Association analysis of PON2 genetic variants with serum paraoxonase activity and systemic lupus erythematosus

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Low serum paraoxonase (PON) activity is associated with the risk of coronary artery disease, diabetes and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Our prior studies have shown that the <it>PON1</it>/rs662 (p.Gln192Arg), <it>PON1</it>/rs854560 (p.Leu55Met), <it>PON3</it>/rs17884563 and <it>PON3</it>/rs740264 SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) significantly affect serum PON activity. Since <it>PON1, PON2 </it>and <it>PON3 </it>share high degree of structural and functional properties, in this study, we examined the role of <it>PON2 </it>genetic variation on serum PON activity, risk of SLE and SLE-related clinical manifestations in a Caucasian case-control sample.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p><it>PON2 </it>SNPs were selected from HapMap and SeattleSNPs databases by including at least one tagSNP from each bin defined in these resources. A total of nineteen <it>PON2 </it>SNPs were successfully genotyped in 411 SLE cases and 511 healthy controls using pyrosequencing, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) or TaqMan allelic discrimination methods.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our pair-wise linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis, using an <it>r</it>^{<it>2 </it>}cutoff of 0.7, identified 14 <it>PON2 </it>tagSNPs that captured all 19 <it>PON2 </it>variants in our sample, 12 of which were not in high LD with known <it>PON1 </it>and <it>PON3 </it>SNP modifiers of PON activity. Stepwise regression analysis of PON activity, including the known modifiers, identified five <it>PON2 </it>SNPs [rs6954345 (p.Ser311Cys), rs13306702, rs987539, rs11982486, and rs4729189; <it>P </it>= 0.005 to 2.1 × 10^-6] that were significantly associated with PON activity. We found no association of <it>PON2 </it>SNPs with SLE risk but modest associations were observed with lupus nephritis (rs11981433, rs17876205, rs17876183) and immunologic disorder (rs11981433) in SLE patients (<it>P </it>= 0.013 to 0.042).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our data indicate that <it>PON2 </it>genetic variants significantly affect variation in serum PON activity and have modest effects on risk of lupus nephritis and SLE-related immunologic disorder.</p

Duckweed (Lemna minor) as a Model Plant System for the Study of Human Microbial Pathogenesis

BACKGROUND: Plant infection models provide certain advantages over animal models in the study of pathogenesis. However, current plant models face some limitations, e.g., plant and pathogen cannot co-culture in a contained environment. Development of such a plant model is needed to better illustrate host-pathogen interactions. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We describe a novel model plant system for the study of human pathogenic bacterial infection on a large scale. This system was initiated by co-cultivation of axenic duckweed (Lemna minor) plants with pathogenic bacteria in 24-well polystyrene cell culture plate. Pathogenesis of bacteria to duckweed was demonstrated with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus as two model pathogens. P. aeruginosa PAO1 caused severe detriment to duckweed as judged from inhibition to frond multiplication and chlorophyll formation. Using a GFP-marked PAO1 strain, we demonstrated that bacteria colonized on both fronds and roots and formed biofilms. Virulence of PAO1 to duckweed was attenuated in its quorum sensing (QS) mutants and in recombinant strains overexpressing the QS quenching enzymes. RN4220, a virulent strain of S. aureus, caused severe toxicity to duckweed while an avirulent strain showed little effect. Using this system for antimicrobial chemical selection, green tea polyphenols exhibited inhibitory activity against S. aureus virulence. This system was further confirmed to be effective as a pathogenesis model using a number of pathogenic bacterial species. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results demonstrate that duckweed can be used as a fast, inexpensive and reproducible model plant system for the study of host-pathogen interactions, could serve as an alternative choice for the study of some virulence factors, and could also potentially be used in large-scale screening for the discovery of antimicrobial chemicals

Comparative Genome Analysis of Filamentous Fungi Reveals Gene Family Expansions Associated with Fungal Pathogenesis

Fungi and oomycetes are the causal agents of many of the most serious diseases of plants. Here we report a detailed comparative analysis of the genome sequences of thirty-six species of fungi and oomycetes, including seven plant pathogenic species, that aims to explore the common genetic features associated with plant disease-causing species. The predicted translational products of each genome have been clustered into groups of potential orthologues using Markov Chain Clustering and the data integrated into the e-Fungi object-oriented data warehouse (http://www.e-fungi.org.uk/). Analysis of the species distribution of members of these clusters has identified proteins that are specific to filamentous fungal species and a group of proteins found only in plant pathogens. By comparing the gene inventories of filamentous, ascomycetous phytopathogenic and free-living species of fungi, we have identified a set of gene families that appear to have expanded during the evolution of phytopathogens and may therefore serve important roles in plant disease. We have also characterised the predicted set of secreted proteins encoded by each genome and identified a set of protein families which are significantly over-represented in the secretomes of plant pathogenic fungi, including putative effector proteins that might perturb host cell biology during plant infection. The results demonstrate the potential of comparative genome analysis for exploring the evolution of eukaryotic microbial pathogenesis