Project description:Efforts to eradicate TB are largely threatened by drug-resistant tuberculosis, particularly, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). It is imperative to find one or more specific biomarkers for diagnosing MDR-TB earlier and declining the incidence. Growing evidences have showed lncRNAs are widely expressed and take part in the genesis and development of many diseases, including tuberculosis. Therefore, to screen the differential lncRNAs among MDR-TB, drug-sensitive tuberculosis(DS-TB) and healthy controls(HCs) is a good strategy to acquire potential biomarkers for MDR-TB diagnosis and partly describe the mechanism of MDR-TB. Here, the present study aimed to investigate the differential expression profile of lncRNAs in serum among patients with MDR-TB ,DS-TB and HCs using lncRNA microarray
Project description:①Background:Tuberculosis is mainly a respiratory tract infection caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis and one of the leading causes of death worldwide. According to the Global Tuberculosis Report in 2021, About a quarter of the world's population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and China is the second highest burden of TB. Although TB diagnosis and prevention techniques have become more mature, the number of TB cases is still increasing, mainly due to: the prevalence of drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria, tuberculosis and HIV co-infection, long incubation time of mycobacterium tuberculosis difficult to early diagnosis and so on. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the pathogenesis of mycobacterium tuberculosis infection.②Method: THP-1 cells were treated with 50ng/ml PMA for 24 hours, so that THP-1 cell can be induced into macrophages. After that THP-1 macrophages were infected with mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv(MOI=1), which were collected and applied to RNA-sequencing. The constructed sequencing library was sequenced using an Illumina Novaseq 6000 system.
Project description:Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the deadliest infectious disorders in the world. To effectively TB manage, an essential step is to gain insight into the lineage of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) strains and the distribution of drug resistance. Although the Campania region is declared a cluster area for the infection, to contribute to the effort to understand TB evolution and transmission, still poorly known, we have generated a dataset of 159 genomes of MTB strains, from Campania region collected during 2018-2021, obtained from the analysis of whole genome sequence data. The results show that the most frequent MTB lineage is the 4 according for 129 strains (81.11%). Regarding drug resistance, 139 strains (87.4%) were classified as multi susceptible, while the remaining 20 (12.58%) showed drug resistance. Among the drug-resistance strains, 8 were isoniazid-resistant MTB (HR-MTB), 7 were resistant only to one antibiotic (3 were resistant only to ethambutol and 3 isolate to streptomycin while one isolate showed resistance to fluoroquinolones), 4 multidrug-resistant MTB, while only one was classified as pre-extensively drug-resistant MTB (pre-XDR). This dataset expands the existing available knowledge on drug resistance and evolution of MTB, contributing to further TB-related genomics studies to improve the management of TB infection.
Project description:There is a need for better tools to evaluate new or repurposed TB drugs. The whole blood bactericidal activity (WBA) assay has been advocated for this purpose. We investigated whether transcriptional responses in the WBA assay resemble TB responses in vivo, and whether the approach might additionally reveal mechanisms of response. Microarray analysis was performed on Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) RNA extracted from whole blood cultures, sputum from TB patients on combination treatment, and drug-free broth cultures
Project description:Currently available model organisms such as Mycobacterium smegmatis and Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) have significantly contributed to our understanding of tuberculosis (TB) biology, these models have limitations such as differences in genome size, growth rates and virulence. Attenuated Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains may provide more representative, safer models to study M. tuberculosis biology. For example, the M. tuberculosis ΔleuDΔpanCD double auxotroph, has undergone rigorous in vitro and in vivo safety testing. Like other auxotrophic strains, this has subsequently been approved for use in biosafety level (BSL) 2 facilities. Auxotrophic strains have been assessed as models for drug-resistant M. tuberculosis and for studying latent TB. These offer the potential as safe and useful models, but it is important to understand how well these recapitulate salient features of non-attenuated M. tuberculosis. We therefore performed a comprehensive comparison of M. tuberculosis H37Rv and M. tuberculosis ΔleuDΔpanCD. These strains demonstrated similar in vitro and intra-macrophage replication rates, similar responses to anti-TB agents and whole genome sequence conservation. Shotgun proteomics analysis suggested that M. tuberculosis ΔleuDΔpanCD has an increased propensity to enter a dormant state during acid stress, which has been verified using a dual-fluorescent replication reporter assay. Importantly, infection of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells with the 2 strains elicited comparable cytokine production, demonstrating the suitability of M. tuberculosis ΔleuDΔpanCD for immunological assays. We provide comprehensive evidence to support the judicious use of M. tuberculosis ΔleuDΔpanCD as a safe and suitable model organism for M. tuberculosis research, without the need for a BSL3 facility.
