Probiotic supplementation has sexdependent effects on immune responses in association with the gut microbiota in community-dwelling older adults:a randomized, double-blind, placebocontrolled, multicenter trial

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES@#Probiotics have been suggested as potent modulators of agerelated disorders in immunological functions, yet little is known about sex-dependent effects of probiotic supplements. Therefore, we aimed to investigate sex-dependent effects of probiotics on profiles of the gut microbiota and peripheral immune cells in healthy older adults. @*SUBJECTS/METHODS@#In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial, healthy elderly individuals ≥ 65 yrs old were administered probiotic capsules (or placebo) for 12 wk. Gut microbiota was analyzed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and bioinformatic analyses. Peripheral immune cells were profiled using flow cytometry for lymphocytes (natural killer, B, CD4 + T, and CD8 + T cells), dendritic cells, monocytes, and their subpopulations. @*RESULTS@#Compared with placebo, phylum Firmicutes was significantly reduced in the probiotic group in women, but not in men. At the genus level, sex-specific responses included reductions in the relative abundances of pro-inflammatory gut microbes, including Catabacter and unclassified_Coriobacteriales, and Burkholderia and unclassified Enterobacteriaceae, in men and women, respectively. Peripheral immune cell profiling analysis revealed that in men, probiotics significantly reduced the proportions of dendritic cells and CD14 + CD16 - monocytes; however, these effects were not observed in women. In contrast, the proportion of total CD4 + T cells was significantly reduced in women in the probiotic group. Additionally, serum lipopolysaccharide-binding protein levels showed a decreasing tendency that were positively associated with changes in gut bacteria, including Catabacter (ρ = 0.678, P < 0.05) and Burkholderia (ρ = 0.673, P < 0.05) in men and women, respectively. @*CONCLUSIONS@#These results suggest that probiotic supplementation may reduce the incidence of inflammation-related diseases by regulating the profiles of the gut microbiota and peripheral immune cells in healthy elders in a sex-specific manner.

Comparative Evaluation of the Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Assay for Detecting Pulmonary Tuberculosis

BACKGROUND: Early detection of tuberculosis (TB) is challenging in resource-poor settings because of limited accessibility to molecular diagnostics. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of the loop-mediated isothermal amplification kit (TB-LAMP) for TB diagnosis compared with conventional and molecular tests. METHODS: A total of 290 consecutive sputum samples were collected from May till September, 2015. All samples were processed using the N-Acetyl-L-cysteine (NALC) NaOH method and tested by smear microscopy, solid and liquid culture, real-time PCR, and TB-LAMP. RESULTS: The sensitivity of TB-LAMP for smear-positive and smear-negative samples with culture positivity was 92.0% and 58.8%, respectively. TB-LAMP was positive in 14.9% of TB culture-negative samples; however, all those samples were also positive by real-time PCR. In addition, none of the samples positive for nontuberculous mycobacteria by culture were positive by TB-LAMP. The overall agreement between TB-LAMP and real-time PCR was good; however, the concordance rate was significantly lower for real-time PCR positive samples with Ct values of 30–35. CONCLUSIONS: TB-LAMP could replace smear microscopy and increase TB diagnostic capacity when Xpert MTB/RIF is not feasible because of poor infrastructure.

Skewed Dendritic Cell Differentiation of MyD88-Deficient Donor Bone Marrow Cells, Instead of Massive Expansion as Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells, Aggravates GVHD

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a life-threatening complication after bone marrow transplantation (BMT), is induced by activation of alloreactive donor T cells. Our previous study demonstrated that transplantation of myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88)-deficient knockout (KO) bone marrow (BM) resulted in aggravation of GVHD. Here, to understand the cellular mechanism, we performed longitudinal in vivo imaging and flow cytometric analyses followed by transcriptome and functional examination of donor MyD88-KO BM progenies in GVHD hosts, using a major histocompatibility complex-matched but minor histocompatibility antigen-mismatched C57BL/6→BALB.B model. In GVHD hosts with MyD88-KO BMT, donor BM-derived CD11b+Gr-1+ cells were found to undergo cell death, a fate significantly different from the explosive expansion shown by the wild type (WT) counterparts, and also from the moderate expansion of the WT or MyD88-KO BM-derived cells in non-GVHD hosts. It was also revealed that MyD88-KO CD11b+Gr-1+ cells preferred differentiation into CD11c+ dendritic cells (DCs) to expansion as myeloid-derived suppressor cells in GVHD hosts or in high inflammatory in vitro conditions. These CD11c+ DCs comprised the majority of MyD88-KO CD11b+Gr-1+ apoptotic cells in GVHD hosts. Their ability to cross-present alloantigens of host origin contributed to the enhancement of T cell alloreactivity, causing GVHD aggravation and eventually death through the killing function of activated T cells. These results provide insights into the roles of MyD88 in myelopoiesis of donor BM and the protective effects in GVHD hosts, helpful information for development of a strategy to control GVHD.

