Project description:During inflammation immune cells can induce endothelial activation and angiogenesis by cytokines and other mediators1,2. The inhibition of inflammation-associated angiogenesis ameliorates inflammatory diseases by reducing the recruitment of tissue infiltrating leukocytes3-5. However, there is limited evidence on initial mechanisms of both processes. Here we show that angiogenesis precedes leukocyte infiltration during graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and experimental colitis. A key feature of GVHD is the incompletely understood organ tropism to skin, liver and the intestines. We found that angiogenesis initiates GVHD in target organs whereas in non-target organs no angiogenesis and no subsequent inflammation occur, suggesting a previously unrecognized role of the endothelium in GVHD organ tropism. The initiation phase of angiogenesis was not associated to classical endothelial cell (EC) activation signs, such as Vegfa/VEGFR1+2 upregulation or increased adhesion molecule expression. In gene array- and proteomic analyses, we found significant metabolic and cytoskeleton changes in ECs leading to profoundly higher deformation in real-time deformability cytometry6. Our results demonstrate that metabolic changes trigger enhanced migratory and proliferating potential of ECs during the initiation of angiogenesis in GVHD target organs. Our study adds evidence to the hypothesis that angiogenesis can initiate inflammation and provides novel insight in pathophysiology and tropism of GVHD.
Project description:To uncover the role of opioid induced dysbiosis in disrupting intestinal homeostasis, we conducted a multi-omics analysis with gut microbial, metabolite and intestinal transcriptomics data
Project description:To uncover the role of opioid induced dysbiosis in disrupting intestinal homeostasis, we conducted a multi-omics analysis with gut microbial, metabolite and intestinal transcriptomics data
Project description:Steroid-refractory gastrointestinal graft-versus-host disease (GI GVHD) is a major barrier to successful hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). Poor understanding of the pathophysiology of GI GVHD contributes to continued poor outcomes and high mortality rates. We therefore obtained rectosigmoidal mucosal biopsies from post-HSCT patients with GI GVHD and submitted them to RNA-sequencing in order to transcriptomally characterize GI GVHD. These were compared to patients undergoing endoscopy for routine clinical indications. Using single end, 50bp reads processed using Kallisto using genome annotations from Gencode v24 with transcripts per million as the output. We included 14,239 trancsripts in our analysis, where we compared GVHD vs non-GVHD with significance defined as FDR<0.05 and FC 1.5 using R package DESeq2. We identified 164 key genes, of which 141 were upregulated in GVHD, and were ontologically related to microbial response, key immune effectors, and cell migration/chemotaxis. Down-regulated genes were related to nutrient metabolism. Additionally, we performed WGCNA that highlighted ERK as a key upregulated pathway in GI GVHD.
Project description:“Stress, survival and virulence: the multi-faceted host/microbial interactions.” Bacteria employ epinephrine and norepinephrine, which converge to distinct bacterial crucial processes, like survival and pathogenicity. A novel stress periplasmic membrane protein belonging to previously described BOF family, protein renamed here SrpP, and together with membrane sensor kinase QseC has an essential role in stress response and virulence of S. Typhimurium. SrpP employs its predicted binding pocket, specifically the SrpPE110 residue, and interacts with lipid A modification enzyme, LpxO dioxygenase. Upon this interaction SrpP in S. Typhimurium finely manages multiple membrane functions to culminate in survival upon stress and pathogenesis in vivo, connecting host-stress chemical signaling to cell stress in bacteria. Comparison of sensor histidine kinase qseC mutant expression levels versus wild type strain.
Project description:Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is still one of the major complications following allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) triggered by alloreactive donor T cells. Whereas murine data have clearly shown the beneficial effects of regulatory T cells (Tregs) on the development of GvHD, data from the human system are rare mainly due to low cell numbers of circulating or organ-infiltrating Tregs in lymphopenic patients. Here, we present a comparative analysis of Tregs from patients with and without acute/ chronic GvHD designed as a dynamical approach studying the whole genome profile over the first 6 months after SCT. For this purpose, blood samples were collected monthly for FACS-based isolation of CD4+CD25highCD127low/- Tregs. The Treg transcriptome showed a high stability in the first half year representing the most sensitive time window for tolerance induction. However, the comparison of the Treg transcriptome from patients with and without GvHD uncovered regulated gene transcripts that point to a reduced suppressive function of Tregs with diminished migration capacity to the target organs likely contributing to the development of GvHD. These findings highlight the critical role of human Tregs in the pathophysiology of GvHD and identify novel targets for the manipulation of Tregs to optimize cellular immune intervention strategies. Keywords: cell type comparison Relative gene expressions were determined by normalized intensity values. GeneSpring analysis was performed using the Treg transcriptome data with following comparisons: no GvHD d90 versus no GvHD d150, no GvHD d90 versus acute GvHD, no GvHD d150 versus chronic GvHD, acute GvHD versus chronic GvHD, acute GvHD versus GvHD d90 and chronic GvHD versus GvHD d150 (Figure 2). Cut-off was a transcript fold change of 2 or -2 in at least one comparison. Student´s t-test was used to identify significant expression changes.
Project description:The purpose of this study was to determine the gene expression patterns of the colon of GPR41 KO and GPR43 KO mice in response to ETOH treatment