Project description:Soil Aquifer Treatment (SAT) is recognized as a cost-effective approach to reduce contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) from Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) effluents. However, its efficiency in removing the associated biological effects is still poorly understood. Here, we evaluated the efficiency of three pilot SAT systems, two of them enhanced with reactive barriers containing different proportions of sand and organic materials, in removing toxicity associated to CECs. SATs were fed with secondary effluents from the Palamós WWTP (N.E. Spain) during two consecutive campaigns scheduled before and after the summer of 2020. Fifteen water samples were collected from the WWTP effluent, below the barriers and 15 m into the aquifer. Transcriptomic analyses of zebrafish embryos exposed to the corresponding water extracts revealed a wide range of toxic activities in the WWTP effluents. Results demonstrated that the associated responses were reduced by more than 70% by SAT, achieving control levels in some cases. Similar results were obtained when human HepG2 hepatic cells were tested for cytotoxic and dioxin-like responses. Toxicity reduction appeared to be partially determined by the reactive barrier composition and/or SAT managing and was correlated with the removal of CECs by SAT. In conclusion, SAT appears to be a very promising approach for efficiently reducing the effects of recalcitrant pollutants from WWTP secondary effluents on the environment and human health.
2024-11-01 | GSE240250 | GEO
Project description:microbial community of vadose zone and aquifer
| PRJNA594813 | ENA
Project description:fungal community of vadose zone and aquifer
| PRJNA636522 | ENA
Project description:archaeal community of vadose zone and aquifer
Project description:<p>The study of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in infectious diarrhea has generally been limited to cultivation, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and targeted PCR assays. When individual strains of significance are identified, whole genome shotgun (WGS) sequencing of important clones and clades is performed. Genes that encode resistance to antibiotics have been detected in environmental, insect, human and animal metagenomes and are known as "resistomes". While metagenomic datasets have been mined to characterize the healthy human gut resistome in the Human Microbiome Project and MetaHIT and in a Yanomani Amerindian cohort, directed metagenomic sequencing has not been used to examine the epidemiology of AMR. Especially in developing countries where sanitation is poor, diarrhea and enteric pathogens likely serve to disseminate antibiotic resistance elements of clinical significance. Unregulated use of antibiotics further exacerbates the problem by selection for acquisition of resistance. This is exemplified by recent reports of multiple antibiotic resistance in Shigella strains in India, in Escherichia coli in India and Pakistan, and in nontyphoidal Salmonella (NTS) in South-East Asia. We propose to use deep metagenomic sequencing and genome level assembly to study the epidemiology of AMR in stools of children suffering from diarrhea. Here the epidemiology component will be surveillance and analysis of the microbial composition (to the bacterial species/strain level where possible) and its constituent antimicrobial resistance genetic elements (such as plasmids, integrons, transposons and other mobile genetic elements, or MGEs) in samples from a cohort where diarrhea is prevalent and antibiotic exposure is endemic. The goal will be to assess whether consortia of specific mobile antimicrobial resistance elements associate with species/strains and whether their presence is enhanced or amplified in diarrheal microbiomes and in the presence of antibiotic exposure. This work could potentially identify clonal complexes of organisms and MGEs with enhanced resistance and the potential to transfer this resistance to other enteric pathogens.</p> <p>We have performed WGS, metagenomic assembly and gene/protein mapping to examine and characterize the types of AMR genes and transfer elements (transposons, integrons, bacteriophage, plasmids) and their distribution in bacterial species and strains assembled from DNA isolated from diarrheal and non-diarrheal stools. The samples were acquired from a cohort of pediatric patients and controls from Colombia, South America where antibiotic use is prevalent. As a control, the distribution and abundance of AMR genes can be compared to published studies where resistome gene lists from healthy cohort sequences were compiled. Our approach is more epidemiologic in nature, as we plan to identify and catalogue antimicrobial elements on MGEs capable of spread through a local population and further we will, where possible, link mobile antimicrobial resistance elements with specific strains within the population.</p>
Project description:About 20% of youth are obese with higher risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes (T2D). We have recently reported that in obese adolescents altered pattern of fat distribution is associated with insulin resistance and T2D. In particular, the high ratio of visceral AT depot (VAT) to abdominal subcutaneous AT depot (SAT) (high VAT/(VAT+SAT)) was associated with a metabolically unhealthy phenotype with high risk for insulin resistance and T2D. CIDEA (Cell death inducing DNA fragmentation factor-alpha-like A) is a member of CIDE family and it is not only involved in the promotion of cell death and DNA fragmentation but it also plays critical roles in the lipid droplets formation and growth. Here we demonstrated in abdominal SAT from adolescent obese girls with high VAT/(VAT+SAT) a significant reduction of CIDEA expression associated with an increase in fasting insulin, serum FFA and consequent insulin resistance. We also demonstrated a direct correlation between CIDEA expression and fraction of large cells and an inverse correlation with small adipocytes number and pre-adipocytes proliferation. After gaining weight, we observed an increase in adipocytes cell diameter but a decrease in CIDEA expression, and the transcriptomic analysis showed a gene profile linked to adipocyte dysfunction. Together, these data suggested that in subjects with high VAT/(VAT+SAT) decreased CIDEA expression is associated with an increase in adipocyte cell sizing and consecutive insulin resistance.
