私の見たアメリカ合衆國(昭和五年十一月小樽市教育會主催講演會講演)

説

Prediction of broad-spectrum pathogen attachment to coating materials for biomedical devices

Bacterial infections in healthcare settings are a frequent accompaniment to both routine procedures such as catheterization and surgical site interventions. Their impact is becoming even more marked as the numbers of medical devices that are used to manage chronic health conditions and improve quality of life increases. The resistance of pathogens to multiple antibiotics is also increasing, adding an additional layer of complexity to the problems of employing safe and effective medical procedures. One approach to reducing the rate of infections associated with implanted and indwelling medical devices is the use of polymers that resist the formation of bacterial biofilms. To significantly accelerate the discovery of such materials, we show how state of the art machine learning methods can generate quantitative predictions for the attachment of multiple pathogens to a large library of polymers in a single model for the first time. Such models facilitate design of polymers with very low pathogen attachment across different bacterial species that will be candidate materials for implantable or indwelling medical devices such as urinary catheters, cochlear implants and pacemakers

Current state of Alzheimer's fluid biomarkers

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with a complex and heterogeneous pathophysiology. The number of people living with AD is predicted to increase; however, there are no disease-modifying therapies currently available and none have been successful in late-stage clinical trials. Fluid biomarkers measured in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) or blood hold promise for enabling more effective drug development and establishing a more personalized medicine approach for AD diagnosis and treatment. Biomarkers used in drug development programmes should be qualified for a specific context of use (COU). These COUs include, but are not limited to, subject/patient selection, assessment of disease state and/or prognosis, assessment of mechanism of action, dose optimization, drug response monitoring, efficacy maximization, and toxicity/adverse reactions identification and minimization. The core AD CSF biomarkers Aβ42, t-tau, and p-tau are recognized by research guidelines for their diagnostic utility and are being considered for qualification for subject selection in clinical trials. However, there is a need to better understand their potential for other COUs, as well as identify additional fluid biomarkers reflecting other aspects of AD pathophysiology. Several novel fluid biomarkers have been proposed, but their role in AD pathology and their use as AD biomarkers have yet to be validated. In this review, we summarize some of the pathological mechanisms implicated in the sporadic AD and highlight the data for several established and novel fluid biomarkers (including BACE1, TREM2, YKL-40, IP-10, neurogranin, SNAP-25, synaptotagmin, α-synuclein, TDP-43, ferritin, VILIP-1, and NF-L) associated with each mechanism. We discuss the potential COUs for each biomarker

Protein Translation and Cell Death: The Role of Rare tRNAs in Biofilm Formation and in Activating Dormant Phage Killer Genes

We discovered previously that the small Escherichia coli proteins Hha (hemolysin expression modulating protein) and the adjacent, poorly-characterized YbaJ are important for biofilm formation; however, their roles have been nebulous. Biofilms are intricate communities in which cell signaling often converts single cells into primitive tissues. Here we show that Hha decreases biofilm formation dramatically by repressing the transcription of rare codon tRNAs which serves to inhibit fimbriae production and by repressing to some extent transcription of fimbrial genes fimA and ihfA. In vivo binding studies show Hha binds to the rare codon tRNAs argU, ileX, ileY, and proL and to two prophage clusters D1P12 and CP4-57. Real-time PCR corroborated that Hha represses argU and proL, and Hha type I fimbriae repression is abolished by the addition of extra copies of argU, ileY, and proL. The repression of transcription of rare codon tRNAs by Hha also leads to cell lysis and biofilm dispersal due to activation of prophage lytic genes rzpD, yfjZ, appY, and alpA and due to induction of ClpP/ClpX proteases which activate toxins by degrading antitoxins. YbaJ serves to mediate the toxicity of Hha. Hence, we have identified that a single protein (Hha) can control biofilm formation by limiting fimbriae production as well as by controlling cell death. The mechanism used by Hha is the control of translation via the availability of rare codon tRNAs which reduces fimbriae production and activates prophage lytic genes. Therefore, Hha acts as a toxin in conjunction with co-transcribed YbaJ (TomB) that attenuates Hha toxicity