Project description:The objective of this study was to identify gene expression markers of disease severity in a cohort of RSV infected children Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the number one pathogen causing lower respiratory tract infection that leads to hospitalization in young children. Despite growing insights in the disease pathogenesis, the clinical presentation in these children is highly variable and heterogeneous, and reliable markers predictive of disease progression are lacking. We characterized the host response to acute RSV infection to identify biomarkers associated with RSV disease and disease severity. Whole genome transcriptome was analysed early on the disease course in blood samples from otherwise healthy children <2 years of age, who were either hospitalized (n = 110) or evaluated as outpatients (n = 37) due to RSV infection. Age-matched non-RSV-infected healthy children (n = 51) were analysed in parallel. A clustering approach on the transcriptome data revealed biologically meaningful biomarkers associated with progression to severe RSV disease. Overall, the whole blood transcriptome pointed to alterations in frequency of specific immune cell types (neutrophils, T- and B-lymphocytes, NK cells, monocytes) in RSV-infected children. In addition, a cluster enriched for neutrophil degranulation genes, was highly correlated with clinical disease severity. The driver genes of this cluster (OLFM4, ELANE, MMP8, BPI, CEACAM8, LCN2, LTF and MPO) were selected and validated in independent existing transcriptomics datasets. We identified a set of genes involved in neutrophil degranulation as markers for RSV disease severity. Additional prospective studies using these markers are required to further confirm their value as predictive tool in routine clinical care.
Project description:To study the transcriptional profile of patients with acute RSV or Influenza infection,children of median age 2.4 months (range 1.5-8.6) hospitalized with acute RSV and influenza virus infection were offered study enrollment after microbiologic confirmation of the diagnosis. Blood samples were collected from them within 42-72 hours of hospitalization. We excluded children with suspected or proven polymicrobial infections, with underlying chronic medical conditions (i.e congenital heart disease, renal insufficiency), with immunodeficiency, or those who received systemic steroids or other immunomodulatory therapies. The RSV cohort consisted of 51 patients with median age of 2 months (range 1.5-3.9) and the influenza cohort had 28 patients with median age of 5.5 months (range 1.4-21). Control samples were obtained from healthy children undergoing elective surgical procedures or at outpatient clinic visits. To exclude viral co-infections we performed nasopharyngeal viral cultures of all subjects. We recruited 10 control patients for the RSV cohort with median age of 6.7 months (range 5-10), and 12 control patients for the influenza cohort with median age of18.5 months (range 10.5-26). We used microarrays to obtain the transcriptional profile of PBMCs from patients with acute RSV or Influenza infection and compared these signatures with the transcriptional profile of primary airway epithelial cells infected with RSV or Influenza.
Project description:Analysis of transcriptional profiles in whole blood from children < 2 years of age (and healthy matched controls) with RSV, rhinovirus and influenza infection. The hypothesis tested is that transcriptional profile heterogeneity will reflect patient clinical heterogeneity and that RSV infection induces a distinct host response compared with influenza and rhinovirus infection Total RNA extracted from whole blood (lysed in Tempus tubes) drawn from individual pediatric patients with acute RSV, influenza and Rhinovirus lower respiratory tract infection. A total of 241 samples are analyzed: 135 with acute RSV LRTI, 30 with Rhinovirus LRTI, 16 with influenza LRTI, 39 age-sex matched healthy controls and 21 samples obtained one month after the acute hospitalization in children with RSV. Samples GSM1226237-GSM1226272, which were hybridized to Platform GPL10558, were normalized separately from the other Samples in this Series, which were hybridized to Platform GPL6884. 'GSE38900_non-normalized_GSM1226237-GSM1226272.txt.gz' includes the non-normalized data for Samples GSM1226237-GSM1226272; 'GSE38900_non-normalized.txt.gz' includes the non-normalized data for the other Samples.
Project description:Analysis of transcriptional profiles in whole blood and nasopharyngeal swaps from children hospitalized with lower respiratory tract infections at their admission and their discharge, and diagnosed with either RSV or rhinovirus infections. The hypothesis is that this information will contribute to better understand the viral specific immunity and host responses to RSV infection and may suggest leads for the develoment of vaccines and specific treatment.
