scholarly journals Stem cell-derived porcine macrophages as a new platform for studying host-pathogen interactions

BMC Biology ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Meek ◽  
Tom Watson ◽  
Lel Eory ◽  
Gus McFarlane ◽  
Felicity J. Wynne ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Infectious diseases of farmed and wild animals pose a recurrent threat to food security and human health. The macrophage, a key component of the innate immune system, is the first line of defence against many infectious agents and plays a major role in shaping the adaptive immune response. However, this phagocyte is a target and host for many pathogens. Understanding the molecular basis of interactions between macrophages and pathogens is therefore crucial for the development of effective strategies to combat important infectious diseases. Results We explored how porcine pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) can provide a limitless in vitro supply of genetically and experimentally tractable macrophages. Porcine PSC-derived macrophages (PSCdMs) exhibited molecular and functional characteristics of ex vivo primary macrophages and were productively infected by pig pathogens, including porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) and African swine fever virus (ASFV), two of the most economically important and devastating viruses in pig farming. Moreover, porcine PSCdMs were readily amenable to genetic modification by CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing applied either in parental stem cells or directly in the macrophages by lentiviral vector transduction. Conclusions We show that porcine PSCdMs exhibit key macrophage characteristics, including infection by a range of commercially relevant pig pathogens. In addition, genetic engineering of PSCs and PSCdMs affords new opportunities for functional analysis of macrophage biology in an important livestock species. PSCs and differentiated derivatives should therefore represent a useful and ethical experimental platform to investigate the genetic and molecular basis of host-pathogen interactions in pigs, and also have wider applications in livestock.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Meek ◽  
Tom Watson ◽  
Lel Eory ◽  
Gus McFarlane ◽  
Felicity J. Wynne ◽  
...  

AbstractInfectious diseases of farmed and wild animals pose a recurrent threat to food security and human health. The macrophage, a key component of the innate immune system, is the first line of defence against many infectious agents and plays a major role in shaping the adaptive immune response. However, this phagocyte is a target and host for many pathogens. Understanding the molecular basis of interactions between macrophages and pathogens is therefore crucial for the development of effective strategies to combat important infectious diseases. We explored how pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) can provide a limitless in vitro supply of genetically and experimentally tractable macrophages from livestock. Porcine and bovine PSC-derived macrophages (PSCdMs) exhibited molecular and functional characteristics of ex vivo primary macrophages. Pig PSCdMs were productively infected by Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) and African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV), two of the most economically important and devastating viruses in pig farming. Moreover, Pig PSCdMs were readily amenable to genetic modification by CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing applied in parental stem cells, or directly by lentiviral vector transduction. PSCs and differentiated derivatives therefore provide a useful and ethical experimental platform to investigate the genetic and molecular basis of host-pathogen interactions in livestock.


Pathogens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Buket Baddal ◽  
Pasquale Marrazzo

Bioinspired organ-level in vitro platforms that recapitulate human organ physiology and organ-specific responses have emerged as effective technologies for infectious disease research, drug discovery, and personalized medicine. A major challenge in tissue engineering for infectious diseases has been the reconstruction of the dynamic 3D microenvironment reflecting the architectural and functional complexity of the human body in order to more accurately model the initiation and progression of host–microbe interactions. By bridging the gap between in vitro experimental models and human pathophysiology and providing alternatives for animal models, organ-on-chip microfluidic devices have so far been implemented in multiple research areas, contributing to major advances in the field. Given the emergence of the recent pandemic, plug-and-play organ chips may hold the key for tackling an unmet clinical need in the development of effective therapeutic strategies. In this review, latest studies harnessing organ-on-chip platforms to unravel host–pathogen interactions are presented to highlight the prospects for the microfluidic technology in infectious diseases research.


Author(s):  
Hyun Jae Lee ◽  
Athina Georgiadou ◽  
Thomas D. Otto ◽  
Michael Levin ◽  
Lachlan J. Coin ◽  
...  

