Characterization of rubella virus genotypes among pregnant women in northern Vietnam, 2011-2013.

Rubella virus (RV) infection is an unresolved clinical complication that affects children in developing countries including Vietnam. RV infection during the first trimester of pregnancy causes severe birth defects known as congenital rubella syndrome. This study reports on the genomic characterization of RV strains circulating in northern Vietnam during 2011-2013. RV-IgM positive amniotic fluid specimens were collected from 38 women from northern Vietnam who presented with clinical rubella at the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Hanoi, Vietnam. The RV genes were determined by nested PCR with primers amplifying the 739-nucleotide coding region of the E1 gene. The sequences from the amplified DNA fragments were phylogenetically analyzed and compared to reference RV strains. Seventeen out of 38 samples are positive for RV detecting. All new RV isolates are clustered to genotype 2B. Eighteen amino acid mutations were found in the T and B cell epitopes. These results suggest that genotype 2B RV strains frequently circulate in northern Vietnam. These data describe the RV genotype in Vietnam with the aim of improving maternal and child health in this country.

Metagenomic 16S rDNA amplicon data of microbial diversity of guts in Vietnamese humans with type 2 diabetes and nondiabetic adults.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is an important public health problem. The knowledge of bacterial communities in the gut of Vietnamese patients with T2DM and non diabetic controls is still insufficient. We report in this article the 16S rDNA amplicon data of the gut microbiomes of Vietnamese patients with T2DM and nondiabetic controls carried out using the Illumina sequencing. This work included 7 patients and 7 controls. A total of 1,627,646 reads were obtained and a total of 13 phyla, 25 classes, 94 genera were revealed. The top three dominant bacterial phyla in all subjects were Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria. Significant differences in the relative abundances of the phylum Firmicutes and class Clostridia between patients and controls were observed, suggesting that the reducing of phylum Firmicutes and class Clostridia in the gut may be linked to obesity and T2DM. All sequencing libraries were deposited in the NCBI SRA as BioProject PRJNA668251. The datasets are needed to determine the association between the bacterial composition of the gut and the pathogenesis of T2DM in Vietnamese patients.

Aryl hydrocarbon receptor and kynurenine: recent advances in autoimmune disease research.

Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) is thought to be a crucial factor in the regulation of immune responses. Many AHR-mediated immunoregulatory mechanisms have been discovered, and this knowledge may enhance our understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of autoimmune inflammatory syndromes such as collagen-induced arthritis, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, and experimental colitis. Recent findings have elucidated the critical link between AHR and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) in the development of regulatory T cells and Th17 cells, which are key factors in a variety of human autoimmune diseases. Induction of IDO and IDO-mediated tryptophan catabolism, together with its downstream products such as kynurenine, is an important immunoregulatory mechanism underlying immunosuppression, tolerance, and immunity. Recent studies revealed that induction of IDO depends on AHR expression. This review summarizes the most current findings regarding the functions of AHR and IDO in immune cells as they relate to the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases in response to various stimuli. We also discuss the potential link between AHR and IDO/tryptophan metabolites, and the involvement of several novel related factors (such as microRNA) in the development of autoimmune diseases. These novel factors represent potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of autoimmune disorders.