Bifidobacteria upregulate expression of toll-like receptor negative regulators counteracting enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli mediated inflammation in bovine intestinal epitheliocytes

We previously established a bovine intestinal epithelial cell line (BIE cells) and showed that BIE cells are useful in vitro model system for the study of interactions between pathogenic and beneficial microorganisms and bovine intestinal epithelial cells (IECs). In the present study we aimed to select potential immunomodulatory bifidobacteria that may be used to beneficially modulate the inflammatory response in bovine IECs. We also aimed to gain insight in the molecular mechanisms involved in the anti-inflammatory effect of bifidobacteria by evaluating the role of Toll-like receptor (TLR)-2 and TLR negative regulators in the regulation of proinflamatory cytokines production and MAPK, NF-κB and PI3K pathways activation in BIE cells. Five bifidobacteria strains were evaluated in this study and according to their capacity to modulate inflammatory response of BIE cells. Despite the unique effect of each strain, four common points were found when comparing the effect of the high and moderate anti-inflammatory strains: 1) Upregulation of TLR negative regulators and the intensity of that upregulation was related to the different immunomodulatory capacity of each bifidobacteria strain. 2) The balance between MAPK activation and MKP-1 upregulation affected the an- ti-inflammatory effect of bifidobacteria in BIE cells. 3) The inhibition of PI3K pathway was related to the an- ti-inflammatory effect of bifidobacteria. 4) The immunoregulatory effect of bifidobacteria in BIE cells is partially de- pendent on TLR2. This study shows that BIE cells can be used for the selection of immunoregulatory bifidobacteria and for studying the mechanisms involved in the protective activity of immunobiotics against TLR4-induced inflammatory damage. In addition, we have demonstrated that the anti-inflammatory effect of bifidobacteria was achieved by a com- plex interaction of multiple TLRs negative regulators as well as the inhibition/activation of multiple signaling pathways.Fil: Murata, Kozue. Tohoku University. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Food and Feed Immunology Group; Japón;Fil: Villena, Julio Cesar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Tucumán. Centro de Referencia para Lactobacilos (i); Argentina; Tohoku University. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Food and Feed Immunology Group; Japón;Fil: Tomosada, Yohsuke. Tohoku University. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Food and Feed Immunology Group; Japón;Fil: Risa, Hara. Tohoku University. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Food and Feed Immunology Group; Japón;Fil: Chiba, Eriko. Tohoku University. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Food and Feed Immunology Group; Japón;Fil: Shimazu, Tomoyuki. Tohoku University. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Laboratory of Animal Breeding and Genetics; Japón;Fil: Aso, Hisashi. Tohoku University. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Cell Biology Laboratory; Japón;Fil: Suda, Yoshihito. Miyagi University. Department of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Science; Japón;Fil: Iwabuchi, Noriyuki. Morinaga Milk Industry Co. Ltd. Food Science and Technology Institute; Japón;Fil: Xiao, Jin-zhong. Morinaga Milk Industry Co. Ltd. Food Science and Technology Institute; Japón;Fil: Saito, Tadao. Tohoku University. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Food and Feed Immunology Group; Japón;Fil: Kitazawa, Haruki. Tohoku University. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Food and Feed Immunology Group; Japón

Immunobiotic lactic acid bacteria beneficially regulate immune response triggered by poly(I:C) in porcine intestinal epithelial cells

This study analyzed the functional expression of TLR3 in various gastrointestinal tissues from adult swine and shows that TLR3 is expressed preferentially in intestinal epithelial cells (IEC), CD172a+CD11R1high and CD4+ cells from ileal Peyer's patches. We characterized the inflammatory immune response triggered by TLR3 activation in a clonal porcine intestinal epitheliocyte cell line (PIE cells) and in PIE-immune cell co-cultures, and demonstrated that these systems are valuable tools to study in vitro the immune response triggered by TLR3 on IEC and the interaction between IEC and immune cells. In addition, we selected an immunobiotic lactic acid bacteria strain, Lactobacillus casei MEP221106, able to beneficially regulate the anti-viral immune response triggered by poly(I:C) stimulation in PIE cells. Moreover, we deepened our understanding of the possible mechanisms of immunobiotic action by demonstrating that L. casei MEP221106 modulates the interaction between IEC and immune cells during the generation of a TLR3-mediated immune response

