Project description:Human papilloma (HPV) virus-like particle (VLP) vaccines were recently licensed. Though neutralizing antibody titers are thought to be the main effectors of protection against infection, early predictors of long-term efficacy are not yet defined and a comprehensive understanding of innate and adaptive immune responses to vaccination is still lacking. Here, microarrays were used to compare the gene expression signature in HPV-16 L1 VLP-stimulated PBMC from 17 vaccine and 4 placebo recipients before vaccination, and 1 month after receiving the second immunization. Vaccination with HPV-16 L1 VLP was associated with modulation of genes involved in the inflammatory/defense response, cytokine, interferon and cell cycle pathways in VLP-stimulated PBMC. In addition, there was up-regulation of probesets associated with cytotoxic (GZMB, TNFSF10) and regulatory (INDO, CTLA4) activities. The strongest correlations with neutralizing antibody titers were found for cyclin d2 (CCND2) and galectin (LGALS2). Twenty-two differentially expressed probesets were selected for confirmation by RT-PCR in an independent sample set. Agreement with the microarray data was seen for over two-thirds of these probesets. Up-regulation of immune/defense response genes by VLP, in particular interferon-induced genes was observed in PBMC collected prior to vaccination, with many of these genes being further induced following vaccination. In conclusion, we used gene expression profiling to identify important innate and adaptive response related- genes induced by vaccination with HPV VLP. Further studies are needed to identify gene expression signatures of immunogenicity and long-term protection with potential utility in prediction of long-term HPV vaccination outcomes in clinical trials. Keywords: Time course - pre and post HPV immunizaton
Project description:To test the effects of metformin on the human gut micorbiome, we fist collected human stool samples. We processed the samples in vitro culturing under anaerobic condition for 24 hours using the rapidAIM assay and either and cultured them with metformin, or DMSO as a control. We know that metformin can alter the human gut microbiome and were interested in better analyzing which functional proceses were altered.