ABSTRACT: Analysis of plasma proteomes from 8 week old C57BL/6J WT or TCRα-/- (Tcratm1Phi) either naïve or infected by intravenous injection of 5x105 yeast (clinical isolate SC5314), and collected 72 hrs post-infection
Project description:The project examines the mechanisms of neutrophil dysfunction during sepsis. Our work uncovered the central role of cell free circulating histones in eliminating mature neutrophil in favour of immature cells and characterized the mechanisms that regulate their release following systemic infection. Mature and immature neutrophil Ly6Ghigh and Ly6Glow populations isolated from the spleens of WT and TCRα-deficient mice either naïve or infected with C. albicans were characterized. In addition, these populations were compared to neutrophils isolated from WT mice receiving Clodronate-liposomes and recombinant G-CSF. These studies demonstrated that T-cell derived histones drive the release of G-CSF in the spleen and progressively eliminate mature neutrophils by shortening their lifespan. Finally, we conducted proteomic analysis of plasmas isolated from patients with microbial sepsis to correlate markers of neutrophil death to plasma cytokine and histone levels, confirming the pathogenic role these molecules play during sepsis in humans.
Project description:The project aimed at investigating the impact of chronic low grade inflammation on plasma functions and plasma proteomes in healthy individuals.
Project description:The project examines the mechanisms of neutrophil dysfunction during sepsis. Our work uncovered the central role of cell free circulating histones in eliminating mature neutrophil in favour of immature cells and characterized the mechanisms that regulate their release following systemic infection. Mature and immature neutrophil Ly6Ghigh and Ly6Glow populations isolated from the spleens of WT and TCRα-deficient mice either naïve or infected with C. albicans were characterized. In addition, these populations were compared to neutrophils isolated from WT mice receiving Clodronate-liposomes and recombinant G-CSF. These studies demonstrated that T-cell derived histones drive the release of G-CSF in the spleen and progressively eliminate mature neutrophils by shortening their lifespan. Finally, we conducted proteomic analysis of plasmas isolated from patients with microbial sepsis to correlate markers of neutrophil death to plasma cytokine and histone levels, confirming the pathogenic role these molecules play during sepsis in humans.
Project description:Global healthcare systems are challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a need to optimize allocation of treatment and resources in intensive care, as clinically established risk assessments such as SOFA and APACHE II scores show only limited performance for predicting the survival of severely ill COVID-19 patients. Comprehensively capturing the host physiology, we speculated that proteomics in combination with new data-driven analysis strategies could produce a new generation of prognostic discriminators. We studied two independent cohorts of patients with severe COVID-19 who required intensive care and invasive mechanical ventilation. SOFA score, Charlson comorbidity index and APACHE II score were poor predictors of survival. Instead, using plasma proteomes quantifying 302 plasma protein groups at 387 timepoints in 57 critically ill patients on invasive mechanical ventilation, we found 14 proteins that showed trajectories different between survivors and non-survivors. A proteomic predictor trained on single samples obtained at the first time point at maximum treatment level (i.e. WHO grade 7) and weeks before the outcome, achieved accurate classification of survivors (AUROC 0.81, n=49). We tested the established predictor on an independent validation cohort (AUROC of 1.0, n=24). The majority of proteins with high relevance in the prediction model belong to the coagulation system and complement cascade. Our study demonstrates that predictors derived from plasma protein levels have the potential to substantially outperform current prognostic markers in intensive care.
Project description:We performed quantitative proteomic profiling of 786 plasma samples from COVID-19 inpatients, treated at two different hospitals (Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and University Hospital of Innsbruck). Sampling was performed at multiple time points throughout the course of the disease, to create a time-resolved map of COVID-19 progression. Full DIA-NN analysis reports are provided, as well as raw files for the QC runs.
