Project description:An increasing body of evidence suggests an important role of the human microbiome in health and disease. We propose a ‘lost and found’ pipeline, which examines high quality unmapped sequence reads for microbial taxonomic classification. Using this pipeline, we are able to detect bacterial and archaeal phyla in blood using RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) data. Careful analyses, including the use of positive and negative control datasets, suggest that these detected phyla represent true microbial communities in whole blood and are not due to contaminants. We applied our pipeline to study the composition of microbial communities present in blood across 192 individuals from four subject groups: schizophrenia (n=48), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (n=47), bipolar disorder (n=48) and healthy controls (n=49). We observe a significantly increased microbial diversity in schizophrenia compared to the three other groups and replicate this finding in an independent schizophrenia case-control study. Our results demonstrate the potential use of total RNA to study microbes that inhabit the human body.
Project description:The role of the skin microbiome in UV-induced immune suppression has been overlooked. We addressed the question of microbial involvement in UV-induced immune suppression by using the standard model of contact hypersensitivity in the presence or absence of the microbiome (in germ-free [GF] and disinfected mice) and found that the microbiome inhibits UV-induced immune suppression. Furthermore, our transcriptome analysis (24 hours after irradiation) showed differential regulation of many genes in the presence or absence of the microbiome, including a predominance of pro-inflammatory cytokines versus immunosuppressive cytokines
Project description:A novel coronavirus pneumonia, first identified in Wuhan City and referred to as COVID-19 by the World Health Organization, has been quickly spreading to other cities and countries. To control the epidemic, the Chinese government mandated a quarantine of the Wuhan city on January 23, 2020. To explore the effectiveness of the quarantine of the Wuhan city against this epidemic, transmission dynamics of COVID-19 have been estimated. A well-mixed "susceptible exposed infectious recovered" (SEIR) compartmental model was employed to describe the dynamics of the COVID-19 epidemic based on epidemiological characteristics of individuals, clinical progression of COVID-19, and quarantine intervention measures of the authority. Considering infected individuals as contagious during the latency period, the well-mixed SEIR model fitting results based on the assumed contact rate of latent individuals are within 6-18, which represented the possible impact of quarantine and isolation interventions on disease infections, whereas other parameter were suppose as unchanged under the current intervention. The present study shows that, by reducing the contact rate of latent individuals, interventions such as quarantine and isolation can effectively reduce the potential peak number of COVID-19 infections and delay the time of peak infection.
Project description:We explore whether a low-energy diet intervention for Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) improves liver disease by means of modulating the gut microbiome. 16 individuals were given a low-energy diet (880 kcal, consisting of bars, soups, and shakes) for 12 weeks, followed by a stepped re-introduction to whole for an additional 12 weeks. Stool samples were obtained at 0, 12, and 24 weeks for microbiome analysis. Fecal microbiome were measured using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Positive control (Zymo DNA standard D6305) and negative control (PBS extraction) were included in the sequencing. We found that low-energy diet improved MASH disease without lasting alterations to the gut microbiome.
Project description:Pouchitis is a common complication for ulcerative colitis (UC) patients with ileal pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA) surgery. Similarly to IBD, both innate host factors such as genetics, and environmental stimuli including the tissue-associated microbiome have been implicated in the pathogenesis. In this study, we make use of the IPAA model of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to carry out a study associating mucosal host gene expression with the microbiome and corresponding clinical outcomes. In order to determine how host gene expression might influence, or be influenced by the tissue associated microbiome, we analyzed 205 IPAA patients with biopsies collected from the pouch and afferent limb for host transcriptomics and 16S rDNA gene sequencing. Metadata included antibiotic use, inflammation score, and clinical classification. To achieve power for a genome-wide microbiome-transcriptome association study, we used principal component analysis to reduce OTUs and host transcripts to eigengenes and eigenclades explaining 50% of observed variance. These were subsequently tested for significant covariation with one another and/or outcome using multivariate linear modeling.
