Project description:House sparrow specimens were stained with four different iodine-based stains to increase contrast in microCT. Proteomic characterization of muscle and bone was performed on contralateral samples (before and after staining). Iodination was detected for all stains.
Analysis on samples from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: USNM 657964, USNM 657968, USNM 657963, USNM 657967
Project description:Zoonoses pose substantial global health risks, highlighting the need to better understand animal-to-human transmission. Reptiles are increasingly recognized as hosts of diverse pathogens, including many viruses. Despite this, reptile pathogens remain poorly understood in terms of their diversity, prevalence, and potential risk to humans. Yet human–reptile contact is increasing, driven in part by the global wildlife trade and pet industry. This underscores the need to better understand reptile-associated pathogens; however, models to study reptile viruses remain scarce. Here, we establish and characterize airway organoids derived from Python regius, providing an in vitro model of the reptile airway. Through de novo assembly of a Python regius reference genome, we characterized airway organoids at single-cell resolution, revealing diverse cell populations including ionocytes, ciliated, goblet, club, endocrine, tuft, and basal cells. The organoids supported productive infection with ball python nidovirus (BPNV) and mounted a robust epithelial antiviral response through induction of interferon-stimulated genes, cytokines and genes involved in chemical defense. As a proof-of-concept, antiviral drug treatment reduced BPNV levels, highlighting the model's utility for drug testing. By providing a reductionist system of the serpentine airway, these organoids constitute a physiologically relevant in vitro model to study reptile viruses and host–pathogen interactions in the native host. This system has potential veterinary applications, ecology of serpentes, and zoonotic disease research.
Project description:Zoonoses pose substantial global health risks, highlighting the need to better understand animal-to-human transmission. Reptiles are increasingly recognized as hosts of diverse pathogens, including many viruses. Despite this, reptile pathogens remain poorly understood in terms of their diversity, prevalence, and potential risk to humans. Yet human–reptile contact is increasing, driven in part by the global wildlife trade and pet industry. This underscores the need to better understand reptile-associated pathogens; however, models to study reptile viruses remain scarce. Here, we establish and characterize airway organoids derived from Python regius, providing an in vitro model of the reptile airway. Through de novo assembly of a Python regius reference genome, we characterized airway organoids at single-cell resolution, revealing diverse cell populations including ionocytes, ciliated, goblet, club, endocrine, tuft, and basal cells. The organoids supported productive infection with ball python nidovirus (BPNV) and mounted a robust epithelial antiviral response through induction of interferon-stimulated genes, cytokines and genes involved in chemical defense. As a proof-of-concept, antiviral drug treatment reduced BPNV levels, highlighting the model's utility for drug testing. By providing a reductionist system of the serpentine airway, these organoids constitute a physiologically relevant in vitro model to study reptile viruses and host–pathogen interactions in the native host. This system has potential veterinary applications, ecology of serpentes, and zoonotic disease research.
Project description:The ability to perform complex bioassays in parallel enables experiments otherwise impossible due to throughput and cost constraints. By way of example, highly parallel chemical-genetic screens using pooled collections of thousands of defined Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene deletion strains are feasible because each strain is barcoded with unique DNA sequences. It is, however, time consuming and expensive to individually barcode individual strains. To provide a simple and general method of barcoding yeast collections, we built a set of donor strains, called Barcoders, with unique barcodes that can be systematically transferred to any S. cerevisiae collection. We applied this technology by generating a collection of barcoded DAmP (Decreased Abundance by mRNA Perturbation) loss-of-function strains comprising 87.1% of all essential yeast genes. This test collection validates both the Barcoders and the DAmP collection as useful tools for genome-wide chemical genetic assays.