Project description:Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is an obligate intracellular parasite that can infect almost all warm-blooded animals, causing serious public health problems. Lysine crotonylation (Kcr) is a newly discovered posttranslational modification (PTM), which has been proved that is relevant to procreation regulation, active transcription and cell signaling pathway. However, the biological functions of crotonylation have not yet been reported in macrophages infected with T. gondii. In our study, we performed a ChIP-seq analysis of porcine alveolar macrophages infected with T. gondii RH to explore the relationship of histone Kcr with T. gondii infection.
Project description:Purpose: Porcine alveolar macrophage was infected by T. gondii including Rh strain and Me49 strain. We want to explore the change of miRNAs after infected with T. gondii in porcine alveolar macrophages. Results: Our study generated six mi RNA expression profiles from macrophages which infect with Rh strain and Me49 and control group in different time. Compare with T. gondii-infected and uninfected with T. gondii, 81 differentially expressed mi RNAs were identified, including 36 novel mi RNAs and 45 mature mi RNAs.
Project description:Toxoplasma gondii is a globally distributed obligate intracellular parasite which can cause zoonotic toxoplasmosis with great harms. The average death time of mice that infected with Toxoplasma gondii RH strain tachyzoites recovered from the liquid nitrogen was shortened after multiple generations. It has been reported that the parasite is in a state of static virulence during cryopreservation and the virulence of the protozoan parasite can be enhanced after continuous passages in hosts under laboratory conditions. However, no research has been conducted to elucidate its biological mechanism. Herein, we sequenced the T. gondii transcriptome using RNA-Seq technology and performed de novo assembly to investigated the virulence factors expression changes by comparing gene expression profiles between incipiently recovered and completely resuscitated tachyzoites. Transcriptome analysis identified 1,951 differentially expressed transcripts in infected liver, of which 1,752 were significantly downregulated and 199 upregulated. We identified many differentially expressed proteins and genes, including serine/threonine kinase, calnexin, myosin and microtubule-associated protein which have previously been reported to be either involved in cell adhesion, parasite gliding or participate in cell invasion. The great majority of the virulence factors including microneme proteins, rhoptry proteins and dense granule proteins were upregulated in fully recovered tachyzoites. The enhanced virulence of recovered Toxoplasma gondii RH strain from the liquid nitrogen is associated with the up-regulated expression of MICs, ROPs and GRAs. Our data will facilitate future genomic research and in-depth annotation of Toxoplasma gondii RH strain genomes. This study provides a profile of the candidate genes that are suspected to be involved with virulence enhancement of recovered Toxoplasma gondii RH strain tachyzoites. Many further studies should be carried out to confirm the function of the candidate genes. Moreover, the preliminary identification of genes and pathways exhibiting differential expression in complete resuscitation stage may further our general understanding of virulence enhancement in this parasite.
Project description:Parasite gene expression differences have been reported previously between RH-ERP, RH-JSR and GT1. To independently confirm these gene expression differences, we examined the parasite gene expression profiles of RH-ERP, RH-JSR and GT1 through microarray. Three type I strains of Toxoplasma gondii were compared with one array each, and these were used to verify data from previous studies.
Project description:Toxoplasma gondii is a globally distributed parasite pathogen that infects virtually all warm-blooded animals. A hallmark of immunity to acute infection is the production of IFN-γ and IL-12, followed by a protective T cell response that is critical for parasite control. Naïve T cell activation requires both TCR stimulation and the engagement of costimulatory receptors. Because of their important function in activating T cells, the expression of co-stimulatory ligands is believed to be under tight control. The molecular mechanisms governing their induction during microbial stimulation, however, are not well understood. We found that all three strains of T. gondii (Types I, II, and III) up-regulated the expression of B7-2, but not B7-1, on the surface of mouse bone marrow-derived macrophages. This induction occurred at the transcriptional level, required active parasite invasion, and was not dependent on MyD88 or TRIF. Genome-wide transcriptional analysis comparing infected and uninfected macrophages revealed the activation of MAPK signaling in infected cells. Using specific inhibitors against MAPKs, we determined that parasite-induced B7-2 is dependent on JNK, but not ERK or p38 signaling. We also observed that T. gondii-induced B7-2 expression on human peripheral blood monocytes is dependent on JNK signaling, indicating that a common mechanism of B7-2 regulation by T. gondii may exist in both humans and mice. We used microarrays to examine genome-wide changes in host cell gene expression during T. gondii infection at an early time point (6 hpi). BMdM were mock-treated or infected with T. gondii (Type I, RH strain) at an MOI of 2 and cultured for 6 hours. Biological triplicates were performed. Total RNA was harvested and used for cDNA synthesis, labeling, and hybridization to Affymetrix mouse 430 2.0 expression arrays.