Project description:Cerebral Malaria (HCM) is a serious neurological complication caused by Plasmodium falciparum infection. Currently the only treatment for HCM is the provision of anti-malarial drugs; however, such treatment by itself often fails to prevent death or development of neurological sequelae. To identify new potential adjunct treatments for HCM, we performed a non-biased whole brain transcriptomic time-course analysis of anti-malarial drug chemotherapy of murine experimental CM (ECM).
Project description:BACKGROUND:Malaria is a parasitic disease that produces significant infection in red blood cells. The objective of this study is to investigate the relationships between factors affecting the penetration of currently available anti-malarials into red blood cells. METHODS:Fifteen anti-malarial drugs listed in the third edition of the World Health Organization malaria treatment guidelines were enrolled in the study. Relationship analysis began with the prioritization of the physicochemical properties of the anti-malarials to create a multivariate linear regression model that correlates the red blood cell penetration. RESULTS:It was found that protein binding was significantly correlated with red blood cell penetration, with a negative coefficient. The next step was repeated analysis to find molecular descriptors that influence protein binding. The coefficients of the number of rotating bonds and the number of aliphatic hydrocarbons are negative, as opposed to the positive coefficients of the number of hydrogen bonds and the number of aromatic hydrocarbons. The p-value was less than 0.05. CONCLUSIONS:Anti-malarials with a small number of hydrogen bonds and aromatic hydrocarbons, together with a high number of rotatable bonds and aliphatic hydrocarbons, may have a higher tendency to penetrate the red blood cells.
Project description:Tafenoquine , an anti-malarial agent, exhibited satisfactory antimicrobial efficacy against Staphylococcus aureus and its highly resistant phenotypes of biofilm and persister cells. Proteomic analysis of Staphylococcus aureus after treated with Tafenoquine was used to explore its underlying mechanisms.
Project description:Malaria continues to pose a significant public health threat, with millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths reported annually, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. The disease disproportionally affects children under five years of age residing in holoendemic Plasmodium falciparum transmission regions, who account for 94% of the cases and 80% of the mortality. Young children are highly vulnerable to developing life-threatening severe malarial anemia [SMA, hemoglobin (Hb)<5.0 g/dL]. The overall goal of the project was to identify critical gene pathways within the transcriptome that mediate disease severity and then target these specific genes with compounds that elicit expression profiles witnessed in children with milder forms of disease. To achieve this goal, we are investing the following specific aims: 1) Determine how changing temporal dynamics of gene pathways in the Malarial Immunity Transcriptome promote SMA during acute disease; 2) Determine how changes in gene pathways in the Malarial Immunity Transcriptome mediate malarial severity throughout the development of naturally acquired immunity; and 3) Identify immunotherapeutic targets in the Malarial Immunity Transcriptome that can be used to reduce malaria disease severity and improve clinical outcomes in future trials. To successfully complete these aims, we are determining how host profiles impact on acute disease over 14 days. We will utilize Ex vivo samples from the cohort to test the effect of immunotherapeutic compounds on host expression profiles. Accomplishing these goals will have broad reaching translational implications for: (1) identifying at-risk groups, and (2) prioritizing compounds that can be used to improve clinical outcomes in future immunotherapy trials.
Project description:Cardiac magnetic resonance myocardial perfusion imaging can detect coronary artery disease and is an alternative to single-photon emission computed tomography or positron emission tomography. However, the complex, non-linear MR signal and the lack of robust quantification of myocardial blood flow have hindered its widespread clinical application thus far. Recently, a new Bayesian approach was developed for brain imaging and evaluation of perfusion indexes (Kudo et al., 2014). In addition to providing accurate perfusion measurements, this probabilistic approach appears more robust than previous approaches, particularly due to its insensitivity to bolus arrival delays. We assessed the performance of this approach against a well-known and commonly deployed model-independent method based on the Fermi function for cardiac magnetic resonance myocardial perfusion imaging. The methods were first evaluated for accuracy and precision using a digital phantom to test them against the ground truth; next, they were applied in a group of coronary artery disease patients. The Bayesian method can be considered an appropriate model-independent method with which to estimate myocardial blood flow and delays. The digital phantom comprised a set of synthetic time-concentration curve combinations generated with a 2-compartment exchange model and a realistic combination of perfusion indexes, arterial input dynamics, noise and delays collected from the clinical dataset. The myocardial blood flow values estimated with the two methods showed an excellent correlation coefficient (r 2 > 0.9) under all noise and delay conditions. The Bayesian approach showed excellent robustness to bolus arrival delays, with a similar performance to Fermi modeling when delays were considered. Delays were better estimated with the Bayesian approach than with Fermi modeling. An in vivo analysis of coronary artery disease patients revealed that the Bayesian approach had an excellent ability to distinguish between abnormal and normal myocardium. The Bayesian approach was able to discriminate not only flows but also delays with increased sensitivity by offering a clearly enlarged range of distribution for the physiologic parameters.
Project description:Global changes in murine liver and kidney transcriptome were analyzed following different levels of malarial parasite infection.Known levels of parasites were injected in mice and transcriptomic changes were recorded with comparison to control non infected healthy mice.
Project description:Systems biology is an approach to comprehensively study complex interactions within a biological system. Most published systems vaccinology studies have utilized whole blood or peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) to monitor the immune response after vaccination. Because human blood is comprised of multiple hematopoietic cell types, the potential for masking responses of under-represented cell populations is increased when analyzing whole blood or PBMC. To investigate the contribution of individual cell types to the immune response after vaccination, we established a rapid and efficient method to purify human T and B cells, natural killer (NK) cells, myeloid dendritic cells (mDC), monocytes, and neutrophils from fresh venous blood. Purified cells were fractionated and processed in a single day. RNA-Seq and quantitative shotgun proteomics were performed to determine expression profiles for each cell type prior to and after inactivated seasonal influenza vaccination. Our results show that transcriptomic and proteomic profiles generated from purified immune cells differ significantly from PBMC. Differential expression analysis for each immune cell type also shows unique transcriptomic and proteomic expression profiles as well as changing biological networks at early time points after vaccination. This cell type-specific information provides a more comprehensive approach to monitor vaccine responses.
Project description:Increasing evidence suggests the liver as to be an effector against blood-stage malaria. Vaccination induces changes in the liver and survival of otherwise lethal blood-stage malaria of Plasmodium chabaudi which is associated with changes in the liver. Here, the time-course of expression of erythroid genes is investigated during infections with P. chabaudi in the liver of vaccination-protected and unprotected non-vaccinated mice.