SUMMARYTranscriptomics, the analysis of genome-wide RNA expression, is a common approach to investigate host and pathogen processes in infectious diseases. Technical and bioinformatic advances have permitted increasingly thorough analyses of the association of RNA expression with fundamental biology, immunity, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and prognosis. Transcriptomic approaches can now be used to realize a previously unattainable goal, the simultaneous study of RNA expression in host and pathogen, in order to better understand their interactions. This exciting prospect is not without challenges, especially as focus moves from interactionsin vitrounder tightly controlled conditions to tissue- and systems-level interactions in animal models and natural and experimental infections in humans. Here we review the contribution of transcriptomic studies to the understanding of malaria, a parasitic disease which has exerted a major influence on human evolution and continues to cause a huge global burden of disease. We consider malaria a paradigm for the transcriptomic assessment of systemic host-pathogen interactions in humans, because much of the direct host-pathogen interaction occurs within the blood, a readily sampled compartment of the body. We illustrate lessons learned from transcriptomic studies of malaria and how these lessons may guide studies of host-pathogen interactions in other infectious diseases. We propose that the potential of transcriptomic studies to improve the understanding of malaria as a disease remains partly untapped because of limitations in study design rather than as a consequence of technological constraints. Further advances will require the integration of transcriptomic data with analytical approaches from other scientific disciplines, including epidemiology and mathematical modeling.


Author(s):  
Fatima Aerts-Kaya

: In contrast to their almost unlimited potential for expansion in vivo and despite years of dedicated research and optimization of expansion protocols, the expansion of Hematopoietic Stem Cells (HSCs) in vitro remains remarkably limited. Increased understanding of the mechanisms that are involved in maintenance, expansion and differentiation of HSCs will enable the development of better protocols for expansion of HSCs. This will allow procurement of HSCs with long-term engraftment potential and a better understanding of the effects of the external influences in and on the hematopoietic niche that may affect HSC function. During collection and culture of HSCs, the cells are exposed to suboptimal conditions that may induce different levels of stress and ultimately affect their self-renewal, differentiation and long-term engraftment potential. Some of these stress factors include normoxia, oxidative stress, extra-physiologic oxygen shock/stress (EPHOSS), endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, replicative stress, and stress related to DNA damage. Coping with these stress factors may help reduce the negative effects of cell culture on HSC potential, provide a better understanding of the true impact of certain treatments in the absence of confounding stress factors. This may facilitate the development of better ex vivo expansion protocols of HSCs with long-term engraftment potential without induction of stem cell exhaustion by cellular senescence or loss of cell viability. This review summarizes some of available strategies that may be used to protect HSCs from culture-induced stress conditions.


2013 ◽  
Vol 113 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuan Guan ◽  
David L Mack ◽  
Claudia M Moreno ◽  
Fernando Santana ◽  
Charles E Murry ◽  
...  

Introduction: Human somatic cells can be reprogrammed into primitive stem cells, termed induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These iPSCs can be extensively expanded in vitro and differentiated into multiple functional cell types, enabling faithful preservation of individual’s genotype and large scale production of disease targeted cellular components. These unique cellular reagents thus hold tremendous potential in disease mechanism study, drugs screening and cell replacement therapy. Due to the genetic mutation of the protein dystrophin, many DMD patients develop fatal cardiomyopathy with no effective treatment. The underlying pathogenesis has not been fully elucidated. Hypothesis: We tested the hypothesis that iPSCs could be generated from DMD patients’ urine samples and differentiated into cardiomyocytes, recapitulating the dystrophic phenotype. Methods: iPSCs generation was achieved by introducing a lentiviral vector expressing Oct4, Sox2, c-Myc and Klf4 into cells derived from patient’s (n=1) and healthy volunteers’ (n=3) urine. Cardiomyocytes were derived by sequentially treating iPSCs with GSK3 inhibitor CHIR99021 and Wnt inhibitor IWP4. Differentiated cardiomyocytes were subjected to calcium imaging, electrophysiology recording, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) analysis, and immunostaining. Results: iPSCs were efficiently generated from human urine samples and further forced to differentiate into contracting cardiomyocytes. PCR analysis and immunostaining confirmed the expression of a panel of cardiac markers. Both normal and patient iPSC derived cardiomyocytes exhibited spontaneous and field stimulated calcium transients (up to 2Hz), as well as action potentials with ventricular-like and nodal-like characteristics. Anti-dystrophin antibodies stained normal iPSC-derived cardiomyocyte membranes but did not react against DMD iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. Conclusions: Cardiomyocytes can be efficiently generated from human urine, through the cellular reprogramming technology. DMD cardiomyocytes retained the patient’s genetic information and manifested a dystrophin-null phenotype. Functional assessments are underway to determine differences that may exist between genotypes.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johnny E. Moore ◽  
Davide Schiroli ◽  
C. B. Tara Moore

