Project description:Transcriptomic comparison of 5 cell types during lethal and non-lethal influenza infection and further use of these signatures in a top-down systems analysis investigating the relative pathogenic contributions of direct viral damage to lung epithelium vs. dysregulated immunity during lethal influenza infection. For acutely lethal influenza infections, the relative pathogenic contributions of direct viral damage to lung epithelium vs. dysregulated immunity remain unresolved. Here, we take a top-down systems approach to this question. Multigene transcriptional signatures from infected lungs suggested that elevated activation of inflammatory signaling networks distinguished lethal from sublethal infections. Flow cytometry and gene expression analysis involving isolated cell subpopulations from infected lungs showed that neutrophil influx largely accounted for the predictive transcriptional signature. Automated imaging analysis together with these gene expression and flow data identified a chemokine-driven feed-forward circuit involving pro-inflammatory neutrophils potently driven by poorly contained lethal viruses. Consistent with these data, attenuation but not ablation of the neutrophil-driven response increased survival without changing viral spread. These findings establish the primacy of damaging innate inflammation in at least some forms of influenza-induced lethality and provide a roadmap for the systematic dissection of infection-associated pathology.
Project description:Transcriptomic comparison of 5 cell types during lethal and non-lethal influenza infection and further use of these signatures in a top-down systems analysis investigating the relative pathogenic contributions of direct viral damage to lung epithelium vs. dysregulated immunity during lethal influenza infection. For acutely lethal influenza infections, the relative pathogenic contributions of direct viral damage to lung epithelium vs. dysregulated immunity remain unresolved. Here, we take a top-down systems approach to this question. Multigene transcriptional signatures from infected lungs suggested that elevated activation of inflammatory signaling networks distinguished lethal from sublethal infections. Flow cytometry and gene expression analysis involving isolated cell subpopulations from infected lungs showed that neutrophil influx largely accounted for the predictive transcriptional signature. Automated imaging analysis together with these gene expression and flow data identified a chemokine-driven feed-forward circuit involving pro-inflammatory neutrophils potently driven by poorly contained lethal viruses. Consistent with these data, attenuation but not ablation of the neutrophil-driven response increased survival without changing viral spread. These findings establish the primacy of damaging innate inflammation in at least some forms of influenza-induced lethality and provide a roadmap for the systematic dissection of infection-associated pathology. Multiple mice were either sham infected, infected with the seasonal H1N1 influenza A virus TX91 (10^6PFU), or infected with various sublethal or lethal doses of the mouse pathogenic H1N1 strain PR8. Lung tissues were collected at 48h or 72h post infection. 5 different cell types were purified by flow sorting from lungs of individual animals and then processed to yield total RNA that was used for microarray analysis. The dataset contains 75 microarrays covering 25 experimental conditions with 3 biological replicates. This dataset is linked to a dataset containing 138 microarrays of whole lungs covering 20 experimental conditions.
Project description:To predict the outcomes of disseminated fungal disease, a deeper understanding of host-pathogen interactions at the site of infection is needed to identify targets for clinical intervention and diagnostic development. Cryptococcus neoformans is the causative agent of cryptococcosis, the largest infectious killer of individuals living with HIV. Cryptococcal infection begins in the lungs, with loss of immunological control leading to disseminated central nervous system disease and death. Using advanced mass spectrometry-based proteomic techniques, in vivo infection models, and patient-derived clinical strains, we explored the proteomic profiles of C. neoformans infections related to differences in strain virulence. Our findings reveal the non-lethal latent infection produces a proteomic response that drastically differs from those caused by lethal infections, and that the proteomic profiles of typical and hypervirulent infections are surprisingly similar despite differences in time-to-death.
Project description:Identification of biological processes that distinguish lethal from non-lethal influenza infection and further use of these signatures in a top-down systems analysis investigating the relative pathogenic contributions of direct viral damage to lung epithelium vs. dysregulated immunity to during lethal influenza infection. For acutely lethal influenza infections, the relative pathogenic contributions of direct viral damage to lung epithelium vs. dysregulated immunity remain unresolved. Here, we take a top-down systems approach to this question. Multigene transcriptional signatures from infected lungs suggested that elevated activation of inflammatory signaling networks distinguished lethal from sublethal infections. Flow cytometry and gene expression analysis involving isolated cell subpopulations from infected lungs showed that neutrophil influx largely accounted for the predictive transcriptional signature. Automated imaging analysis together with these gene expression and flow data identified a chemokine-driven feed-forward circuit involving pro-inflammatory neutrophils potently driven by poorly contained lethal viruses. Consistent with these data, attenuation but not ablation of the neutrophil-driven response increased survival without changing viral spread. These findings establish the primacy of damaging innate inflammation in at least some forms of influenza-induced lethality and provide a roadmap for the systematic dissection of infection-associated pathology. Multiple mice were either sham infected, infected with the seasonal H1N1 influenza A virus TX91 (10^6PFU), or infected with various sublethal or lethal doses of the mouse pathogenic H1N1 strain PR8. Lung tissues were collected at various time points (24h, 48h, 72h and 240h post infection) and processed to yield whole lung RNA that was used for microarray analysis. The dataset contains 138 microarrays covering 20 experimental conditions with 7 biological replicates each. As an exception, the alternative non-infectious control condition (Alum treatment) contains 5 biological replicates. This dataset is linked to a dataset comparing the transcriptomes of 5 different cell types isolated from individual lungs of influenza A-infected or control animals (contains 75 microarrays covering 25 experimental conditions).
