Project description:The intestinal microbiota fundamentally influences the development of a normal intestinal physiology and education and functioning of the mucosal immune system. The goal of this study is to analyze how the transcriptional profile of the murine colon can be influence by colonization of gnotobiotic mice with specific bacterial strains .
Project description:The intestinal microbiota influences the development of a normal intestinal physiology, education and functioning of the mucosal immune system. The goal of this study is to analyze how the transcriptional profile of the colonic endothelial cells is influence by colonization of gnotobiotic mice with specific bacterial strains . The goal of this study is to analyze how the transcriptional profile of the colonic endothelial cells is influence by colonization of gnotobiotic mice with specific bacterial strains .
Project description:The larynx is essential for swallowing, breathing, coughing, and voice production, supported by its unique microbial and immunological environment. Our previous research highlighted the role of resident laryngeal microbiota in shaping local immune responses. With growing interest in the gut-lung axis—the bidirectional communication between gut and respiratory immunity—the potential influence of gut microbiota on laryngeal immunity warrants exploration. We hypothesized that a gut-larynx axis may exist, where both resident laryngeal and gut microbiota contribute to immune modulation in the larynx. To investigate this, we treated conventionally raised, wild-type C57BL/6J mice with an oral antibiotic regimen known to disrupt gut microbiota, comparing them to untreated controls. Following treatment, the gut microbiota was significantly disrupted, while the laryngeal microbiota remained largely unchanged. However, antibiotic-treated mice exhibited marked changes in epithelial and immune cell proportions, as well as fibroblasts. Differential gene expression across cell types highlighted pathways related to epithelial barrier integrity, immune signaling, and bacterial response. Additionally, gut dysbiosis affected gene regulatory networks, with the activity of regulons Etv4(+), Irf3(+), Hltf(+), Mga(+), and Nfil3(+) showing significant changes. Notably, cell-cell communication was also altered, especially in immune-epithelial interactions, with integrin-mediated signaling emerging as a key ligand-receptor pathway in these intercellular communications. These findings suggest that gut and laryngeal microbiota may work synergistically to modulate immune responses in the larynx, underscoring the importance of considering gut-larynx interactions in studies of respiratory immunity.
Project description:The microbiome is an important immune regulator, but the mechanisms by which commensal microbes shape systemic host defense during bloodstream infection remain poorly defined and commonly used pre-clinical models have practical, ethical and scientific limitations. Here, we establish a gnotobiotic zebrafish larval model to investigate microbiome-dependent protection against systemic blood infection by E. coli bacteria, an important cause of early onset neonatal sepsis and nontuberculous mycobacteria to investigate the contribution of Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) in the defense responses. Germ-free (GF) and conventionalized (CONVD) larvae derived from the same clutches were systemically infected with E. coli, revealing that microbiome colonization significantly reduces early mortality. RNA-seq revealed a conserved core immune activation program in both GF and CONVD larvae, but the absence of a microbiome was associated with a broader transcriptional response and stronger repression of metabolic pathways, suggesting that commensal microbes buffer infection-induced metabolic suppression. Extending this framework to nontuberculous mycobacteria, we performed systemic infections with fluorescent Mycobacterium marinum and M. avium in tlr2 wild-type and mutant larvae under GF and CONVD conditions. While survival was largely unchanged, imaging-based quantification demonstrated increased bacterial proliferation in tlr2 mutants and in GF larvae, with microbiome-mediated restriction of bacterial burden evident in wild-type but not tlr2-deficient hosts. Together, these data show that microbiome colonization buffers septic outcomes by reshaping systemic inflammatory and metabolic programs, and identify TLR2 as a key node linking microbial colonization to effective host defense during nontuberculous mycobacterial infection
Project description:Laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma is a very common in head and neck cancer, accounting for 25% of all cases, with high mortality rates and poor prognosis. In this study, we compared expression profiles of clinical samples from15 larynx tumors and 10 non-neoplastic larynx tissue using a custom-built cDNA microarray containing 332 probes for 285 genes previously identified as up- or down-regulated in head and neck tumors by the Head and Neck Annotation Consortium (Reis et al., Cancer Res 65:1693-99, 2005). Thirty-five genes showed statistically significant differences (SNR ≥|1.0|,p-value ≤ 0.001) in expression between tumor and non-tumor larynx tissue samples. Functional annotation indicated that these genes are involved in cellular processes relevant to the cancer phenotype, such as apoptosis, cell cycle, DNA repair, proteolysis, protease inhibition, signal transduction, and transcription regulation. Six of the identified transcripts map to intronic regions of protein-coding genes and may comprise unannotated exons or yet uncharacterized long ncRNAs with a regulatory role in the gene expression program of larynx tissue. Differential expression of 10 of these genes (ADCY6, AES, AL2SCR3, CRR9, CSTB, DUSP1, MAP3K5, PLAT, UBL1 and ZNF706) was independently confirmed by quantitative real-time RT-PCR. Among these, the CSTB gene product has cysteine protease inhibitor activity that has been associated to an antimetastatic function. Interestingly, CSTB showed low expression in all tumor samples analyzed (p-value < 0.0001). The set of genes identified here contribute to a better understanding of the molecular basis of larynx cancer, and at the same time provide novel candidate markers for improving diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of this carcinoma. Keywords: Gene expression profiling of larynx tumors and non-neoplastic adjacent tissue
Project description:Host pathways mediating changes in immune states elicited by intestinal microbial colonization are incompletely characterized. Here we describe alterations of the host immune state induced by colonization of germ-free zebrafish larvae with an intestinal microbial community or single bacterial species. We show that microbiota-induced changes in intestinal leukocyte subsets and whole-body host gene expression are dependent on the innate immune adaptor gene myd88. Similar patterns of gene expression are elicited by colonization with conventional microbiome, as well as mono-colonization with two different zebrafish commensal bacterial strains. By studying loss-of-function myd88 mutants, we find that colonization suppresses Myd88 at the mRNA level. Tlr2 is essential for microbiota-induced effects on myd88 transcription and intestinal immune cell composition.
Project description:Here, we report analysis of both the bacterial and host transcriptome as affected by colonization of R. hominis in the mouse gut. Microbial genes required for colonization and adaptation in the murine gut, as well as host genes responding to colonization by this bacterial species, were uncovered.
Project description:Cigarette smoking is a major risk factor for laryngeal diseases. Despite well-documented cigarette smoke (CS) induced laryngeal histopathological changes in animal models and humans, the underlying immunopathological mechanisms remain largely unexplored. The goal of this study was to evaluate inflammatory and immune cell responses in a CS-exposed larynx. Specifically, we investigated these responses in the mouse larynx after a 4-week subacute low (LD) and high-dose (HD) whole-body mainstream CS exposure.
Project description:Cancer of the larynx is the second most common upper-aerodigestive cancer, and laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) is the major histological form. However, the molecular mechanism within LSCC progression remains poorly understood. MicroRNA-based target therapy is a promising approach in cancer therapy and offers multiple advantages as compared with the conventional treatment modalities. Hence, there is a need to identify the key microRNA involved in the progression of LSCC. We used GeneChip miRNA 2.0 array to profile the global microRNA deregulation in LSCC.
Project description:We discovered that colonization of the gut with the human bile acid 7'-dehydroxylating bacteria Clostridia scindens provided immunity to the parasite E. histolytica in a murine model, increased granulocyte monocyte progenitors, and that adoptive marrow transplant from C. scindens colonized mice into naive mice could recapitualte this protection.