Project description:Bacterial pneumonia is still a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. One of the reasons for this may be the lack of accurate diagnostic tests that results in delayed identification of the causative agent and subsequent delay in initiating appropriate therapy. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new diagnostic tools for the rapid identification of the causative agent in bacterial pneumonia. Host biomarkers for early identification of etiology agents in bacterial pneumonia could assist in the development of those new diagnostic tools. The existing biomarkers such as procalcitonin and C-reactive protein for diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia are rather unspecific inflammatory markers and are not discriminatory between different infectious pathogens. In this regard, the objective of this study was the identification of host biomarkers which could distinguish pneumococcal pneumonia from staphylococcal pneumonia in an experimental murine infection model using RNA-Sequencing.
Project description:Streptococcus (S.) pneumoniae is the most frequently isolated causative pathogen community-acquired pneumonia, a leading cause of mortality worldwide. We investigated the role of the inflammasome sensor NLRP3 and the inflammasome adapter ASC during S. pneumoniae pneumonia. Detailed analysis of the early inflammatory response in the lung by whole genome transcriptional profiling, we identified several mediators that were differentially expressed between Nlrp3-/- and Asc-/ - mice.
Project description:Streptococcus pneumoniae (S.p.) is the most common causative agent of community-acquired pneumonia worldwide. A key pathogenic mechanism that exacerbates severity of disease is the disruption of the alveolo-capillary barrier. However, the specific virulence mechanisms responsible for this in the human lung are not yet fully understood. RNA sequencing of Streptococcus pneumoniae transcriptome under infection media conditions, but without the presence of lung tissue, representing anon-host-infection scenario FCS+/- was analyzed,. RNA isolation was performed using an acidic phenol-chloroform extraction protocol (Wetzstein et al., 1992). After DNase-I treatment (Zymo Research, Germany), the RNA quality was checked by Trinean Xpose (Gentbrugge, Belgium) and the Agilent RNA Nano 6000 kit using an Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies, Böblingen, Germany). For RNA-seq transcriptomics, Ribo-Zero rRNA Removal Kit (Bacteria) from Illumina (San Diego, CA, USA) was used to remove the rRNA. TruSeq Stranded mRNA Library Prep Kit from Illumina (San Diego, CA, United States) was applied to prepare the cDNA libraries. The cDNAs were sequenced paired end on an Illumina HiSeq 1500 (San Diego, CA, United States) using 70 and 75 bp read length and a minimum sequencing depth of 10 million reads per library.
Project description:Streptococcus (S.) pneumoniae is the most frequently isolated causative pathogen community-acquired pneumonia, a leading cause of mortality worldwide. We investigated the role of the inflammasome sensor NLRP3 and the inflammasome adapter ASC during S. pneumoniae pneumonia. Detailed analysis of the early inflammatory response in the lung by whole genome transcriptional profiling, we identified several mediators that were differentially expressed between Nlrp3-/- and Asc-/ - mice. WT, Nlrp3- and Asc-deficient mice were intranasally inocculated with Streptococcus pneumoniae D39 and ATCC6303 both at high and low dose. Lung homogenates were harvested and gene expression profiling was performed.
