression data to identify genes differentially expressed between NPC and normal controls and then characterize the gene ontology and pathways down- or up-regulated in the disease samples.
Project description:Our group recently transcriptomically characterized coculture growth between Streptococcus mutans and several species of commensal streptococci (Rose et al, 2023; Choi et al 2024). One interaction that stood out was with Streptococcus mitis ATCC 49456, which completely inhibited the growth of S. mutans during biofilm formation. This is due to abudant hydrogen peroxide production by S. mitis ATCC 49456, 3-5x higher than other oral commensal streptococci we have worked with. To understand how the transcriptome of S. mutans is modified in coculture with a high hydrogen peroxide producer, we evaluated the transcriptome during monoculture or coculture growth between the two strains. Our results show differential gene expression (DEGs) in S. mutans that follows other trends we have documented previously with other commensal Streptococcus species, as well as DEGs specific to the interaction with S. mitis.