Project description:Chemical modifications on mRNA are increasingly recognized as a critical regulatory layer of the flow of genetic information, but quantitative tools to monitor RNA modifications in a whole-transcriptome and site-specific manner are lacking. Here we describe a versatile directed evolution platform that rapidly selects for reverse transcriptases that install mutations during reverse transcription at sites of a given type of RNA modification, allowing for site-specific identification of the modification. To develop and validate the platform, we evolved the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase against N1-methyladenosine (m1A). Iterative rounds of selection yielded reverse transcriptases with both robust read-through and high mutation rates at m1A sites. We apply the evolved reverse transcriptase to identify thousands of statistically confident m1A sites in human mRNA, some of which can be detected in antibody-free RNA-seq libraries. Together, this work develops and validates the reverse transcriptase evolution platform and provides new tools, analysis methods, and datasets to study m1A biology.
Project description:Abacavir, a nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor used for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, develops hypersensitivity in patients carrying HLA-B*57:01 allele through drug antigen presentation. We found that abacavir exposure induced HLA allotype-specific innate immune response in keratinocyte derived from HLA-B*57:01 transgenic mice. Therefore, the mechanism of the novel response was analyzed comprehensively.
Project description:Raw reads for single strand consensus sequencing analysis of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase error rate using as template synthetic RNA or HIV-1 viral RNA from 8E5 cells
Project description:Nevirapine is a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, a class of antiretroviral drug, used for the treatment of HIV-1 infection. Despite its wide use, nevirapine treatment has been associated with a significant incidence of different kind of hypersensitivity reactions (HSRs). We used microarrays to find significant genes that can relate to Nevirapine-persuaded hypersensitivity reactions in ‘acute’ patients compared to ‘recovered’ and/or ‘tolerant’ patients.
Project description:Increased morbidity and fetal growth restriction are reported in uninfected children born to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)–infected women treated with antiretroviral (ARV) therapy. Viruses and/or pharmacological interventions such as ARVs can induce metabolic stress, skewing the cell’s immune response and restricting (cell) growth. Novel metabolomic techniques provided the opportunity to investigate the impact of fetal HIV-1 and combination ARV therapy (cART) exposure on the infants’ immune metabolome. Peroxidized lipids, generated by reactive oxygen species, were increased in cART/HIV-1–exposed infants, indicating altered mitochondrial functioning. The lipid metabolism was further dysregulated with increased triglyceride species and a subsequent decrease in phospholipids in cART/HIV-1–exposed infants compared to control infants. Proinflammatory immune mediators, lysophospholipids as well as cytokines such as CXCL10 and CCL3, were increased whereas anti-inflammatory metabolites from the cytochrome P450 pathway were reduced in cART/HIV-1–exposed infants. Taken together, these data demonstrate that the fetal metabolism is impacted by maternal factors (cART and HIV-1) and skews physiological immune responses toward inflammation in the newborn infant.
Project description:Identifying resistance mutations in a drug target provides crucial information. Lentiviral transduction creates multiple types of mutations due to the error-prone nature of the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT). We optimized and leveraged this property to identify drug resistance mutations, a technique we term LentiMutate. After validating this technique by identifying clinically relevant EGFR resistance mutations, we applied this technique to two additional anti-cancer drugs, imatinib and AMG 510. We find novel deletions in BCR-ABL1 that confer resistance to BCR-ABL1 inhibitors and point mutations in the AMG 510 binding pocket or oncogenic non-G12C mutations, in KRAS-G12C or wild-type KRAS, respectively, that confer resistance to AMG 510. LentiMutate may prove highly valuable to clinical and preclinical cancer drug development.
