Project description:The SARS-CoV-2 has already caused over twelve million COVID-19 cases and half a million deaths worldwide. There is an urgent need to create novel models using human disease-relevant cells to study SARS-CoV-2 biology and to facilitate drug screening. As SARS-CoV-2 primarily infects the respiratory tract, we developed a lung organoid model using human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC-LOs) that could be adapted for drug screening. The hPSC-LOs, particularly alveolar type II-like cells, express the viral entry receptor ACE2, are permissive to SARS-CoV-2 infection, and showed robust induction of chemokines and cytokines upon SARS-CoV-2 infection, similar to what is seen in COVID-19 patients. Nearly 25% of these patients have gastrointestinal manifestations, which are associated with worse COVID-19 outcomes1. We therefore also generated complementary hPSC-derived colonic organoids (hPSC-COs) to explore the response of colonic cells to SARS-CoV-2 infection. We found that multiple colonic cell types, especially enterocytes, express ACE2 and are permissive to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Using hPSC-LOs, we performed a high throughput screen of FDA-approved drugs and identified entry inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2, including imatinib, mycophenolic acid (MPA), and quinacrine dihydrochloride (QNHC). Pre- or post-infection treatment at physiologically relevant levels of these drugs significantly inhibited SARS-CoV-2 infection of both hPSC-LOs and hPSC-COs. Together, these data demonstrate that hPSC-LOs and hPSC-COs infected by SARS-CoV-2 can serve as disease models to study SARS-CoV-2 infection and provide a valuable resource for drug screening to identify candidate COVID-19 therapeutics.
Project description:Inhibition of deregulated protein kinases by small molecule drugs has evolved into a major therapeutic strategy for the treatment of human malignancies. Imatinib mesylate has emerged as the leading compound to treat chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), through its inhibition of Bcr- Abl tyrosine kinases, and other cancers. However, resistance to imatinib develops frequently, particularly in late-stage disease and has necessitated the development of new BCR-ABL inhibitors. The synthesis of a new series of phenylaminopyrimidines, structurally related to imatinib showed large interest since the introduction of the nilotibin. To identify the cellular pathways affected by new synthesized compounds, we applied mass spectrometry together with stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) for the comparative study of protein expression in K562 cells that were untreated or treated with imatinib and imatinib derivates. Further, the global proteome of the K562 cells treated with imatinib were quantitatively compared with the cells treated with the new compounds. This study enriched our knowledge about direct cellular targets of kinase selective drugs. Further the results offered important new knowledge for gaining insights into the structural effects of action of the new compounds. Samples were analyzed on a longer column (30cm) and a longer gradient (180min). Raw data files were processed with Mascot distiller 2.3. The mgf files were searched with Mascot daemon 2.3. The quantification was also done by Mascot Distiller. All data was stored in ms_lims. The manual validation of false peptide ratios was done with Rover (part of ms_lims). Fixed modifications: none. Variable modifications: acetylation of peptide N-terminus, pyroglutamate formation of N-terminal glutamine, methionine oxidation. Enzyme: trypsine with one missed cleavage allowed. Precursor mass tolerance: 10 ppm. Peptide fragment mass tolerance: 0.5 Da Quantitation method: SILAC arginine and lysine +6 Da. Overview of the 17 different analyses: B SK23 vs DMSO C Y22 vs DMSO D SK20 vs DMSO E Y18 vs DMSO I SK20 vs DMSO K Y18 vs DMSO O Y22 vs DMSO R Imatinib vs Water Z Imatinib vs Water J SK20 vs Imatinib M SK23 vs Imatinib N Y22 vs Imatinib P SK23 vs Imatinib Q Y18 vs Imatinib S Y22 vs Imatinib T SK20 vs Imatinib Y Y18 vs Imatinib
Project description:Gene expression profiling of primary mammary epithelial cells treated for 72 hours with compound 1023 compared to DMSO. Goal was to determine genes differntially regulated by treatment with the novel compound, 1023. Two-condition experiment, DMSO vs. 1023. Biological replicates: 2 control replicates, 2 1023 replicates.
