Transcriptional profiling of the bladder in urogenital schistosomiasis reveals pathways of inflammatory fibrosis and urothelial compromise.

Urogenital schistosomiasis, chronic infection by Schistosoma haematobium, affects 112 million people worldwide. S. haematobium worm oviposition in the bladder wall leads to granulomatous inflammation, fibrosis, and egg expulsion into the urine. Despite the global impact of urogenital schistosomiasis, basic understanding of the associated pathologic mechanisms has been incomplete due to the lack of suitable animal models. We leveraged our recently developed mouse model of urogenital schistosomiasis to perform the first-ever profiling of the early molecular events that occur in the bladder in response to the introduction of S. haematobium eggs. Microarray analysis of bladders revealed rapid, differential transcription of large numbers of genes, peaking three weeks post-egg administration. Many differentially transcribed genes were related to the canonical Type 2 anti-schistosomal immune response, as reflected by the development of egg-based bladder granulomata. Numerous collagen and metalloproteinase genes were differentially transcribed over time, revealing complex remodeling and fibrosis of the bladder that was confirmed by Masson's Trichrome staining. Multiple genes implicated in carcinogenesis pathways, including vascular endothelial growth factor-, oncogene-, and mammary tumor-related genes, were differentially transcribed in egg-injected bladders. Surprisingly, junctional adhesion molecule, claudin and uroplakin genes, key components for maintaining the urothelial barrier, were globally suppressed after bladder exposure to eggs. This occurred in the setting of urothelial hyperplasia and egg shedding in urine. Thus, S. haematobium egg expulsion is associated with intricate modulation of the urothelial barrier on the cellular and molecular level. Taken together, our findings have important implications for understanding host-parasite interactions and carcinogenesis in urogenital schistosomiasis, and may provide clues for novel therapeutic strategies.

Stable isotope probing with 15N achieved by disentangling the effects of genome G+C content and isotope enrichment on DNA density.

Stable isotope probing (SIP) of nucleic acids is a powerful tool that can identify the functional capabilities of noncultivated microorganisms as they occur in microbial communities. While it has been suggested previously that nucleic acid SIP can be performed with 15N, nearly all applications of this technique to date have used 13C. Successful application of SIP using 15N-DNA (15N-DNA-SIP) has been limited, because the maximum shift in buoyant density that can be achieved in CsCl gradients is approximately 0.016 g ml-1 for 15N-labeled DNA, relative to 0.036 g ml-1 for 13C-labeled DNA. In contrast, variation in genome G+C content between microorganisms can result in DNA samples that vary in buoyant density by as much as 0.05 g ml-1. Thus, natural variation in genome G+C content in complex communities prevents the effective separation of 15N-labeled DNA from unlabeled DNA. We describe a method which disentangles the effects of isotope incorporation and genome G+C content on DNA buoyant density and makes it possible to isolate 15N-labeled DNA from heterogeneous mixtures of DNA. This method relies on recovery of "heavy" DNA from primary CsCl density gradients followed by purification of 15N-labeled DNA from unlabeled high-G+C-content DNA in secondary CsCl density gradients containing bis-benzimide. This technique, by providing a means to enhance separation of isotopically labeled DNA from unlabeled DNA, makes it possible to use 15N-labeled compounds effectively in DNA-SIP experiments and also will be effective for removing unlabeled DNA from isotopically labeled DNA in 13C-DNA-SIP applications.

Stable isotope probing with 15N2 reveals novel noncultivated diazotrophs in soil.

Biological nitrogen fixation is a fundamental component of the nitrogen cycle and is the dominant natural process through which fixed nitrogen is made available to the biosphere. While the process of nitrogen fixation has been studied extensively with a limited set of cultivated isolates, examinations of nifH gene diversity in natural systems reveal the existence of a wide range of noncultivated diazotrophs. These noncultivated diazotrophs remain uncharacterized, as do their contributions to nitrogen fixation in natural systems. We have employed a novel 15N2-DNA stable isotope probing (5N2-DNA-SIP) method to identify free-living diazotrophs in soil that are responsible for nitrogen fixation in situ. Analyses of 16S rRNA genes from 15N-labeled DNA provide evidence for nitrogen fixation by three microbial groups, one of which belongs to the Rhizobiales while the other two represent deeply divergent lineages of noncultivated bacteria within the Betaproteobacteria and Actinobacteria, respectively. Analysis of nifH genes from 15N-labeled DNA also revealed three microbial groups, one of which was associated with Alphaproteobacteria while the others were associated with two noncultivated groups that are deeply divergent within nifH cluster I. These results reveal that noncultivated free-living diazotrophs can mediate nitrogen fixation in soils and that 15N2-DNA-SIP can be used to gain access to DNA from these organisms. In addition, this research provides the first evidence for nitrogen fixation by Actinobacteria outside of the order Actinomycetales.

Diversity of Planctomycetes in soil in relation to soil history and environmental heterogeneity.

Members of the Planctomycetes, which were once thought to occur primarily in aquatic environments, have been discovered in soils on five continents, revealing that these Bacteria are a widespread and numerically abundant component of microbial communities in soil. We examined the diversity of Planctomycetes in soil samples obtained from experimental plots at an agricultural site in order to assess the extent of Planctomycetes diversity in soil, to determine whether management effects such as past land cover and compost addition affected the composition of the Planctomycetes community, and to determine whether the observations made could provide insight into the ecological distribution of these organisms. Analysis of Planctomycetes 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed a total of 312 +/- 35 unique phylotypes in the soil at the site examined. The majority of these Planctomycetes sequences were unique, and the sequences had phylogenetic affiliations that included all major lineages in the Planctomycetaceae, as well as several novel groups of deeply divergent Planctomycetes. Both soil management history and compost amendment had significant effects on the Planctomycetes diversity, and variations in soil organic matter, Ca2+ content, and pH were associated with variations in the Planctomycetes community composition. In addition, Planctomycetes richness increased in proportion to the area sampled and was correlated with the spatial heterogeneity of nitrate, which was associated with the soil management history at the orchard site examined. This report provides the first systematic assessment of the diversity of Planctomycetes in soil and also provides evidence that the diversity of this group increases with area as defined by the general power law description of the taxon-area relationship.