Project description:There is an urgent need for novel antibiotics against carbapenem and 3rd generation cephalosporin-resistant Gram-negative pathogens, for which the last-resort antibiotics have lost most of their efficacy. We describe here a novel class of synthetic antibiotics that was inspired from natural product-derived scaffolds. The antibiotics have an unprecedented mechanism of action, which targets the main component (BamA) of the Bam folding machinery required for folding and insertion of ß-barrel proteins into the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. This OMPTA (outer membrane protein-targeting antibiotic) class shows potent activity against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative ESKAPE pathogens and overcomes colistin-resistance both in vitro and in vivo. A clinical candidate has the potential to address life threatening Gram-negative infections with high unmet medical need.
Project description:The emergence of polymyxin resistance in carbapenem-resistant and extended-spectrum -lactamase (ESBL)-producing bacteria is a critical threat to human health, and new treatment strategies are urgently required. Here, we investigated the ability of the safe-for-human use ionophore PBT2 to restore antibiotic sensitivity in polymyxin-resistant, ESBL-producing, carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative human pathogens. PBT2 was observed to resensitize Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa to last-resort polymyxin class antibiotics, including the less-toxic next-generation polymyxin derivative, FADDI-287. We were unable to select for mutants resistant to PBT2 + FADDI-287 in polymyxin resistant E. coli containing a plasmid-borne mcr-1 gene or K. pneumoniae carrying a chromosomal mgrB mutation. Using a highly invasive K. pneumoniae strain engineered for polymyxin resistance through mgrB mutation, we successfully demonstrated the efficacy of PBT2 + FADDI-287 in vivo for the treatment of Gram-negative sepsis. These data present a new treatment modality to break antibiotic resistance in high priority polymyxin-resistant Gram-negative pathogens.
Project description:Objective: Abdominal adiposity is strongly associated with diabetic and cardiovascular comorbidities. The long non-coding RNA HOTAIR (HOX Transcript Antisense Intergenic RNA) is an important epigenetic regulator, with fat depot-specific expression between abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) and gluteal SAT. HOTAIR locates closely with HOXC13, known to strongly associated with human fat distribution. Here, we examined the phenotypic effects of HOTAIR overexpression on abdominal adipogenesis, and hypothesized that HOTAIR-mediated DNA methylation is correlated with transcriptome changes, leading to the regulation of specific genes and the functional pathways. Methods: The expression level of HOTAIR was compared among different fat-depots collected from six healthy, five severe obese, and five uremic subjects, and was correlated with dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) defined regional adiposity. The human immortalized preadipocyte was used to assess the phenotypic effects of HOTAIR overexpression on abdominal adipogenesis. The integrative analysis of reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) and RNA-sequencing was performed to identify putative genes that are epigenetically regulated by HOTAIR, and the associated signaling pathways. HOTAIR-repressed genes were further validated using RNA/chromatin immunoprecipitation with real-time qPCR and correlated with human body fat distribution. Results: We found that the expression of HOTAIR was high in gluteal SAT, and low in arm/abdominal SAT and visceral (omental) adipose tissue. It could be aberrantly increased in uremic arm SAT. Notably, in severe obese subjects we found that HOTAIR is lowly expressed in abdominal SAT correlating with a higher abdominal adiposity, whereas in uremic patients HOTAIR is highly expressed in arm SAT correlating with lower arm adiposity. HOTAIR overexpression in human immortalized abdominal preadipocyte remarkably suppresses the in vitro adipogenesis. Overall the differentially methylated genes were functionally enriched for nervous system development. We specifically identified 10 HOTAIR-mediated genes showing strong changes of DNA methylation associated with gene expression during abdominal adipogenesis, suggesting potential epigenetic regulation. Two HOTAIR-repressed genes, SLITRK4 and PITPNC1, were further highlighted and validated; presenting an obesity-driven fat-depot specific expression pattern positively correlated with the central body fat distribution. Conclusions: Our study indicated that HOTAIR is an important regulator for abdominal adipogenesis via intricate DNA methylation likely to associate with transcriptional regulation of specific genes, such as SLITRK4 and PITPNC1.