Project description:Ureaplasma are widespread parasites colonizing the mucosal surface of the human urogenital tract, and it has been suspected as a causative agent of nongonococcal urethritis, pregnancy complications and prenatal infections. Ureaplasma may also cause central nervous system infections and affect the lower respiratory tract of newborn babies. However, Ureaplasma spp. have also been detected in the urogenital tracts of clinically healthy patients, and their role in the development of infections thus remains unclear. Like in other organisms, virulence of Ureaplasma is determined by the presence of virulence factors - adhesions, human IgA protease, phospholipase and urease. However, the existence of interrelationships between the presence of these genes in the Ureaplasma genome and the incidence of diseases in man has not been demonstrated. Difficulties in the elucidation of these interrelationships may arise from significant macro- (gene mutation, chromosomal rearrangements) and micro- (nucleotide polymorphism) genomic heterogeneity. It is possible that the combination of the variable strain-specific genes in Ureaplasma with generally known virulence factors determine the development of pathological processes on the mucosal surface of the human urogenital tract. Keywords: macroarray, variability of genome, Ureaplasma parvum
Project description:Ureaplasma are widespread parasites colonizing the mucosal surface of the human urogenital tract, and it has been suspected as a causative agent of nongonococcal urethritis, pregnancy complications and prenatal infections. Ureaplasma may also cause central nervous system infections and affect the lower respiratory tract of newborn babies. However, Ureaplasma spp. have also been detected in the urogenital tracts of clinically healthy patients, and their role in the development of infections thus remains unclear. Like in other organisms, virulence of Ureaplasma is determined by the presence of virulence factors - adhesions, human IgA protease, phospholipase and urease. However, the existence of interrelationships between the presence of these genes in the Ureaplasma genome and the incidence of diseases in man has not been demonstrated. Difficulties in the elucidation of these interrelationships may arise from significant macro- (gene mutation, chromosomal rearrangements) and micro- (nucleotide polymorphism) genomic heterogeneity. It is possible that the combination of the variable strain-specific genes in Ureaplasma with generally known virulence factors determine the development of pathological processes on the mucosal surface of the human urogenital tract. In our research we used 10 clinical and 1 laboratory strain
Project description:Cryptosporidium parvum is an important opportunistic parasite pathogen for immunocompromised individuals and a common cause of diarrhea in young children in developing countries. Infection by this parasite causes significant alterations in the gene expression profiles in infected host cells. This study aims to measure the genomic wide alterations in gene expression profiles in host intestinal epithelial cells following C. parvum infection. Mouse intestinal epithelial (IEC4.1) cells were grown to 80% confluence and exposed to C. parvum infection for 24h. Total RNA was collected for the genome-wide analysis. The Agilent SurePrint G3 mouse Gene Expression Microarray (G4852A) was used for the genome-wide analysis, which provides full coverage of genes and transcripts with the most up-to-date content, including mRNAs and lincRNAs (http://www.chem.agilent.com/store/en_US/Prod-G4852A/G4852A).
Project description:Cryptosporidium parvum is an important zoonotic parasitic disease worldwide, but the molecular mechanisms of the host–parasite interaction are not fully understood. Noncoding microRNAs (miRNAs) are considered key regulators of parasitic diseases. Therefore, we used microarray, qPCR, and bioinformatic analyses to investigate the intestinal epithelial miRNA expression profile after Cryptosporidium parvum infection.Twenty miRNAs were differentially expressed after infection (four upregulated and 16 downregulated). Further analysis of the differentially expressed miRNAs revealed that many important cellular responses were triggered by Cryptosporidium parvum infection, including cell apoptosis and the inflammatory and immune responses.This study demonstrates for the first time that the miRNA expression profile of human intestinal epithelium cells is altered by C. parvum infection. This dysregulation of miRNA expression may contribute to the regulation of host biological processes in response to C. parvum infection, including cell apoptosis and the immune responses. These results provide new insight into the regulatory mechanisms of host miRNAs during cryptosporidiosis, which may offer potential targets for future C. parvum control strategies.