Insight Into the Anti-staphylococcal Activity of JBC 1847 at Sub-Inhibitory Concentration

Multidrug-resistant pathogens constitute a serious global issue and, therefore, novel antimicrobials with new modes of action are urgently needed. Here, we investigated the effect of a phenothiazine derivative (JBC 1847) with high antimicrobial activity on Staphylococcus aureus, using a wide range of in vitro assays, flow cytometry, and RNA transcriptomics. The flow cytometry results showed that JBC 1847 rapidly caused depolarization of the cell membrane, while the macromolecule synthesis inhibition assay showed that the synthesis rates of DNA, RNA, cell wall, and proteins, respectively, were strongly decreased. Transcriptome analysis of S. aureus exposed to sub-inhibitory concentrations of JBC 1847 identified a total of 78 downregulated genes, whereas not a single gene was found to be significantly upregulated. Most importantly, there was downregulation of genes involved in adenosintrifosfat (ATP)-dependent pathways, including histidine biosynthesis, which is likely to correlate with the observed lower level of intracellular ATP in JBC 1847–treated cells. Furthermore, we showed that JBC 1847 is bactericidal against both exponentially growing cells and cells in a stationary growth phase. In conclusion, our results showed that the antimicrobial properties of JBC 1847 were primarily caused by depolarization of the cell membrane resulting in dissipation of the proton motive force (PMF), whereby many essential bacterial processes are affected. JBC 1847 resulted in lowered intracellular levels of ATP followed by decreased macromolecule synthesis rate and downregulation of genes essential for the amino acid metabolism in S. aureus. Bacterial compensatory mechanisms for this proposed multi-target activity of JBC 1847 seem to be limited based on the observed very low frequency of resistance toward the compound

Glucose tolerance is associated with differential expression of microRNAs in skeletal muscle: results from studies of twins with and without type 2 diabetes.

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: We aimed to identify microRNAs (miRNAs) associated with type 2 diabetes and risk of developing the disease in skeletal muscle biopsies from phenotypically well-characterised twins. METHODS: We measured muscle miRNA levels in monozygotic (MZ) twins discordant for type 2 diabetes using arrays. Further investigations of selected miRNAs included target prediction, pathway analysis, silencing in cells and association analyses in a separate cohort of 164 non-diabetic MZ and dizygotic twins. The effects of elevated glucose and insulin levels on miRNA expression were examined, and the effect of low birthweight (LBW) was studied in rats. RESULTS: We identified 20 miRNAs that were downregulated in MZ twins with diabetes compared with their non-diabetic co-twins. Differences for members of the miR-15 family (miR-15b and miR-16) were the most statistically significant, and these miRNAs were predicted to influence insulin signalling. Indeed, miR-15b and miR-16 levels were associated with levels of key insulin signalling proteins, miR-15b was associated with the insulin receptor in non-diabetic twins and knockdown of miR-15b/miR-16 in myocytes changed the levels of insulin signalling proteins. LBW in twins and undernutrition during pregnancy in rats were, in contrast to overt type 2 diabetes, associated with increased expression of miR-15b and/or miR-16. Elevated glucose and insulin suppressed miR-16 expression in vitro. CONCLUSIONS: Type 2 diabetes is associated with non-genetic downregulation of several miRNAs in skeletal muscle including miR-15b and miR-16, potentially targeting insulin signalling. The paradoxical findings in twins with overt diabetes and twins at increased risk of the disease underscore the complexity of the regulation of muscle insulin signalling in glucose homeostasis.JB-J was supported by a grant from the Danish PhD School for Molecular Metabolism. The study was supported by grants from the Danish Medical Research Council, the Danish Strategic Research Council. The Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. DSF-T was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council project grant BB/F-15364/1. SEO is a British Heart Foundation Senior Fellow (FS/09/029/27902).This is the final version of the article. It was first published by Springer at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00125-014-3434-

The Role of MicroRNAs in Regulatory T Cells and in the Immune Response

The discovery of microRNA (miRNA) is one of the major scientific breakthroughs in recent years and has revolutionized current cell biology and medical science. miRNAs are small (19~25nt) noncoding RNA molecules that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression by targeting the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) of specific messenger RNAs (mRNAs) for degradation of translation repression. Genetic ablation of the miRNA machinery, as well as loss or degradation of certain individual miRNAs, severely compromises immune development and response, and can lead to immune disorders. Several sophisticated regulatory mechanisms are used to maintain immune homeostasis. Regulatory T (Treg) cells are essential for maintaining peripheral tolerance, preventing autoimmune diseases and limiting chronic inflammatory diseases. Recent publications have provided compelling evidence that miRNAs are highly expressed in Treg cells, that the expression of Foxp3 is controlled by miRNAs and that a range of miRNAs are involved in the regulation of immunity. A large number of studies have reported links between alterations of miRNA homeostasis and pathological conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as psychiatric and neurological diseases. Although it is still unclear how miRNA controls Treg cell development and function, recent studies certainly indicate that this topic will be the subject of further research. The specific circulating miRNA species may also be useful for the diagnosis, classification, prognosis of diseases and prediction of the therapeutic response. An explosive literature has focussed on the role of miRNA. In this review, I briefly summarize the current studies about the role of miRNAs in Treg cells and in the regulation of the innate and adaptive immune response. I also review the explosive current studies about clinical application of miRNA