Project description:Analysis of transcriptional profiles in whole blood from children < 2 years of age (and healthy matched controls) with RSV, rhinovirus and influenza infection. The hypothesis tested is that transcriptional profile heterogeneity will reflect patient clinical heterogeneity and that RSV infection induces a distinct host response compared with influenza and rhinovirus infection
Project description:Persistent Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection in humans, animal models and cell lines have proven persistence of viral genomic RNA and mRNA for long periods of time. Cell lines are well-established models that can be used to study alterations in the expression profile of the host genome. We postulate that RSV persistence might also indirectly induce changes in the homeostasis of non-infected cells through soluble factors. Thus, we evaluated the effect of conditioned medium (CM) from MΦP cultures on the transcriptional profile of non-infected macrophages through gene expression microarrays
Project description:Rationale: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of acute lower respiratory tract infections and hospitalizations in infants worldwide. Known risk factors, however, incompletely explain the variability of RSV disease severity among children. We postulate that severity of RSV infection is influenced in part by modulation of the host immune response by the local microbial ecosystem at the time of infection. Objectives: To define whether different nasopharyngeal microbiota profiles are associated with distinct host transcriptome profiles and severity in children with RSV infection. Methods: We analyzed the nasopharyngeal microbiota profiles of young children with mild and severe RSV disease and healthy matched controls by 16S-rRNA sequencing. In parallel, we analyzed whole blood gene expression profiles to study the relationship between microbial community composition, the RSV-induced host transcriptional response and clinical disease severity. Measurements and Main results: We identified five nasopharyngeal microbiota profiles characterized by enrichment of H. influenzae, Streptococcus, Corynebacterium, Moraxella or S. aureus. RSV infection and RSV hospitalization were positively associated with H. influenzae and Streptococcus, and negatively associated with S. aureus abundance, independent of age. The host response to RSV was defined by overexpression of interferon-related genes, and this was independent of the microbiota composition. On the other hand, transcriptome profiles of RSV infected children with H. influenzae and Streptococcus-dominated microbiota were characterized by greater overexpression of genes linked to toll-like receptor-signaling and neutrophil activation and were more frequently hospitalized Conclusions: Our data suggest an immunomodulatory role for the resident nasopharyngeal microbial community early in RSV infection, potentially affecting RSV disease severity.
Project description:This was a prospective observational cohort study involving a convenience sample of previously healthy children <2 years of age with acute RSV infection as well as healthy non-infected age matched controls. The study was conducted at Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH; Columbus, OH) during four respiratory seasons, from 2011 to 2015. Children were enrolled at the NCH urgent care clinics, the emergency department or in the inpatient ward or intensive care unit (PICU). For the inpatients enrolled at ward or PICU the median time from admission to sample collection was 21.3h (interquartile range [IQR] 16.7 -37.6h). The majority of children had a confirmatory RSV test (either rapid antigen testing or PCR based) at enrollment per standard of care. In addition, the presence of RSV was confirmed by quantitative real time (qRT)-PCR in all study subjects. Healthy age-matched controls were enrolled during well-child visits or minor elective surgical procedures not involving the respiratory tract as described [Mejias 2013]. Exclusion criteria were as follows: documented bacterial co-infections, premature birth (<36 weeks of gestation), chronic or congenital medical conditions, and immunodeficiency. For healthy controls, additional exclusion criteria included: presence of fever or symptoms of respiratory tract infection within two weeks of enrollment.
Project description:RSV, a leading cause of severe respiratory illnesses in vulnerable populations, lacks effective, affordable treatments for pediatric use. The potential of traditional Chinese medicine for relieving viral symptoms prompted this investigation into Xuanfei Formula (XFF) as an anti-RSV agent. This study employed H&E staining, cytokine profiling, and RSV titer quantification in BALB/c mice to evaluate the impact of XFF on RSV infection. Strikingly, immediate post-treatment observation showed a precipitous drop in both serum pro-inflammatory cytokine levels and pulmonary RSV-N gene copies in comparison to infected controls, suggesting XFF’s direct anti-RSV action. Transcriptome analyses were used to pinpointed the underlying mechanism behind formula’s immune-independent anti-RSV, a leading cause of severe respiratory illnesses in vulnerable populations, lacks effective, affordable treatments for pediatric use. The potential of traditional Chinese medicine for relieving viral symptoms prompted this investigation into Xuanfei Formula (XFF) as an anti-RSV agent. This study employed H&E staining, cytokine profiling, and RSV titer quantification in BALB/c mice to evaluate the impact of XFF on RSV infection. Strikingly, immediate post-treatment observation showed a precipitous drop in both serum pro-inflammatory cytokine levels and pulmonary RSV-N gene copies in comparison to infected controls, suggesting XFF’s direct anti-RSV action. Transcriptome analyses were used to pinpointed the underlying mechanism behind formula’s immune-independent anti-RSV effects during infection.