Advanced application of bovine intestinal epithelial cell line for evaluating regulatory effect of lactobacilli against heat-killed enterotoxigenicEscherichia coli-mediated inflammation

Background: Previously, a bovine intestinal epithelial cell line (BIE cells) was successfully established. This work hypothesized that BIE cells are useful in vitro model system for the study of interactions of microbial- or pathogenassociated molecular patterns (MAMPs or PAMPs) with bovine intestinal epithelial cells and for the selection of immunoregulatory lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Results: All toll-like receptor (TLR) genes were expressed in BIE cells, being TLR4 one of the most strongly expressed. We demonstrated that heat-stable PAMPs of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) significantly enhanced the production of IL-6, IL-8, IL-1! and MCP-1 in BIE cells by activating both NF-"B and MAPK pathways. We evaluated the capacity of several lactobacilli strains to modulate heat-stable ETEC PAMPs-mediated inflammatory response in BIE cells. Among these strains evaluated, Lactobacillus casei OLL2768 attenuated heat-stable ETEC PAMPs-induced pro-inflammatory response by inhibiting NF-"B and p38 signaling pathways in BIE cells. Moreover, L. casei OLL2768 negatively regulated TLR4 signaling in BIE cells by up-regulating Toll interacting protein (Tollip) and B-cell lymphoma 3-encoded protein (Bcl-3). Conclusions: BIE cells are suitable for the selection of immunoregulatory LAB and for studying the mechanisms involved in the protective activity of immunobiotics against pathogen-induced inflammatory damage. In addition, we showed that L. casei OLL2768 functionally modulate the bovine intestinal epithelium by attenuating heat-stable ETEC PAMPs-induced inflammation. Therefore L. casei OLL2768 is a good candidate for in vivo studying the protective effect of LAB against intestinal inflammatory damage induced by ETEC infection or heat-stable ETEC PAMPs challenge in the bovine host.Fil: Takanashi, Naoya. Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan;Fil: Tomosada, Yohsuke. Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan;Fil: Villena, Julio Cesar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico - CONICET - Tucuman. Centro de Referencia Para Lactobacilos (i); Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan;Fil: Murata, Kozue. Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan;Fil: Takahashi, Takuya. Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan;Fil: Chiba, Eriko. Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan;Fil: Tohno, Masanori. Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan; National Agriculture and Food Research Organization. National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science; Japan.;Fil: Tomoyuki Shimazu. Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan; Laboratory of Animal Breading and Genetics. Graduate School of Agricultural Science; Japan.;Fil: Aso, Hisashi. Cell Biology Laboratory, Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan.;Fil: Suda, Yoshihito. Department of Food, Agriculture and Environment. Miyagi University; Japan.;Fil: Ikegami, Shuji. Division of Research and Development. Food Science Institut. Meiji Dairies CoOdawara; Japan;Fil: Itoh, Hiroyuki. Division of Research and Development. Food Science Institut. Meiji Dairies CoOdawara; Japan;Fil: Kawai, Yasushi. Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan;Fil: Tadao Saito. Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan;Fil: Alvarez, Gladis Susana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Tucumán. Centro de Referencia para Lactobacilos (i); Argentina;Fil: Kitazawa, Haruki. Food and Feed Immunology Group. Laboratory of Animal Products Chemistry. Graduate School of Agricultural Science. Tohoku University; Japan

SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta variant replication and immune evasion

Abstract: The B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first identified in the state of Maharashtra in late 2020 and spread throughout India, outcompeting pre-existing lineages including B.1.617.1 (Kappa) and B.1.1.7 (Alpha)1. In vitro, B.1.617.2 is sixfold less sensitive to serum neutralizing antibodies from recovered individuals, and eightfold less sensitive to vaccine-elicited antibodies, compared with wild-type Wuhan-1 bearing D614G. Serum neutralizing titres against B.1.617.2 were lower in ChAdOx1 vaccinees than in BNT162b2 vaccinees. B.1.617.2 spike pseudotyped viruses exhibited compromised sensitivity to monoclonal antibodies to the receptor-binding domain and the amino-terminal domain. B.1.617.2 demonstrated higher replication efficiency than B.1.1.7 in both airway organoid and human airway epithelial systems, associated with B.1.617.2 spike being in a predominantly cleaved state compared with B.1.1.7 spike. The B.1.617.2 spike protein was able to mediate highly efficient syncytium formation that was less sensitive to inhibition by neutralizing antibody, compared with that of wild-type spike. We also observed that B.1.617.2 had higher replication and spike-mediated entry than B.1.617.1, potentially explaining the B.1.617.2 dominance. In an analysis of more than 130 SARS-CoV-2-infected health care workers across three centres in India during a period of mixed lineage circulation, we observed reduced ChAdOx1 vaccine effectiveness against B.1.617.2 relative to non-B.1.617.2, with the caveat of possible residual confounding. Compromised vaccine efficacy against the highly fit and immune-evasive B.1.617.2 Delta variant warrants continued infection control measures in the post-vaccination era

