Project description:Tomatidine, a natural steroidal alkaloid from unripe green tomatoes has been shown to exhibit many health benefits. We recently provided in vitro evidence that tomatidine reduces the infectivity of Dengue virus (DENV) and Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), two medically important arthropod-borne human infections for which no treatment options are available. The objective of this mass spectrometry analysis was to determine possible proteomic changes in the human cell line Huh7 induced by tomatidine which may be indicative of the underlying antiviral activity of tomatidine.
Project description:Background: Septic shock is a life-threatening clinical condition characterized by a robust immune inflammatory response to disseminated infection. Little is known about its impact on the transcriptome of distinct human organs. Objective and Methods: To address this, we performed RNA sequencing of samples from the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, heart, lung, kidney and colon of seven individuals who succumbed to sepsis and seven uninfected controls. Main Results: We identified that the lungs and colon were the most affected organs. While gene activation dominated, strong inhibitory signals were also detected, particularly in the lungs. Principal Conclusions: We found that septic shock is an extremely heterogeneous disease, not only when different individuals are investigated, but also when comparing different tissues of the same patient. However, several pathways, such as respiratory electron transport and other metabolic functions, revealed distinctive alterations, providing evidence that tissue specificity is a hallmark of sepsis. Strikingly, we found evident signals of accelerated ageing in our sepsis population.
Project description:Samples from mice infected and then treated with vehicle, carnitine or benznidazole in the chronic stage of infection. Tissue samples extracted with 50% methanol followed by 3:1 dichloromethane:methanol. C8 chromatography with negative mode data acquisition