LncRNA-OIS1 regulates DPP4 activation to modulate senescence induced by RAS

Oncogene-induced senescence (OIS), provoked in response to oncogenic activation, is considered an important tumor suppressor mechanism. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are transcripts longer than 200 nt without a protein-coding capacity. Functional studies showed that deregulated lncRNA expression promote tumorigenesis and metastasis and that lncRNAs may exhibit tumor-suppressive and oncogenic function. Here, we first identified lncRNAs that were differentially expressed between senescent and non-senescent human fibroblast cells. Using RNA interference, we performed a loss-function screen targeting the differentially expressed lncRNAs, and identified lncRNA-OIS1 (lncRNA#32, AC008063.3 or ENSG00000233397) as a lncRNA required for OIS. Knockdown of lncRNA-OIS1 triggered bypass of senescence, higher proliferation rate, lower abundance of the cell-cycle inhibitor CDKN1A and high expression of cell-cycle-associated genes. Subcellular inspection of lncRNA-OIS1 indicated nuclear and cytosolic localization in both normal culture conditions as well as following oncogene induction. Interestingly, silencing lncRNA-OIS1 diminished the senescent-associated induction of a nearby gene (Dipeptidyl Peptidase 4, DPP4) with established role

Elucidation of the Vibrio anguillarum Genetic Response to the Potential Fish Probiont Pseudomonas fluorescens AH2, Using RNA-Arbitrarily Primed PCR

The antagonistic interaction between a potential fish probiont, Pseudomonas fluorescens strain AH2, and its target organism, Vibrio anguillarum, was investigated by studying the genetic response of the target organism when it was exposed to the antagonist. We compared the differential display of arbitrarily PCR-amplified gene transcripts in V. anguillarum serotype O1 when it was exposed to AH2 supernatant with the display of transcripts in nonexposed control cultures. Growth of V. anguillarum was immediately arrested when the organism was exposed to 50% (vol/vol) AH2 supernatant. A total of 10 potentially differentially expressed transcripts were identified. Among these we identified a gene homologous to rpoS that was induced in a dose-dependent manner when V. anguillarum was cultured in media supplemented with sterile filtered supernatant from AH2. rpoS was also induced when growth was arrested with the iron chelator 2,2-dipyridyl. A chromosomal transcript homologous to vibE that participates in vibriobactin synthesis in Vibrio cholerae was also upregulated during AH2 exposure. This transcript could represent a functionally active gene in V. anguillarum involved in biosynthesis of anguibactin or another V. anguillarum siderophore. On the pJM1 plasmid of V. anguillarum serotype O1, a pseudogene designated open reading frame E (ORF E) that contains a frameshift mutation was previously identified. The gene homologous to vibE identified in this study, interestingly, also has significant homology to ORF E on the amino acid level and does not possess the frameshift mutation. Thus, the chromosomally encoded vibE homologue could fulfil the role of the inactive plasmid-encoded ORF E pseudogene. Addition of Fe(3+) to the system eliminated the growth arrest, and the genes homologous to rpoS and vibE were not induced. To our knowledge, this is the first study linking rpoS induction to iron starvation. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that a major part of the antagonistic property exhibited by strain AH2 is caused by the ability of siderophores in the supernatant to efficiently chelate iron, which results in instant iron deprivation of the pathogen V. anguillarum and complete growth arrest

Physiological States of Individual Salmonella typhimurium Cells Monitored by In Situ Reverse Transcription-PCR

The possibility of using levels of specific mRNAs in individual bacteria as indicators of single-cell physiology was investigated. Estimates of the numbers of groEL and tsf mRNAs per cell in Salmonella typhimurium cells in different physiological states were obtained by Northern analysis. The average number of groEL mRNAs per cell was estimated to be 22 in fast-growing cultures and 197 in heat-shocked cultures. The average number of tsf mRNAs per cell was estimated to be 37 in fast-growing cultures, 4 in slow-growing cultures, and 0 in nongrowing cultures. The potential of mRNA-targeted in situ reverse transcription (RT)-PCR to monitor quantitatively different levels of groEL and tsf mRNA in individual cells and thus monitor both specific gene induction and general growth activity was assessed. Neither groEL nor tsf mRNA was present in stationary-phase cells, but it was shown that stationary-phase cells contain other RNA species at high levels, which may provide a possibility for monitoring directly stationary-phase individual cells by the use of in situ RT-PCR. The outcome of the in situ RT-PCR analyses indicated that a population of fast-growing cells is heterogeneous with respect to groEL mRNA single-cell contents, suggesting a cell-cycle-controlled expression of groEL in S. typhimurium, whereas a fast-growing culture is homogeneous with respect to tsf mRNA single-cell contents, suggesting that the level of tsf mRNA is relatively constant during the cell cycle