Project description:Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of human morbidity and mortality worldwide, underscoring the need to improve diagnostic strategies. Platelets play a major role, not only in the process of acute thrombosis during plaque rupture, but also in the formation of atherosclerosis itself. MicroRNAs are endogenous small non-coding RNAs that control gene expression and are expressed in a tissue and disease-specific manner. Therefore they have been proposed to be useful biomarkers. It remains unknown whether differences in miRNA expression levels in platelets can be found between patients with premature CAD and healthy controls. Methodology/Principal Findings In this case-control study we measured relative expression levels of platelet miRNAs using microarrays from 12 patients with premature CAD and 12 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Six platelet microRNAs were significantly upregulated (miR340*, miR451, miR454*, miR545:9.1. miR615-5p and miR624*) and one miRNA (miR1280) was significantly downregulated in patients with CAD as compared to healthy controls. To validate these results, we measured the expression levels of these candidate miRNAs by qRT-PCR in platelets of individuals from two independent cohorts; validation cohort I consisted of 40 patients with premature CAD and 40 healthy controls and validation cohort II consisted of 27 patients with artery disease and 40 healthy relatives. MiR340* and miR624* were confirmed to be upregulated in patients with CAD as compared to healthy controls in both validation cohorts. Conclusion/Significance Two miRNAs in platelets are significantly upregulated in patients with CAD as compared to healthy controls. miRNA array analysis of isolated platelets from subjects with premature coronary artery disease compared to healthy control subjects.
Project description:The optic vesicle comprises a pool of bi-potential progenitor cells from which the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and neural retina fates segregate during ocular morphogenesis. Several transcription factors and signaling pathways have been shown to be important for RPE maintenance and differentiation, but an understanding of the initial fate specification and determination of this ocular cell type is lacking. We show that Yap/Taz-Tead activity is necessary and sufficient for optic vesicle progenitors to adopt RPE identity in zebrafish. A Teadresponsive transgene is expressed within the domain of the optic cup from which RPE arises, and Yap immunoreactivity localizes to the nuclei of prospective RPE cells. yap (yap1) mutants lack a subset of RPE cells and/or exhibit coloboma. Loss of RPE in yap mutants is exacerbated in combination with taz (wwtr1) mutant alleles such that, when Yap and Taz are both absent, optic vesicle progenitor cells completely lose their ability to form RPE. The mechanism of Yap dependent RPE cell type determination is reliant on both nuclear localization of Yap and interaction with a Tead co-factor. In contrast to loss of Yap and Taz, overexpression of either protein within optic vesicle progenitors leads to ectopic pigmentation in a dosagedependent manner. Overall, this study identifies Yap and Taz as key early regulators of RPE genesis and provides a mechanistic framework for understanding the congenital ocular defects of Sveinsson’s chorioretinal atrophy and congenital retinal coloboma. 60 pooled eyes from 36 hpf wild type or vsx2:Gal4/dsRed:14xUAS:YapS87A embryos were pooled for one sample. Three wild type and three vsx2:Gal4/dsRed:14xUAS:YapS87A pools were analyzed for RNA.
Project description:Alteration in cypin protein levels in vivo in the dorsal hippocmapus in the mouse leads to changes in synaptic protein levels and K63-polyUb linkages.
Project description:Gene expression varies between individuals and corresponds to a key step linking genotypes to phenotypes. Regulation of transcript and protein abundances can affect the final phenotypes and has been related to many human diseases. However, our knowledge regarding the species-wide genetic control of protein abundance, including its dependency on transcript levels, is very limited. Here, we have determined quantitative proteomes of a large population of 942 diverse natural Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast isolates. We found that mRNA and protein abundances are weakly correlated at the population gene level (r = 0.165). While the protein co-expression network recapitulates the major biological functions, differential expression patterns reveal proteomic signatures related to specific populations, mainly domesticated. Most importantly, comprehensive genetic association analyses highlight that genetic variants associated with variation in protein (pQTL) and transcript (eQTL) levels poorly overlap (3.6%), with mostly common local QTL. Our results demonstrate that transcriptome and proteome are clearly two distinct layers of regulation, governed by distinct genetic bases in natural populations, and therefore highlight the importance of integrating these different levels of gene expression to better understand the genotype-phenotype relationship. This submission contains the raw files for the wild isolates collection, the library used for the analysis and the corresponding DIA-NN report and associated files.