Project description:Background: The diagnosis of acute appendicitis can be surprisingly difficult without computed tomography, which carries significant radiation exposure. Genome-wide expression profiling was applied to whole blood RNA of acute appendicitis patients versus patients with other abdominal disorders, in order to identify biomarkers of appendicitis. From a large cohort of emergency patients, a discovery set of patients with surgically confirmed appendicitis, or abdominal pain from other causes, was identified. RNA from whole blood was profiled by microarrays, and RNA levels were filtered by a combined fold-change (>2) and p value (<0.05). A separate set of patients, including patients with respiratory infections, was used to validate a partial least squares discriminant (PLSD) prediction model. Results: Transcript profiling identified 37 differentially expressed genes (DEG) in appendicitis versus abdominal pain patients. The DEG list contained 3 major ontologies: infection-related, inflammation-related, and ribosomal processing. Appendicitis patients had lower level of neutrophil defensin mRNA (DEFA1,3), but higher levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALPL) and interleukin-8 receptor-ß (IL8RB), which was confirmed in a larger cohort of 60 patients using droplet digital PCR (ddPCR). Conclusions: Patients with acute appendicitis have detectable changes in the mRNA expression levels of factors related to neutrophil inate defense systems. The low defensin mRNA levels suggest that appendicitis patient's immune cells are not directly activated by pathogens, but are primed by diffusible factors in the microenvironment of the infection. The detected biomarkers are consistent with prior evidence that biofilm-forming bacteria in the appendix may be an important factor in appendicitis.
Project description:Gene expression was evaluated in 9 appendix samples removed from patients who went to the operating room with the diagnosis of acute appendicitis and 4 samples removed for non-inflammatory reasons. A circumferential piece of tissue was obtained at the distal aspect of each specimen. The tissue was flash frozen at -80 degrees for later processing. Frozen specimens were homogenized into TriReagent and RNA was isolated according to the manufacturerâs instruction. RNA was processed and hybridized to Affymetrix microarray. Experiment Overall Design: 9 patients and 4 controls
Project description:Gene expression was evaluated in 9 appendix samples removed from patients who went to the operating room with the diagnosis of acute appendicitis and 4 samples removed for non-inflammatory reasons. A circumferential piece of tissue was obtained at the distal aspect of each specimen. The tissue was flash frozen at -80 degrees for later processing. Frozen specimens were homogenized into TriReagent and RNA was isolated according to the manufacturer's instruction. RNA was processed and hybridized to Affymetrix microarray. Keywords: Disease state analysis
Project description:Age-dependent changes of the gut-associated microbiome have been linked to increased frailty and systemic inflammation. This study found that age-associated changes of the gut microbiome of BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice could be reverted by co-housing of aged (22 months old) and adult (3 months old) mice for 30-40 days or faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) from adult into aged mice. This was demonstrated using high-throughput sequencing of the V3-V4 hypervariable region of bacterial 16S rRNA gene isolated from faecal pellets collected from 3-4 months old adult and 22-23 months old aged mice before and after co-housing or FMT.
Project description:BACKGROUND: Appendicitis followed by appendectomy (AA) at a young age protects against later inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Using a novel murine appendicitis model we earlier demonstrated that AA proffered significant protection against subsequent experimental colitis. AIM: To delineate genes and biological pathways involved in the protective effect of AA against subsequent colitis using gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) of DNA microarray data. METHODS: Appendicitis and appendicectomy was done (5 week old male BALB/c mice) near the most proximal colon (caecal lymphoid follicles) and colonic samples were harvested from the most distal colon. Two consecutive laparotomies were done in control Sham-Sham (SS) mice. RNA was extracted (TRIzol®) from 4 individual colonic samples per group (AA group vs. SS group) with each sample taken independently through Affymetrix® microarray hybridization. For GSEA, data for more than 23,000 genes were exported from Partek and analyzed with GSEA software (with 2852 gene sets encoded) to establish correlates with phenotypes of the gene sets. RESULTS: Distal colonic expression of 636 gene-sets were significantly upregulated in AA group samples (False Discovery Rates (FDR) values < 1 % and p value < 0.001; stringent statistical selection). These were validated by quantitative PCR of 14 selected genes across the immunological spectrum and over time-intervals of 3 days, 14 days and 28 days. CONCLUSIONS: Many key immunological, apoptosis-related and cellular function-associated gene-sets involved in the protective effect of AA in experimental colitis were identified. Further analysis of these profiles and biological pathways will assist utilizing these gene products and manipulating various aspects of these pathways to develop better therapeutic strategies in the management of intractable IBD. Appendicitis and appendicectomy was done (5 week old male BALB/c mice) near the most proximal colon (caecal lymphoid follicles) and colonic samples were harvested from the most distal colon. Two consecutive laparotomies were done in control Sham-Sham (SS) mice. RNA was extracted (TRIzol®) from 4 individual colonic samples per group (AA group vs. SS group) with each sample taken independently through Affymetrix® microarray hybridization. variable_protocol: appendicitis and appendectomy: AA1, AA2, AA3, AA4 variable_protocol: sham/sham surgery: SS1, SS2, SS3, SS4 repeat_biological replicate: AA1, AA2, AA3, AA4 repeat_biological replicate: SS1, SS2, SS3, SS4 Upregulated gene-set linked as supplementary file.
Project description:We performed single cell RNAseq of liver cells in acute liver failure model in mice with different microbiome states to unravel cellular changes in the disease and the impact of gut microbiota on the physiology in this disease.