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Lauridsen Covington posted an update 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Interactions between host and gut microbial communities are modulated by diets and play pivotal roles in immunological homeostasis and health. We show that exchanging the protein source in a high fat, high sugar, westernized diet from casein to whole-cell lysates of the non-commensal bacterium Methylococcus capsulatus Bath is sufficient to reverse western diet-induced changes in the gut microbiota to a state resembling that of lean, low fat diet-fed mice, both under mild thermal stress (T22 °C) and at thermoneutrality (T30 °C). Concomitant with microbiota changes, mice fed the Methylococcus-based western diet exhibit improved glucose regulation, reduced body and liver fat, and diminished hepatic immune infiltration. Intake of the Methylococcu-based diet markedly boosts Parabacteroides abundances in a manner depending on adaptive immunity, and upregulates triple positive (Foxp3+RORγt+IL-17+) regulatory T cells in the small and large intestine. Collectively, these data point to the potential for leveraging the use of McB lysates to improve immunometabolic homeostasis.We introduce Aquila, a new approach to variant discovery in personal genomes, which is critical for uncovering the genetic contributions to health and disease. Aquila uses a reference sequence and linked-read data to generate a high quality diploid genome assembly, from which it then comprehensively detects and phases personal genetic variation. The contigs of the assemblies from our libraries cover >95% of the human reference genome, with over 98% of that in a diploid state. Thus, the assemblies support detection and accurate genotyping of the most prevalent types of human genetic variation, including single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), small insertions and deletions (small indels), and structural variants (SVs), in all but the most difficult regions. All heterozygous variants are phased in blocks that can approach arm-level length. The final output of Aquila is a diploid and phased personal genome sequence, and a phased Variant Call Format (VCF) file that also contains homozygous and a few unphased heterozygous variants. Aquila represents a cost-effective approach that can be applied to cohorts for variation discovery or association studies, or to single individuals with rare phenotypes that could be caused by SVs or compound heterozygosity.Upstream open reading frames (uORFs) play widespread regulatory functions in modulating mRNA translation in eukaryotes, but the principles underlying the genomic distribution and evolution of uORFs remain poorly understood. Here, we analyze ~17 million putative canonical uORFs in 478 eukaryotic species that span most of the extant taxa of eukaryotes. We demonstrate how positive and purifying selection, coupled with differences in effective population size (Ne), has shaped the contents of uORFs in eukaryotes. Besides, gene expression level is important in influencing uORF occurrences across genes in a species. Our analyses suggest that most uORFs might play regulatory roles rather than encode functional peptides. We also show that the Kozak sequence context of uORFs has evolved across eukaryotic clades, and that noncanonical uORFs tend to have weaker suppressive effects than canonical uORFs in translation regulation. This study provides insights into the driving forces underlying uORF evolution in eukaryotes.In addition to the deregulation of gene transcriptions and post-translational protein modifications, the aberrant translation from mRNAs to proteins plays an important role in the pathogenesis of various cancers. Targeting mRNA translation are expected to become potential approaches for anticancer treatments. Protein translation is affected by many factors including translation initiation factors and RNA-binding proteins. Recently, modifications of mRNAs mainly N6-methyladenine (m6A) modification and noncoding RNAs, such as microRNAs and long noncoding RNAs are involved. In this review, we generally summarized the recent advances on the regulation of protein translation by the interplay between mRNA modifications and ncRNAs. By doing so, we hope this review could offer some hints for the development of novel approaches in precision therapy of human cancers.SARS-CoV-2 infection has been shown to trigger a wide spectrum of immune responses and clinical manifestations in human hosts. Here, we sought to elucidate novel aspects of the host response to SARS-CoV-2 infection through RNA sequencing of peripheral blood samples from 46 subjects with COVID-19 and directly comparing them to subjects with seasonal coronavirus, influenza, bacterial pneumonia, and healthy controls. Early SARS-CoV-2 infection triggers a powerful transcriptomic response in peripheral blood with conserved components that are heavily interferon-driven but also marked by indicators of early B-cell activation and antibody production. Interferon responses during SARS-CoV-2 infection demonstrate unique patterns of dysregulated expression compared to other infectious and healthy states. Heterogeneous activation of coagulation and fibrinolytic pathways are present in early COVID-19, as are IL1 and JAK/STAT signaling pathways, which persist into late disease. DNA inhibitor Classifiers based on differentially expressed genes accurately distinguished SARS-CoV-2 infection from other acute illnesses (auROC 0.95 ). The transcriptome in peripheral blood reveals both diverse and conserved components of the immune response in COVID-19 and provides for potential biomarker-based approaches to diagnosis.Children have mild severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) confirmed disease (COVID-19) compared to adults and the immunological mechanisms underlying this difference remain unclear. Here, we report acute and convalescent innate immune responses in 48 children and 70 adults infected with, or exposed to, SARS-CoV-2. We find clinically mild SARS-CoV-2 infection in children is characterised by reduced circulating subsets of monocytes (classical, intermediate, non-classical), dendritic cells and natural killer cells during the acute phase. In contrast, SARS-CoV-2-infected adults show reduced proportions of non-classical monocytes only. We also observe increased proportions of CD63+ activated neutrophils during the acute phase to SARS-CoV-2 in infected children. Children and adults exposed to SARS-CoV-2 but negative on PCR testing display increased proportions of low-density neutrophils that we observe up to 7 weeks post exposure. This study characterises the innate immune response during SARS-CoV-2 infection and household exposure in children.