Project description:Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the deadliest infectious disorders in the world. To effectively TB manage, an essential step is to gain insight into the lineage of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) strains and the distribution of drug resistance. Although the Campania region is declared a cluster area for the infection, to contribute to the effort to understand TB evolution and transmission, still poorly known, we have generated a dataset of 159 genomes of MTB strains, from Campania region collected during 2018-2021, obtained from the analysis of whole genome sequence data. The results show that the most frequent MTB lineage is the 4 according for 129 strains (81.11%). Regarding drug resistance, 139 strains (87.4%) were classified as multi susceptible, while the remaining 20 (12.58%) showed drug resistance. Among the drug-resistance strains, 8 were isoniazid-resistant MTB (HR-MTB), 7 were resistant only to one antibiotic (3 were resistant only to ethambutol and 3 isolate to streptomycin while one isolate showed resistance to fluoroquinolones), 4 multidrug-resistant MTB, while only one was classified as pre-extensively drug-resistant MTB (pre-XDR). This dataset expands the existing available knowledge on drug resistance and evolution of MTB, contributing to further TB-related genomics studies to improve the management of TB infection.
Project description:Monocytes play a critical role during infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). They are recruited to the lung where they participate in the contention of infection. Alternatively, inflammatory monocytes may help in prolonging inflammation or serve as niches for Mtb infection. Also, monocyte response to infection may vary depending on the particularities of the clinical isolate of Mtb from which they are infected. In this pilot study, using microarrays we have examined the global mRNA profiles of circulating human monocytes from healthy individuals and patients with active tuberculosis (TB).
Project description:SNP array using HumanOmniZhongHua-8 BeadChip showed that Thai haplotype containing the (TTTCA)n insertion region was found to be shared among all Japanese Chinese and Thai pedigrees.
Project description:Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) has co-evolved with humans for thousands of years leading to variation in clinical virulence, transmissibility, and disease phenotypes. To identify bacterial contributors to this phenotypic diversity, we developed new RNA-seq and phylogenomic analysis tools to capture hundreds of Mtb isolate transcriptomes, link transcriptional variation to genetic variation, and find associations between variants and epidemiologic traits. Across 274 Mtb clinical isolates, we uncovered unexpected diversity in expression of virulence genes which could be linked to known and previously unrecognized regulators. Surprisingly, we found that many isolates harbor variants associated with decreased expression of EsxA (Esat6) and EsxB (Cfp10), which are virulence effectors, dominant T cell antigens, and immunodiagnostic targets. Across >55,000 isolates, these variants associate with increased transmissibility, especially in drug resistant Mtb strains. Our data suggest expression of key Mtb virulence genes is evolving across isolates in part to optimize fitness under drug pressure, with sobering implications for immunodiagnostics and next-generation vaccines.
Project description:Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) has co-evolved with humans for thousands of years leading to variation in clinical virulence, transmissibility, and disease phenotypes. To identify bacterial contributors to this phenotypic diversity, we developed new RNA-seq and phylogenomic analysis tools to capture hundreds of Mtb isolate transcriptomes, link transcriptional variation to genetic variation, and find associations between variants and epidemiologic traits. Across 274 Mtb clinical isolates, we uncovered unexpected diversity in expression of virulence genes which could be linked to known and previously unrecognized regulators. Surprisingly, we found that many isolates harbor variants associated with decreased expression of EsxA (Esat6) and EsxB (Cfp10), which are virulence effectors, dominant T cell antigens, and immunodiagnostic targets. Across >55,000 isolates, these variants associate with increased transmissibility, especially in drug resistant Mtb strains. Our data suggest expression of key Mtb virulence genes is evolving across isolates in part to optimize fitness under drug pressure, with sobering implications for immunodiagnostics and next-generation vaccines.