Project description:The current COVID-19 pandemic is caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). There are currently no therapeutic options for mitigating this disease due to lack of a vaccine and limited knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 virus biology. As a result, there is an urgent need to create new disease models to study SARS-CoV-2 biology and to screen for therapeutics using human disease-relevant tissues. COVID-19 patients often present with respiratory symptoms including cough, dyspnea, and respiratory distress but upwards of 25% of respiratory dysfunction, many COVID-19 patients have digestive system indications, including anorexia, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Moreover, these symptoms are associated with more severe COVID-19 outcomes1. Here, we report using human pluripotent stem cell-derived colonic organoids (hPSC-COs) to explore the permissiveness of different colonic cell types to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Single cell RNA-seq and immunostaining showed that the putative viral entry receptor ACE2 is expressed in multiple types of hESC-derived colon cells, but are highly enriched in hPSC-derivedKRT20+ enterocytes. Distinct cell types in the COs can be infected by a SARS-CoV-2 pseudo-entry virus, which is further validated in vivo using a humanized mouse model. Finally, we adapted hPSC-derived COs to a high throughput platform to screen 1280 FDA-approved drugs. Mycophenolic acid was found to block the entry of SARS-Cov-2 pseudo-entry virus in COs, and confirmed to block infection of SARS-CoV-2 virus. In summary, this study established both in vitro and in vivo organoid models to investigate infection of SARS-CoV-2 disease-relevant human colonic cell types and identified a drug suitable for rapid clinical testing that blocks SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Project description:To gain an understanding of the toxic effect of a commonly used solvent, flies were exposed to 0, 0.1, 0.2, or 0.4% v/v DMSO for 0, 2, 4, or 8 h. We performed compound exposure of 800 individual flies in 4 Whole Animal Feeding Flats (WAFFL), a novel 96 well system to house, feed, and harvest individual flies. This expression profiling was part of a set of the experiments performed to evaluate the suitability of the WAFFL for high throughput small compound screening in D. melanogaster. Treated flies and controls were used for poly A+ stranded mRNA library preparation and we performed high throughput RNA sequencing to determine the transcriptional changes due to DMSO treatment.
Project description:Rocaglamide A (RocA) typifies a novel class of protein synthesis inhibitors that selectively kill aneuploid tumor cells and repress translation of specific mRNAs. RocA targets eukaryotic initiation factor 4A (eIF4A), the prototypical DEAD-box RNA helicase, and its mRNA selectivity is proposed to reflect highly structured 5â² UTRs that are very dependent on eIF4A-mediated unwinding. Here, we show that secondary structure in 5â² UTRs is only a minor determinant for RocA selectivity and RocA does not repress translation by reducing eIF4A activity. Rather, in vitro and in vivo, RocA clamps eIF4A onto a specific sequence motif even after ATP hydrolysis. This artificially clamped eIF4A blocks 43S scanning, leading to premature, upstream translation initiation and reducing gene expression on transcripts bearing the RocA-eIF4A target sequence. In elucidating the mechanism of this lead anti-cancer compound and explaining its mRNA selectivity, we provide the first example of a drug stabilizing sequence-specific RNA-protein interactions. Ribosome profiling, mRNA-Seq, RIP-Seq, and Bind-n-Seq Ribosome profiling for sample 1-5, and 11-15. Sample1 and 2 are replicates of control of DMSO treatment for sample 3-5, and 11, with RocA and PP242 treatments. Sample 12 and 13 are replicates of control of DMSO treatment for sample 14 and 15 with Hipp treatments. mRNA-Seq for sample 6-10. Sample 6 and 7 are replicates of control of DMSO treatment for sample 8-10 with RocA treatments. RIP-Seq for 16-19. Sample 16 and 17 are replicates of control of DMSO treatment for sample 18-19 with RocA treatments. Bind-n-Seq for 20-23. Sample 21 is control of DMSO treatment for sample 22-23 with RocA treatments. Sample 20 is a input contol for protein-bound fraction of sample 21. We stably expressed SBP (streptavidin binding peptide)-tagged eIF4A in HEK 293T-REx cells and purified it via M270 streptavidin beads (life techonologies).
Project description:RNA-Seq was utilized to monitor changes of gene expression profile of BFU-E cultured with DMSO, compound OB or PD; ChIP-Seq was utilized to identify binding sites of CREB in BFU-E