An Intrablog-Based Informal Communication Encouraging System that Seamlessly Links On-Line Communications to Off-Line Ones

In this paper, we propose an intrablog-based informal communication encouraging system named "Attractiblog." It has been pointed out that daily informal communications at a shared public space play very important role in information sharing in an organization. However, in most cases, the communications are often mere chats. To make the communications more informative, it is necessary to feed some common and beneficial topics there. Attractiblog is a system that extracts some articles posted in an intrablog considering who are in the shared space, and show them on a large-sized display that is located in the space. Thus, Attractiblog attempts to seamlessly link on-line communications to off-line communications. We conducted user studies and confirmed that Attractiblog can achieve a natural correspondence between topics in face-to-face informal communications and issues related to the activities of an organization as given in its intrablog

Program Transformation Templates for Tupling Based on Term Rewriting

Chiba et al. (2006) proposed a framework of program transformation of term rewriting systems by developed templates. Contrast to the previous framework of program transformation by templates based on lambda calculus, this framework provides a method to verify the correctness of transformation automatically. Tupling (Bird, 1980) is a well-known technique to eliminate redundant recursive calls for improving efficiency of programs. In Chiba et al.'s framework, however, one can not use tuple symbols to construct developed templates. Thus their framework is not capable of tupling transformations. In this paper, we propose a more flexible notion of templates so that a wider variety of transformations, including tupling transformations, can be handled

Automatic Construction of Program Transformation Templates

Program transformation by templates (Huet and Lang, 1978) is a technique to improve the efficiency of programs. In this technique, programs are transformed according to a given program transformation template. To enhance the variety of program transformation, it is important to introduce new transformation templates. Up to our knowledge, however, few works discuss about the construction of transformation templates. Chiba, et al. (2006) proposed a framework of program transformation by template based on term rewriting and automated verification of its correctness. Based on this framework, we propose a method that automatically constructs transformation templates from similar program transformations. The key idea of our method is a second-order generalization, which is an extension of Plotkin’s firstorder generalization (1969). We give a second-order generalization algorithm and prove the soundness of the algorithm. We then report about an implementation of the generalization procedure and an experiment on the construction of transformation templates

RAPT: A program transformation system based on term rewriting

Abstract. Chiba et al. (2005) proposed a framework of program transformation by template and automated verification of its correctness based on term rewriting. This paper describes a design and implementation of RAPT which implements this framework. RAPT transforms a term rewriting system according to a specified program transformation template. Presupposing the program transformation template is developed, the correctness of the transformation is automatically verified so that the transformation keeps the relationship between initial ground terms and their normal forms.

Professional Development Program for Science Teachers in International Cooperation : Case Study in JICA Training Program for Young Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

The mission of Ochanomizu University, which has a history of women's education stretching back 130 years, is to support the growth of women, regardless of nationality or age, and the development of their qualifications and skills. Ochanomizu University has been conducting the Afghanistan Women Teacher's Training program on behalf of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) since FY2002. This is the tenth year of our project working to strengthen education for Afghanistan. We designed an appropriate training program for Afghanistan science teachers to improve the quality of science teaching in elementary and secondary schools. This study presents the curriculum of a professional development program for science teachers from Afghanistan containing science practices, lectures, and visiting an elementary school and Board of Education. In order to examine the effectiveness of this program, we carried out a survey using a questionnaire for 20 trained participants. The questionnaire results showed that participants felt that our program met their expectations regarding acquiring skills for ‘syllabus planning', ‘lesson planning' and ‘teaching methods.' Also, we found that the program has had a positive impact on the participants' attitudes toward improving the quality of science teaching in elementary and secondary schools