Project description:Significant enrichment of dCas9 chromatin occupancy at the targeted HS2 enhancer was observed in cells expressing LAMPS under the dark condition and after blue light illumination.
Project description:Vaccine-enhanced disease (VED) occurs as a result of vaccination followed by infection with virulent Mycoplasma pneumoniae. To date, VED has prevented development of an efficacious vaccine against this significant human respiratory pathogen. Herein we report that vaccination with M. pneumoniae lipid-associated membrane proteins (LAMPs) induces lung lesions consistent with exacerbated disease following challenge, without reducing bacterial loads. Removal of lipid moieties from LAMPs prior to vaccination eliminates VED and reduces bacterial loads after infection. Collectively, these data indicate that lipid moieties of lipoproteins are the causative factors of M. pneumoniae VED.
Project description:We found that mainstream cigarette smoking (4 cigarettes/day, 5 days/week for 2 weeks using Kentucky Research Cigarettes 3R4F) resulted in >20% decrease in the percentage of normal Paneth cell population in Atg16l1 T300A mice but showed minimal effect in wildtype littermate control mice, indicating that Atg16l1 T300A polymorphism confers sensitivity to cigarette smoking-induced Paneth cell damage. We performed cohousing experiments to test if Paneth cell phenotype is horizontally transmissible as is microbiota. Atg16l1 T300A and littermate controls that were exposed to cigarette smoking were used as microbiota donors, and these donor mice were exposed to smoking for 2 weeks prior to cohousing. Separate groups of Atg16l1 T300A and littermate controls that were not exposed to cigarette smoking were used as microbiota recipients. The microbiota recipients were co-housed with microbiota donors of the same genotype for 4 weeks, during this period the donors continued to be exposed to cigarette smoking. Cigarette smoking was performed using smoking chamber with the dosage and schedule as described above. At the end of the experiment, the fecal microbiota composition was analyzed by 16S rRNA sequencing.
Project description:The use of light-emitting diode (LED) lamps could be an alternative method to improve somatic embryogenesis, yielding more efficient somatic embryo development and maturation than the use of conventional fluorescent lamps. The aim of this work was to study the influence of light quality on the somatic embryo development and differential abundance of proteins during the maturation of papaya (Carica papaya) cv. ‘Golden’ embryogenic cultures, using LED lamps with different wavelengths. Of all the LED treatments, the white plus medium blue (WmB - 450/530 nm) light resulted in the best somatic embryo production after 28 days of maturation. The WmB and fluorescent treatments generated 82.4 and 47.6 cotyledonary stage somatic embryos, respectively. By a comparative shotgun proteomics analysis between WmB LED and fluorescent lamps treatments, a total of 28 up-regulated and 7 down-regulated proteins were identified. Among the proteins up-regulated in the cultures treated with WmB LED light compared with fluorescent light were the indole-3-acetic acid-amido synthetase (GH3), pyrophosphate-energized vacuolar membrane proton pump (H+-PPase), and actin-depolymerizing factor 2 (ADF2) proteins, which are involved in the regulation of auxin levels by auxin conjugation and transport. Additionally, proteins related to energetic supply, protein metabolism, cell wall remodeling, internal trafficking, and cell division were up-regulated, showing a significantly higher abundance in the embryogenic cultures incubated under WmB LED light than those incubated under fluorescent light.
