Project description:The aim of the EVENT Study (Extracellular Vesicles in Early preterm Neonates and Thrombin generation) was to characterise the circulating EVs in preterm infants, using multiple EV charac- terisation techniques, during the perinatal adaptation period and compare them to healthy full-term controls.
Project description:Neonatal sepsis is an important health-care concern worldwide occurring more frequently in premature newborns and for which diagnosis is yet a challenge, causing delays in therapy and increasing the risk of death. DNA methylation, involved in regulating gene expression, has been associated with the development and progression of sepsis. Actually, the detection of differentially methylated regions (DMRs) is a promising epigenetic tool used for diagnosis and prognosis in complex diseases. The present study focuses on two different bioinformatic methods, DMRcate and mCSEA, with the aim of obtaining different methylation traits using Illumina Infinium Human Methylation EPIC data of neonatal sepsis patients. The DMR sets obtained by both approaches can also be overlapped to obtain a reliable set of DMRs which can contribute to improve our understanding on the molecular pathways underlying disease.
Project description:Endothelial colony-forming cells were isolated and expanded from the mononuclear cell fraction (MNC) obtained from the cord blood of term (CT) and preterm (PT) neonates, and characterized as previously described (Vassallo PF et al 2014). The objective of the study was to identify differentially expressed genes between CT and PT neonates. ECFC were harvested from cultures dishes at passage 3 and total RNA was extracted using the mirVana miRNA Isolation Kit (Ambion), according to the manufacturerâs recommendations. Cy3-CTP labeled RNA was prepared according to standard Agilent protocol from 400ng total RNA. The hybridization was performed for 17 hrs at 65°C. cRNA labeling and hybridization performance were performed and all parameters checked were found within the manufacturers specifications. Arrays were scanned as described in the manufacturersâ protocol. Signal intensities on 20 bit tiff images were calculated by Feature Extraction software (FE, Version 8.5; Agilent Technologies). Data analyses were conducted with GeneSpring GX software (Vers.13.1.1; Agilent Technologies)
Project description:Preterm neonates are susceptible to gastrointestinal (GI) disorders such as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Maternal milk, and especially colostrum, protects against NEC via growth promoting, immunomodulatory and antimicrobial factors. The fetal enteral diet, amniotic fluid (AF), contains similar bioactive components and we hypothesized that postnatal AF administration would reduce inflammatory responses and NEC in preterm neonates. Thirty preterm pigs (92% gestation) were delivered by caesarean section and fed total parental nutrition (TPN) for 48 h followed by enteral porcine colostrum (COLOS, n=7), infant formula (FORM, n=13) or formula + porcine AF (AF, n=10). Using a previously validated model of NEC in preterm pigs, we determined the structural, functional, microbiological and immunological responses to AF when administered prior to and after introduction of a suboptimal enteral formula diet. Keywords: Healthy versus inflammed tissues in relation to necrotizing enterocolitis Pigs from each treatment group (COLOS, n=4; FORM, n=6; and AF, n=7) were randomly selected for microarray analysis of frozen distal small intestine samples. The FORM group was further divided into formula-fed healthy pigs (F-HEA, n=3) and formula-fed NEC pigs (F-NEC, n=3) in order to compare sick versus healthy formula fed pigs. Equal amounts of total distal small intestinal RNA from all pigs were pooled to make the reference sample. Samples and reference pool were labelled with Oyster 550 and 650, respectively. The in-house spotted porcine oligonucleotide microarray version 4 (POM4) is a low density microarray consisting of 384 different oligonucleotide probes representing more than 200 different immune related genes.
Project description:Preterm neonates are susceptible to gastrointestinal (GI) disorders such as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Maternal milk, and especially colostrum, protects against NEC via growth promoting, immunomodulatory and antimicrobial factors. The fetal enteral diet, amniotic fluid (AF), contains similar bioactive components and we hypothesized that postnatal AF administration would reduce inflammatory responses and NEC in preterm neonates. Thirty preterm pigs (92% gestation) were delivered by caesarean section and fed total parental nutrition (TPN) for 48 h followed by enteral porcine colostrum (COLOS, n=7), infant formula (FORM, n=13) or formula + porcine AF (AF, n=10). Using a previously validated model of NEC in preterm pigs, we determined the structural, functional, microbiological and immunological responses to AF when administered prior to and after introduction of a suboptimal enteral formula diet. Keywords: Healthy versus inflammed tissues in relation to necrotizing enterocolitis
Project description:This study aimed to analyze and compare the test transcripts of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) isolated from 4 healthy donors and 4 septic patients' whole blood.
Project description:Caesarean-delivered preterm pigs were fed 3 d of parenteral nutrition followed by 2 d of enteral formula feeding. Antibiotics (n=11) or control saline (n=13) were given twice daily from birth to tissue collection at d 5. NEC-lesions and intestinal structure, function, microbiology and immunity markers were recorded. We used Affymetrix microarrays to investigate gene expression in intestinal tissues of preterm piglets treated with antibiotics or control saline. Twenty-four preterm piglets were delivered by caesarean section on day 105 of gestation from two healthy sows. All piglets were initially provided with parenteral nutrition via a vascular catheter, combined with small amounts of minimal enteral nutrition. On day three, all parenteral nutrition was stopped and total enteral nutrition was given through an oro-gastric feeding tube. Piglets were allocated into controls ( n=13) and an intervention group receiving oral and systemic broad-spectrum antibiotics ( n=11). To assure high systemic and intra luminal MIC values antibiotics were given both orally and intramuscularly. All antibiotics were given directly after feeding with an oral bolus and control pigs were given corresponding amounts of saline. On day five, all piglets were euthanized, and small intestinal tissue collected.