Project description:Little is known about the lung microbiome dynamics and host-microbiome interactions in relation to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations and in patient subgroups based on smoking status and disease severity. Here we performed a 16S ribosomal RNA survey on sputum microbiome from 16 healthy and 43 COPD subjects. For COPD subjects, a longitudinal sampling was performed from stable state to exacerbations, at two and six weeks post-exacerbations and at six months from first stable visit. Host sputum transcriptome were characterized for a subset of COPD patient samples.
Project description:Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common bacteria leading to exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients while this bacteria can be easily eradicated by the immune systems of healthy individuals. Human airway organoids derived from healthy individuals and COPD patients were infected with pseudomonas aeruginosa. This project aims (1) to understand the differences in gene expressions in healthy and COPD airway organoids during stable condition, without infection and (2) to investigate differential pathogenic mechanism (i.e. antimicrobial defense) of pseudomonoas aeruginosa infection in healthy and COPD populations. Three healthy donors and three COPD patients were included in this study and samples were collected with and without pseudomonas aeruginosa infection.
Project description:Human rhinovirus (RV) is a major risk factor for COPD and asthma exacerbations, but exploration of RV pathogenesis has been hampered by a lack of disease relevant model systems. We performed a detailed characterization of host mRNA responses to RV infection in human precision cut lung tissue ex vivo (comparing to previously published asthma and COPD studies) and explored the impact of antiviral treatment. Genomic analyses revealed that RV not only induced anti-viral immune responses but also triggered changes in epithelial cell-associated pathways. Strikingly, the RV response in PCLS was reflective of gene expression changes described previously in COPD and asthma patients. While RV-induced host immune responses were abrogated by rupintrivir, RV-triggered epithelial processes were largely refractory to antiviral treatment.
Project description:Investigation of gene expression profiles among patients with COPD frequent exacerbations and to find gene targets as predictors of exacerbations COPD patient samples analysed by microarray, followed by PCR testing to identify gene predictors
Project description:Epigenetics changes have been shown to be affected by cigarette smoking. It is possible that cigarette smoke (CS)-mediated DNA methylation would affect several cellular and pathophysiological processes, acute exacerbations, and comorbidity in lungs of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We sought to determine whether genome-wide lung DNA methylation profiles of smokers and patients with COPD were significantly different from non-smokers. We isolated DNA from lung tissues of patients including 8 lifelong non-smokers, 8 current smokers, and 8 patients with COPD, and subsequently analyzed the samples using the Illumina’s Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip.
Project description:Investigation of gene expression profiles among patients with COPD frequent exacerbations and to find gene targets as predictors of exacerbations
Project description:Lung infection by influenza A viruses is a common cause of disease exacerbations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), however, this process is difficult to study in human patients. Here we used a microfluidic human lung airway-on-a-chip (Airway Chip) lined by primary human bronchial epithelium interfaced with primary human pulmonary microvascular endothelium to model this process in vitro. Airway Chips containing bronchial epithelial cells from COPD patients successfully replicated the increased sensitivity to the lung airway to infection by both influenza H1N1 and H3N2 viruses compared to chips lined by epithelium from healthy donors, including enhanced viral loads and increased production of inflammatory cytokines. Transcriptomics analysis of the healthy and COPD epithelium following infection with influenza H1N1 virus on-chip resulted in identification of several novel markers of COPD
Project description:Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a known risk factor for developing lung cancer suggesting that the COPD stroma contains factors supporting tumorigenesis. Since cancer initiation is complex we used a multi-omic approach to identify gene expression patterns that distinguish COPD stroma in patients with or without lung cancer. Our overall objective is the identification of gene expression pathways and levels of regulation in lung stroma of patients with COPD that harbor lung cancer. We obtained lung tissue from patients with COPD and lung cancer (tumor and adjacent non-malignant tissue) and those with COPD without lung cancer for proteomic and mRNA (cytoplasmic and polyribosomal) profiling. We used the joint and individual variation explained (JIVE) method to integrate and analysis across the three datasets. JIVE identified eight latent patterns that robustly distinguished and separated the three groups of tissue samples. Predictive variables that associated with the tumor, compared to adjacent stroma, were mainly represented in the transcriptomic data, whereas, predictive variables associated with adjacent tissue compared to controls was represented at the translatomic level. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genome (KEGG) pathway analysis revealed extracellular matrix (ECM) and PI3K-Akt signaling pathways as important signals in the pre-malignant stroma. COPD stroma adjacent to lung cancer is unique and differs from non-malignant COPD tissue and is distinguished by the extracellular matrix and PI3K-Akt signaling pathways.
Project description:Lung tissue of COPD patients and tissue of non-smokers was investigated in transcriptome analysis with regard to differences in RNA expression levels to identify target genes for COPD treatment.