Corneal cross-linking is nowadays the most used strategy for the treatment of keratoconus and recently it has been exploited for an increasing number of different corneal pathologies, from other ectatic disorders to keratitis. The safety of this technique has been widely assessed, but clinical complications still occur. The potential effects of cross-linking treatment upon the limbus are incompletely understood; it is important therefore to investigate the effect of UV exposure upon the limbal niche, particularly as UV is known to be mutagenic to cellular DNA and the limbus is where ocular surface tumors can develop. The risk of early induction of ocular surface cancer is undoubtedly rare and has to date not been published other than in one case after cross-linking. Nevertheless it is important to further assess, understand, and reduce where possible any potential risk. The aim of this review is to summarize all the reported cases of a pathological consequence for the limbal cells, possibly induced by cross-linking UV exposure, the studies donein vitroorex vivo, the theoretical bases for the risks due to UV exposure, and which aspects of the clinical treatment may produce higher risk, along with what possible mechanisms could be utilized to protect the limbus and the delicate stem cells present within it.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-52
Author(s):  
Mohamed Morsy ◽  
Mohammad Ayaz Hossain ◽  
Atul Bagul

Background: Normothermic Machine Perfusion (NMP) has been established in the field of solid organ transplantation for both liver and kidney allografts. The ability to perfuse organs at body temperature enables viability assessment as well as optimisation prior to implantation. Discussion: A recent in vitro report of the use of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) in the use of a normothermic lung perfusion circuit has raised the possibility of their use in solid organ transplantation. The aim of this short review is to outline the potential uses of bone marrow derived MSCs for their use in renal allograft ex vivo NMP. An overview is provided of current literature of NMP as well as theorised uses for MSCs.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiva Pratap Singh ◽  
Suresh Dinkar Kharche ◽  
Manisha Pathak ◽  
Ravi Ranjan ◽  
Yogesh Kumar Soni ◽  
...  

Abstract The milieu of testicular germline stem cells (mGSCs) is characterized as low oxygen (O2) environment, whereas, there in-vitro expansion is typically performed under normoxia (20-21% O2). Here, we evaluated and compared the culture and multilineage differentiation characteristics of enriched (through differential platting and percoll density centrifugation) caprine mGSCs (cmGSCs) under hypoxic (5% O2) and normoxic (21% O2) culture conditions. For this, in addition to growth characteristics and population-doubling time (PDT); viability, proliferation, senescence, and expression of key-markers of adhesion (β-integrin and E-Cadherin) and stemness (OCT-4, THY-1 and UCHL-1) were evaluated and compared under normoxia and hypoxia. Moreover, the extent of multilineage differentiation (neurogenic, adipogenic, and chondrogenic differentiation) was assessed. The survival, viability and proliferation were significantly promoted and PDT was reduced (p < 0.05), thus yielding a higher number of viable cells with larger colonies under hypoxia. Furthermore, expression of stemness and adhesion markers was distinctly increased under lowered O2 condition. Conversely, the presence of differentiated regions and expression of differentiation specific key genes [C/EBPα (adipogenic), nestin and β-tubulin (neurogenic), and COL2A1 (chondrogenic)] were significantly (p < 0.05) reduced under hypoxic conditions. These data demonstrate that culturing cmGSCs under hypoxia augments the growth characteristics, and stemness but not the multilineage differentiation potential of cmGSCs as compared with normoxia. These data are important for the development of robust methodologies for ex-vivo expansion and lineage-committed differentiation of cmGSCs for clinical applications.


Biomedicines ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Nicole Zarniko ◽  
Anna Skorska ◽  
Gustav Steinhoff ◽  
Robert David ◽  
Ralf Gaebel

Several cell populations derived from bone marrow (BM) have been shown to possess cardiac regenerative potential. Among these are freshly isolated CD133+ hematopoietic as well as culture-expanded mesenchymal stem cells. Alternatively, by purifying CD271+ cells from BM, mesenchymal progenitors can be enriched without an ex vivo cultivation. With regard to the limited available number of freshly isolated BM-derived stem cells, the effect of the dosage on the therapeutic efficiency is of particular interest. Therefore, in the present pre-clinical study, we investigated human BM-derived CD133+ and CD271+ stem cells for their cardiac regenerative potential three weeks post-myocardial infarction (MI) in a dose-dependent manner. The improvement of the hemodynamic function as well as cardiac remodeling showed no therapeutic difference after the transplantation of both 100,000 and 500,000 stem cells. Therefore, beneficial stem cell transplantation post-MI is widely independent of the cell dose and detrimental stem cell amplification in vitro can likely be avoided.


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