Project description:Introgressed variants from other species can be an important source of genetic variation because they may arise rapidly, can include multiple mutations on a single haplotype, and have often been pretested by selection in the species of origin. Although introgressed alleles are generally deleterious, several studies have reported introgression as the source of adaptive alleles-including the rodenticide-resistant variant of Vkorc1 that introgressed from Mus spretus into European populations of Mus musculus domesticus. Here, we conducted bidirectional genome scans to characterize introgressed regions into one wild population of M. spretus from Spain and three wild populations of M. m. domesticus from France, Germany, and Iran. Despite the fact that these species show considerable intrinsic postzygotic reproductive isolation, introgression was observed in all individuals, including in the M. musculus reference genome (GRCm38). Mus spretus individuals had a greater proportion of introgression compared with M. m. domesticus, and within M. m. domesticus, the proportion of introgression decreased with geographic distance from the area of sympatry. Introgression was observed on all autosomes for both species, but not on the X-chromosome in M. m. domesticus, consistent with known X-linked hybrid sterility and inviability genes that have been mapped to the M. spretus X-chromosome. Tract lengths were generally short with a few outliers of up to 2.7 Mb. Interestingly, the longest introgressed tracts were in olfactory receptor regions, and introgressed tracts were significantly enriched for olfactory receptor genes in both species, suggesting that introgression may be a source of functional novelty even between species with high barriers to gene flow.
Project description:Viral pneumonia has been frequently reported during early stages of influenza virus pandemics and in many human cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus infection. To better understand the pathogenesis of this disease, we produced non-lethal viral pneumonia in rhesus macaques by using an HPAI H5N1 virus (A/Anhui/2/2005; referred to as Anhui/2). Infected macaques were monitored for 14 days, and tissue samples were collected at 6 time points for virologic, histopathologic and transcriptomic analyses.
Project description:Translational research is commonly performed in the C57B6/J mouse strain, chosen for its genetic homogeneity and phenotypic uniformity. Here, we evaluate the suitability of the white-footed deer mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) as a model organism for aging research, offering a comparative analysis against C57B6/J and diversity outbred (DO) Mus musculus strains. Our study includes comparisons of body composition, skeletal muscle function, and cardiovascular parameters, shedding light on potential applications and limitations of P. leucopus in aging studies. Notably, P. leucopus exhibits distinct body composition characteristics, emphasizing reduced muscle force exertion and a unique metabolism, particularly in fat mass. Cardiovascular assessments showed changes in arterial stiffness, challenging conventional assumptions and highlighting the need for a nuanced interpretation of aging-related phenotypes. Our study also highlights inherent challenges associated with maintaining and phenotyping P. leucopus cohorts. Behavioral considerations, including anxiety-induced responses during handling and phenotyping assessment, pose obstacles in acquiring meaningful data. Moreover, the unique anatomy of P. leucopus necessitates careful adaptation of protocols designed for Mus musculus. While showcasing potential benefits, further extensive analyses across broader age ranges and larger cohorts are necessary to establish the reliability of P. leucopus as a robust and translatable model for aging studies.
Project description:Identification of biological processes that distinguish lethal from non-lethal influenza infection and further use of these signatures in a top-down systems analysis investigating the relative pathogenic contributions of direct viral damage to lung epithelium vs. dysregulated immunity to during lethal influenza infection. For acutely lethal influenza infections, the relative pathogenic contributions of direct viral damage to lung epithelium vs. dysregulated immunity remain unresolved. Here, we take a top-down systems approach to this question. Multigene transcriptional signatures from infected lungs suggested that elevated activation of inflammatory signaling networks distinguished lethal from sublethal infections. Flow cytometry and gene expression analysis involving isolated cell subpopulations from infected lungs showed that neutrophil influx largely accounted for the predictive transcriptional signature. Automated imaging analysis together with these gene expression and flow data identified a chemokine-driven feed-forward circuit involving pro-inflammatory neutrophils potently driven by poorly contained lethal viruses. Consistent with these data, attenuation but not ablation of the neutrophil-driven response increased survival without changing viral spread. These findings establish the primacy of damaging innate inflammation in at least some forms of influenza-induced lethality and provide a roadmap for the systematic dissection of infection-associated pathology.
Project description:BackgroundCopy number variation is an important dimension of genetic diversity and has implications in development and disease. As an important model organism, the mouse is a prime candidate for copy number variant (CNV) characterization, but this has yet to be completed for a large sample size. Here we report CNV analysis of publicly available, high-density microarray data files for 351 mouse tail samples, including 290 mice that had not been characterized for CNVs previously.ResultsWe found 9634 putative autosomal CNVs across the samples affecting 6.87% of the mouse reference genome. We find significant differences in the degree of CNV uniqueness (single sample occurrence) and the nature of CNV-gene overlap between wild-caught mice and classical laboratory strains. CNV-gene overlap was associated with lipid metabolism, pheromone response and olfaction compared to immunity, carbohydrate metabolism and amino-acid metabolism for wild-caught mice and classical laboratory strains, respectively. Using two subspecies of wild-caught Mus musculus, we identified putative CNVs unique to those subspecies and show this diversity is better captured by wild-derived laboratory strains than by the classical laboratory strains. A total of 9 genic copy number variable regions (CNVRs) were selected for experimental confirmation by droplet digital PCR (ddPCR).ConclusionThe analysis we present is a comprehensive, genome-wide analysis of CNVs in Mus musculus, which increases the number of known variants in the species and will accelerate the identification of novel variants in future studies.