Protective effect of dietary chitosan on cadmium accumulation in rats

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Cadmium is a toxic metal that is an occupational and environmental concern especially because of its human carcinogenicity; it induces serious adverse effects in various organs and tissues. Even low levels of exposure to cadmium could be harmful owing to its extremely long half-life in the body. Cadmium intoxication may be prevented by the consumption of dietary components that potentially reduce its accumulation in the body. Dietary chitosan is a polysaccharide derived from animal sources; it has been known for its ability to bind to divalent cations including cadmium, in addition to other beneficial effects including hypocholesterolemic and anticancer effects. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the role of dietary chitosan in reducing cadmium accumulation using an in vivo system. MATERIALS/METHODS: Cadmium was administered orally at 2 mg (three times per week) to three groups of Sprague-Dawley rats: control, low-dose, and high-dose (0, 3, and 5%, respectively) chitosan diet groups for eight weeks. Cadmium accumulation, as well as tissue functional and histological changes, was determined. RESULTS: Compared to the control group, rats fed the chitosan diet showed significantly lower levels of cadmium in blood and tissues including the kidneys, liver, and femur. Biochemical analysis of liver function including the determination of aspartate aminotransferase and total bilirubin levels showed that dietary chitosan reduced hepatic tissue damage caused by cadmium intoxication and prevented the associated bone disorder. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that dietary chitosan has the potential to reduce cadmium accumulation in the body as well as protect liver function and bone health against cadmium intoxication.

Heme-binding-mediated negative regulation of the tryptophan metabolic enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) by IDO2

Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenases (IDOs) are tryptophan-catabolizing enzymes with immunomodulatory functions. However, the biological role of IDO2 and its relationship with IDO1 are unknown. To assess the relationship between IDO2 and IDO1, we investigated the effects of co-expression of human (h) IDO2 on hIDO1 activity. Cells co-expressing hIDO1 and hIDO2 showed reduced tryptophan metabolic activity compared with those expressing hIDO1 only. In a proteomic analysis, hIDO1-expressing cells exhibited enhanced expression of proteins related to the cell cycle and amino acid metabolism, and decreased expression of proteins related to cell survival. However, cells co-expressing hIDO1 and hIDO2 showed enhanced expression of negative regulators of cell apoptosis compared with those expressing hIDO1 only. Co-expression of hIDO1 and hIDO2 rescued the cell death induced by tryptophan-depletion through hIDO1 activity. Cells expressing only hIDO2 exhibited no marked differences in proteome profiles or cell growth compared with mock-transfectants. Cellular tryptophan metabolic activity and cell death were restored by co-expressing the hIDO2 mutant substituting the histidine 360 residue for alanine. These results demonstrate that hIDO2 plays a novel role as a negative regulator of hIDO1 by competing for heme-binding with hIDO1, and provide information useful for development of therapeutic strategies to control cancer and immunological disorders that target IDO molecules.

Effect of local background intensities in the normalization of cDNA microarray data with a skewed expression profiles

Normalization of the data of cDNA microarray is an obligatory step during microarray experiments due to the relatively frequent non-specific errors. Generally, normalization of microarray data is based on the null hypothesis and variance model. In the Yang's model (Yang et al., 2001), at least two types of noises are included. The one is additive noise and the other is multiplicative noise. Usually, background is considered as one of additive noise to the signal and the variation between the signal pixels is the representative multiplicative noise. In this study, the relation between the signal (spot intensity minus background intensity) and background was observed and the influence of background on normalization as a representative additive factor was investigated. Although the relation has not been considered as a factor affecting the normalization, it could improve the accuracy of microarray data when the normalization was carried out considering signal/background ratio. The background dependent normalization decreased the number of genes whose expression levels were changed significantly and it could make their distribution more consistent through the whole range of signal intensities. In this study, printing pin dependent normalization was also carried out regarding the printing pin as a representative multiplicative noise. It improved the distribution of spots in the Cy3-Cy5 scatter plot, but its effect was slight. These studies suggest that there are some influences of the signals on the local backgrounds and they must be considered for the normalization of cDNA microarray data.