Project description:Non-typhoidal Salmonella serotypes (NTS) cause a self-limited gastroenteritis while pediatric patients with severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria can develop a life threatening bacteremia that is a major source of child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. We used microarrays to detail genome-scale gene expression profiles underlying gastrointestinal immune responses to bacterial infection in mice
Project description:Non-typhoidal Salmonella serotypes (NTS) cause a self-limited gastroenteritis while pediatric patients with severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria can develop a life threatening bacteremia that is a major source of child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. We used microarrays to detail genome-scale gene expression profiles underlying gastrointestinal immune responses to bacterial infection in mice Responses were measured in mouse cecal mucosa to infection of non-typhodal Salmonella and Plasmodium yoelii, both singularly and in combination.
Project description:Broadly distributed species must cope with diverse and changing environmental conditions, including various forms of stress. Cosmopolitan populations of Drosophila melanogaster are more tolerant to oxidative stress than those from the species’ ancestral range in sub-Saharan Africa, and the degree of tolerance is associated with an insertion/deletion polymorphism in the 3’ untranslated region of the Metallothionein A (MtnA) gene that varies clinally in frequency. We examined oxidative stress tolerance and the transcriptional response to oxidative stress in cosmopolitan and sub-Saharan African populations of D. melanogaster, including paired samples with allelic differences at the MtnA locus. We found that the effect of the MtnA polymorphism on oxidative stress tolerance was dependent on the genomic background, with the deletion allele increasing tolerance only in a northern, temperate population. Genes that were differentially expressed under oxidative stress included MtnA and other metallothioneins, as well as those involved in glutathione metabolism and other genes known to be part of the oxidative stress response or the general stress response.
Project description:To investigate the effect of sex on within- and between-population variation in gene expression, we performed a microarray analysis of adult females from 16 strains of Drosophila melanogaster, including eight strains from the putative ancestral range in sub-Saharan Africa and eight strains from a European population. The results were compared to those of a previous study of adult male gene expression variation among the same strains (GSE8843).
Project description:In Sub-Saharan Africa, Anopheles gambiae Giles (Diptera: Culicidae) largely contributes to malaria transmission, in direct relation to environmental conditions influencing the vector ecology. Therefore, our study aimed to compare the proteomes of An. gambiae according to varying insecticide pressures associated to cotton crops also integrating different population origins from two climatic regions of Burkina Faso.
Project description:The parasite Plasmodium falciparum is responsible for severe malaria, which remains a major cause of death, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The reference strain NF54 (or its subclone 3D7) is commonly used for controlled human malaria infection (CHMI), but recently strains with a different geographic and genomic background have become available for CHMI, including 7G8, which was subcloned from the Brazilian isolate IMTM22 in 1984 (Burkot TR et al. 1984. Infectivity to mosquitoes of Plasmodium falciparum clones grown in vitro from the same isolate. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg 78 (3):339-41. doi: 10.1016/0035-9203(84)90114-7). In contrast to NF54, in which var gene expression resets after mosquito transmission, 7G8 shows a partial reset with retention of the C-type var gene PF7G8_040025600 in the human host. The three subclones A1G9 (almost exclusive var2csa expression, control), A2E10, and A2G2 (both predominantly expressing var gene PF7G8_040025600) recently obtained by limited dilution from the Sanaria 7G8 parasite working cell bank (Lot: SAN03-021214 dated 20. February 2014) were selected for gDNA sequencing to test whether parasite subclones expressing PF7G8_040025600 differ in their genomic background. 150 mL of P. falciparum cell culture with >10% parasitemia was harvested and gDNA isolation was performed using the MasterPure™ Complete DNA Purification Kit (Lucigen). The gDNA samples were tested for degradation and RNA contamination on an agarose gel and quantified using the Qubit™ dsDNA BR Assay Kit (ThermoFischer). DNA-seq was performed at BGI Genomics (Shenzhen, China) on the DNBseq platform to generate 150 bp paired-end sequencing reads.
Project description:Konzo, a disease characterized by sudden, irreversible spastic paraparesis, affecting up to 10% of the population in some regions of Sub-Saharan Africa during outbreaks and is strongly associated with dietary exposure to cyanogenic bitter cassava. The molecular mechanisms underlying the development of konzo, remain largely unknown. Here, through an analysis of 16 individuals with konzo and matched healthy controls from the same outbreak zones, we identified 117 differentially methylated loci involved in numerous biological processes that may identify cyanogenic- sensitive regions of the genome, providing the first study of epigenomic alterations associated with sub-lethal cyanide exposure and a clinical phenotype.