Project description:The circadian clock and associated feeding rhythms have a profound impact on metabolism and the gut microbiome. To what extent microbiota reciprocally affect daily rhythms of physiology in the host remains elusive. Here, we analyzed transcriptome and metabolome profiles of male and female germ-free mice. While mRNA expression of circadian clock genes revealed subtle changes in liver, intestine, and white adipose tissue, germ-free mice showed considerably altered expression of genes associated to rhythmic physiology. Strikingly, absence of microbiome severely compromised liver sexual dimorphism, showing strongly attenuated sex-specific rhythmicity. The resulting feminization of male and masculinization of female germ-free animals is likely caused by altered sexual development and growth hormone secretion, associated to differential activation of xenobiotic receptors. This defines a novel mechanism by which the microbiome regulates host metabolism.
Project description:Early diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis (PSA) and differentiation of this disease from similar but distinct arthritides, such as ankylosing spondylitis (AS), is important for successful therapeutic intervention but currently remains challenging due, in part, to the scarcity of non-invasive biomarkers. In this study, we perform single cell profiling of transcriptome and cell surface protein expression on the peripheral blood immunocyte populations of individuals with PSA, individuals with AS, individuals with cutaneous psoriasis (PSO) alone, and healthy individuals to identify gene and protein features differentially expressed between these groups across 30 immune cell types and to further evaluate the diagnostic potential of these features using a machine learning classification approach.
Project description:The objectives of this study were to establish a microbiome profile for oral epithelial dysplasia using archival lesion swab samples to characterize the community variations and the functional potential of the microbiome using 16S rRNA gene sequencing
Project description:Forensic association of hair shaft evidence with individuals is currently assessed by comparing mitochondrial DNA haplotypes of reference and casework samples, primarily for exclusionary purposes. Present work tests and validates more recent proteomic approaches to extract quantitative transcriptional and genetic information from hair samples of monozygotic twin pairs, which would be predicted to partition away from unrelated individuals if the datasets contain identifying information. Protein expression profiles and polymorphic, genetically variant hair peptides were generated from 10 pairs of monozygotic twins. Profiling using the protein tryptic digests revealed that samples from identical twins were considerably more alike in profile than unrelated individuals among the twins. The data did not indicate that the degree of difference within twin pairs increased with age. In parallel, data from the digests were used to detect genetically variant peptides that result from common non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms in genes expressed in the hair follicle. Compilation of the variants permitted sorting of the samples by hierarchical clustering, permitting accurate matching of twin pairs. The results demonstrate that genetic differences are detectable by proteomic methods and provide a framework for developing quantitative statistical estimates of personal identification that increase the value of hair shaft evidence.
Project description:Group-living individuals experience immense risk of disease transmission and parasite infection. In social and in some non-social insects, disease control with immunomodulation arises not only via individual immune defenses, but also via infochemicals such as contact cues and (defensive) volatiles to mount a group-level immunity. However, little is known about whether activation of the immune system elicits changes in chemical phenotypes, which may mediate these responses. We here asked whether individual immune experience resulting from wounding or injection of heat-killed Bacillus thuringiensis (priming) leads to changes in the chemical profiles of female and male adult red flour beetles, Tribolium castaneum, which are non-social but gregarious. We analyzed insect extracts using GC-FID to study the chemical composition of (1) cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) as candidates for the transfer of immunity-related information between individuals via contact, and (2) stink gland secretions, with analysis of benzoquinones as main active compounds regulating ‘external immunity’. Despite a pronounced sexual dimorphism in CHC profiles, wounding stimulation led to similar profile changes in males and females with increases in the proportion of methyl-branched alkanes compared to naïve beetles. While changes in the overall secretion profiles were less pronounced, absolute amounts of benzoquinones were transiently elevated in wounded compared to naïve females. Responses to priming were insignificant in CHCs and secretions. We suggest that changes in different infochemicals after wounding may mediate immune status signaling in the context of both internal and external immune responses in groups of this non-social insect, thus showing parallels to social immunity.