Project description:To evaluate whether clarithromycin improves 28-day mortality among patients with sepsis, respiratory and multiple-organ dysfunction syndrome. The INntravenous CLArithromycin in Sepsis and multiple organ dysfunction Syndrome trial was a phase 3, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled clinical study, conducted in 11 intensive care units and 2 Internal Medicine wards in 2 countries. Patients with sepsis, respiratory failure and total sequential organ failure assessment score of ≥7 were enrolled between December 2017 and September 2019. Follow-up lasted 90 days. Patients were randomized to receive 1 gr of intravenous clarithromycin or placebo once daily for 4 consecutive days.
Project description:Sepsis is a complex syndrome characterized by organ dysfunction triggered by dysregulated host response to infection, and the kidney is the most commonly injured organ. To model septic-induced AKI in animal, a well-established mouse model induced by caecal ligation and puncture (CLP) was established.
Project description:Sepsis is a complex syndrome characterized by organ dysfunction triggered by dysregulated host response to infection, and the kidney is the most commonly injured organ. To model septic-induced AKI in animal, a well-established mouse model induced by caecal ligation and puncture (CLP) was established.
Project description:The temporal evolution of sepsis was monitored by transcriptional profiling of five critically ill children with meningococcal sepsis and sepsis-induced multiple organ failure. Blood was sampled at 6 time points during the first 48 hours of their admission to pediatric intensive care, where the children received standard clinical treatment including organ support and antimicrobial therapy. Striking transcript instability was observed over the 48 hours, with increasing numbers of regulated genes over time. Most notably, proposed biomarkers for sepsis risk stratification also showed expression instability, with varied expression levels over 48 hours. This study demonstrates the extent of the complexity of temporal changes in gene expression that occur during the evolution of sepsis-induced multiple organ failure. Importantly, stratification tools that propose expression of biomarkers must take into account the temporal changes, over the use of single snapshots that may be less informative.
Project description:Sepsis-induced multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in critically ill patients and remains impervious to most therapeutic interventions. We utilized a clinically relevant murine model of MODS induced by ventilator-associated pneumonia to systematically delineate pathways dysregulated in lung, liver, and kidney. We focused on processes commonly activated across injured organs and constructed a MODS-associated network based on connectivity among the gene members of these functionally coherent pathways. Our analyses led to the identification of several putative drivers of MODS whose expression was regulated by epidermal growth factor receptor. Our unbiased, integrative method is a promising approach to unravel mechanisms in system-wide disorders afflicting multiple compartments such as sepsis-induced MODS, and guide the discovery of novel putative therapeutic targets.
Project description:Introgressed variants from other species can be an important source of genetic variation because they may arise rapidly, can include multiple mutations on a single haplotype, and have often been pretested by selection in the species of origin. Although introgressed alleles are generally deleterious, several studies have reported introgression as the source of adaptive alleles-including the rodenticide-resistant variant of Vkorc1 that introgressed from Mus spretus into European populations of Mus musculus domesticus. Here, we conducted bidirectional genome scans to characterize introgressed regions into one wild population of M. spretus from Spain and three wild populations of M. m. domesticus from France, Germany, and Iran. Despite the fact that these species show considerable intrinsic postzygotic reproductive isolation, introgression was observed in all individuals, including in the M. musculus reference genome (GRCm38). Mus spretus individuals had a greater proportion of introgression compared with M. m. domesticus, and within M. m. domesticus, the proportion of introgression decreased with geographic distance from the area of sympatry. Introgression was observed on all autosomes for both species, but not on the X-chromosome in M. m. domesticus, consistent with known X-linked hybrid sterility and inviability genes that have been mapped to the M. spretus X-chromosome. Tract lengths were generally short with a few outliers of up to 2.7 Mb. Interestingly, the longest introgressed tracts were in olfactory receptor regions, and introgressed tracts were significantly enriched for olfactory receptor genes in both species, suggesting that introgression may be a source of functional novelty even between species with high barriers to gene flow.
Project description:Translational research is commonly performed in the C57B6/J mouse strain, chosen for its genetic homogeneity and phenotypic uniformity. Here, we evaluate the suitability of the white-footed deer mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) as a model organism for aging research, offering a comparative analysis against C57B6/J and diversity outbred (DO) Mus musculus strains. Our study includes comparisons of body composition, skeletal muscle function, and cardiovascular parameters, shedding light on potential applications and limitations of P. leucopus in aging studies. Notably, P. leucopus exhibits distinct body composition characteristics, emphasizing reduced muscle force exertion and a unique metabolism, particularly in fat mass. Cardiovascular assessments showed changes in arterial stiffness, challenging conventional assumptions and highlighting the need for a nuanced interpretation of aging-related phenotypes. Our study also highlights inherent challenges associated with maintaining and phenotyping P. leucopus cohorts. Behavioral considerations, including anxiety-induced responses during handling and phenotyping assessment, pose obstacles in acquiring meaningful data. Moreover, the unique anatomy of P. leucopus necessitates careful adaptation of protocols designed for Mus musculus. While showcasing potential benefits, further extensive analyses across broader age ranges and larger cohorts are necessary to establish the reliability of P. leucopus as a robust and translatable model for aging studies.
Project description:Sepsis is a life-threatening disease that often causes multiple organ dysfunctions. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in the pathogenesis and development of sepsis. However, there is little known about the function of lncRNAs in sepsis-induced myocardial dysfunction.To test the hypothesis that dysregulating lncRNAs may be involved in sepsis-induced myocardial dysfunction, we identified differentially expressed (DE) lncRNAs and mRNAs in cardiac tissue by high-throughput sequencing. We constructed coding and non-coding co-expression (CNC) and lncRNA-micro RNA (miRNA)-mRNA competing endogenous networks. The findings will provide useful information for exploring therapeutic candidate targets and new molecular biomarkers of septic myocardial injury.
Project description:BackgroundCopy number variation is an important dimension of genetic diversity and has implications in development and disease. As an important model organism, the mouse is a prime candidate for copy number variant (CNV) characterization, but this has yet to be completed for a large sample size. Here we report CNV analysis of publicly available, high-density microarray data files for 351 mouse tail samples, including 290 mice that had not been characterized for CNVs previously.ResultsWe found 9634 putative autosomal CNVs across the samples affecting 6.87% of the mouse reference genome. We find significant differences in the degree of CNV uniqueness (single sample occurrence) and the nature of CNV-gene overlap between wild-caught mice and classical laboratory strains. CNV-gene overlap was associated with lipid metabolism, pheromone response and olfaction compared to immunity, carbohydrate metabolism and amino-acid metabolism for wild-caught mice and classical laboratory strains, respectively. Using two subspecies of wild-caught Mus musculus, we identified putative CNVs unique to those subspecies and show this diversity is better captured by wild-derived laboratory strains than by the classical laboratory strains. A total of 9 genic copy number variable regions (CNVRs) were selected for experimental confirmation by droplet digital PCR (ddPCR).ConclusionThe analysis we present is a comprehensive, genome-wide analysis of CNVs in Mus musculus, which increases the number of known variants in the species and will accelerate the identification of novel variants in future studies.