Project description:The emergence of drug resistance among tuberculosis (TB) patients is often associated with their non-compliance to the length of the chemotherapy, which can reach up to 2 years for the treatment of multi-drug-resistant (MDR) TB. Drugs that would kill TB faster and would not lead to the development of drug resistance could shorten chemotherapy significantly. In Escherichia coli, the common mechanism of cell death by bactericidal antibiotics is the generation of highly reactive hydroxyl radicals via the Fenton reaction. Since ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is known to drive the Fenton reaction, we tested whether the Fenton reaction could lead to a bactericidal event in Mycobacterium tuberculosis by treating M. tuberculosis cultures with vitamin C. Here, we report that the addition of vitamin C to drug-susceptible, MDR and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) M. tuberculosis strains results in sterilization of the cultures in vitro. We show that the sterilizing effect of vitamin C on M. tuberculosis was dependent on the production of high ferrous ion levels and reactive oxygen species. Although, this potent sterilizing activity of vitamin C against M. tuberculosis in vitro was not observed in mice, we believe this activity needs further investigation. Comparison of vitamin C treated Mycobacterium tuberculosis transcriptome relative to untreated; Three biological replicates, second is a dye flip
Project description:The alarming rise of antimicrobial resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis coupled with the shortage of new antibiotics has made tuberculosis (TB) control a global health priority. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) inhibit the growth of multi-drug resistant isolates of M. tuberculosis. Repurposing NSAIDs, with known clinical properties and safety records, offers a direct route to clinical trials. Therefore we investigated the novel mechanisms of anti-mycobacterial action of the NSAID, carprofen. Integrative molecular and microbiological approaches revealed that carprofen, a bactericidal drug, inhibited bacterial drug efflux mechanisms. In addition, carprofen restricted mycobacterial biofilm-like growth, highlighting the requirement of efflux-mediated communicative systems for the formation of biofilms. Transcriptome profiling revealed that carprofen likely acts by inhibiting respiration through the disruption of membrane potential, which may explain why spontaneous drug-resistant mutants could not be raised due to the pleiotropic nature of carprofen’s anti-tubercular action. This immunomodulatory drug has the potential to reverse TB antimicrobial resistance by inhibiting drug efflux pumps and biofilm formation, and paves a new chemotherapeutic path for tackling tuberculosis.
Project description:Background Accurate assessment of treatment efficacy would facilitate clinical trials of new anti-tuberculosis drugs. TB patients exhibit altered peripheral immunity which reverts during successful treatment. We hypothesised that these changes could be observed in whole blood transcriptome profiles. Methods Ex vivo blood samples from 27 pulmonary TB patients were assayed at diagnosis and during conventional treatment. RNA was processed and hybridised to Affymetrix GeneChips, to determine expression of over 47,000 transcripts. Findings There were significant changes in expression of over 4,000 genes during treatment. Rapid, large scale changes were detected, with down-regulated expression of ~1,000 genes within the first week, including inflammatory markers such as the complement components C1q and C2. This was followed by slower changes in expression of different networks of genes, including a later increase in expression of B cell markers, transcription factors and signalling molecules. Interpretation The expression of many genes is drastically altered during TB disease, with components of the humoral immune response being markedly affected. The treatment-induced restoration reflects the simultaneous suppression and activation of different immune responses in TB. The rapid initial down-regulation of expression of inflammatory mediators coincides with rapid killing of actively dividing bacilli, whereas slower delayed changes occur as drugs act on dormant bacilli and as lung pathology resolves. Measurement of biosignatures during clinical trials of new drugs could be useful predictors of rapid bactericidal or sterilizing drug activity. Ex vivo blood samples analysed for 27 first episode pulmonary TB patients, at diagnosis and after 1, 2, 4 and 26 weeks of treatment.
Project description:Background Accurate assessment of treatment efficacy would facilitate clinical trials of new anti-tuberculosis drugs. TB patients exhibit altered peripheral immunity which reverts during successful treatment. We hypothesised that these changes could be observed in whole blood transcriptome profiles. Methods Ex vivo blood samples from 27 pulmonary TB patients were assayed at diagnosis and during conventional treatment. RNA was processed and hybridised to Affymetrix GeneChips, to determine expression of over 47,000 transcripts. Findings There were significant changes in expression of over 4,000 genes during treatment. Rapid, large scale changes were detected, with down-regulated expression of ~1,000 genes within the first week, including inflammatory markers such as the complement components C1q and C2. This was followed by slower changes in expression of different networks of genes, including a later increase in expression of B cell markers, transcription factors and signalling molecules. Interpretation The expression of many genes is drastically altered during TB disease, with components of the humoral immune response being markedly affected. The treatment-induced restoration reflects the simultaneous suppression and activation of different immune responses in TB. The rapid initial down-regulation of expression of inflammatory mediators coincides with rapid killing of actively dividing bacilli, whereas slower delayed changes occur as drugs act on dormant bacilli and as lung pathology resolves. Measurement of biosignatures during clinical trials of new drugs could be useful predictors of rapid bactericidal or sterilizing drug activity. Ex vivo blood samples analysed during TB treatment. These samples are from 9 successfully cured patients at diagnosis and end-of-treatment at 26 weeks.
Project description:The emergence of drug resistance among tuberculosis (TB) patients is often associated with their non-compliance to the length of the chemotherapy, which can reach up to 2 years for the treatment of multi-drug-resistant (MDR) TB. Drugs that would kill TB faster and would not lead to the development of drug resistance could shorten chemotherapy significantly. In Escherichia coli, the common mechanism of cell death by bactericidal antibiotics is the generation of highly reactive hydroxyl radicals via the Fenton reaction. Since ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is known to drive the Fenton reaction, we tested whether the Fenton reaction could lead to a bactericidal event in Mycobacterium tuberculosis by treating M. tuberculosis cultures with vitamin C. Here, we report that the addition of vitamin C to drug-susceptible, MDR and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) M. tuberculosis strains results in sterilization of the cultures in vitro. We show that the sterilizing effect of vitamin C on M. tuberculosis was dependent on the production of high ferrous ion levels and reactive oxygen species. Although, this potent sterilizing activity of vitamin C against M. tuberculosis in vitro was not observed in mice, we believe this activity needs further investigation.