A long-term stable cold-chain-friendly HIV mRNA vaccine encoding multi-epitope viral protease cleavage site immunogens inducing immunogen-specific protective T cell immunity.

The lack of success in clinical trials for HIV vaccines highlights the need to explore novel strategies for vaccine development. Research on highly exposed seronegative (HESN) HIV-resistant Kenyan female sex workers revealed naturally protective immunity is correlated with a focused immune response mediated by virus-specific CD8 T cells. Further studies indicated that the immune response is unconventionally focused on highly conserved sequences around HIV viral protease cleavage sites (VPCS). Thus, taking an unconventional approach to HIV vaccine development, we designed lipid nanoparticles loaded with mRNA that encodes multi-epitopes of VPCS (MEVPCS-mRNA LNP), a strategic design to boost antigen presentation by dendritic cells, promoting effective cellular immunity. Furthermore, we developed a novel cold-chain compatible mRNA LNP formulation, ensuring long-term stability and compatibility with cold-chain storage/transport, widening accessibility of mRNA LNP vaccine in low-income countries. The in-vivo mouse study demonstrated that the vaccinated group generated VPCS-specific CD8 memory T cells, both systemically and at mucosal sites of viral entry. The MEVPCS-mRNA LNP vaccine-induced CD8 T cell immunity closely resembled that of the HESN group and displayed a polyfunctional profile. Notably, it induced minimal to no activation of CD4 T cells. This proof-of-concept study underscores the potential of the MEVPCS-mRNA LNP vaccine in eliciting CD8 T cell memory specific to the highly conserved multiple VPCS, consequently having a broad coverage in human populations and limiting viral escape mutation. The MEVPCS-mRNA LNP vaccine holds promise as a candidate for an effective prophylactic HIV vaccine.

CSF1R inhibition depletes brain macrophages and reduces brain virus burden in SIV-infected macaques.

Perivascular macrophages (PVMs) and, to a lesser degree, microglia are targets and reservoirs of HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in the brain. Previously, we demonstrated that colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF1R) in PVMs was upregulated and activated in chronically SIV-infected rhesus macaques with encephalitis, correlating with SIV infection of PVMs. Herein, we investigated the role of CSF1R in the brain during acute SIV infection using BLZ945, a brain-penetrant CSF1R kinase inhibitor. Apart from three uninfected historic controls, nine Indian rhesus macaques were infected acutely with SIVmac251 and divided into three groups (n = 3 each): an untreated control and two groups treated for 20-30 days with low- (10 mg/kg/day) or high- (30 mg/kg/day) dose BLZ945. With the high-dose BLZ945 treatment, there was a significant reduction in cells expressing CD163 and CD206 across all four brain areas examined, compared with the low-dose treatment and control groups. In 9 of 11 tested regions, tissue viral DNA (vDNA) loads were reduced by 95%-99% following at least one of the two doses, and even to undetectable levels in some instances. Decreased numbers of CD163+ and CD206+ cells correlated significantly with lower levels of vDNA in all four corresponding brain areas. In contrast, BLZ945 treatment did not significantly affect the number of microglia. Our results indicate that doses as low as 10 mg/kg/day of BLZ945 are sufficient to reduce the tissue vDNA loads in the brain with no apparent adverse effect. This study provides evidence that infected PVMs are highly sensitive to CSF1R inhibition, opening new possibilities to achieve viral clearance.

Liver matrin-3 protects mice against hepatic steatosis and stress response via constitutive androstane receptor.

OBJECTIVE: The prevalence of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) continues to rise with the increasing obesity epidemic. Rezdiffra as an activator of a thyroid hormone receptor-beta is the only Food and Drug Administration approved therapy. As such, there is a critical need to improve our understanding of gene expression regulation and signaling transduction in MASLD to develop new therapies. Matrin-3 is a DNA- and RNA-binding protein involved in the pathogenesis of human diseases. Here we examined its previously uncharacterized role in limiting hepatic steatosis and stress response via the constitutive androstane receptor (CAR). METHODS: Matrin-3 floxed and liver-specific knockout mice were fed either a chow diet or 60 kcal% high-fat diet (HFD) for up to 16 weeks. The mice were euthanized for different analysis including liver histology, lipid levels, and gene expression. Bulk RNA-seq, bulk ATAC-seq, and single-nucleus Multiome were used to examine changes of transcriptome and chromatin accessibility in the liver. Integrative bioinformatics analysis of our data and publicly available datasets and different biochemical assays were performed to identify underlying the molecular mechanisms mediating matrin-3's effects. Liver-tropic adeno-associated virus was used to restore the expression of CAR for lipid, acute phase genes, and histological analysis. RESULTS: Matrin-3 expression is induced in the steatotic livers of mice. Liver-specific matrin-3 deletion exacerbated HFD-induced steatosis, acute phase response, and inflammation in the liver of female mice. The transcriptome and chromatin accessibility were re-programmed in the liver of these mice with signatures indicating that CAR signaling is dysregulated. Mechanistically, matrin-3 interacts with CAR mRNA, and matrin-3 deficiency promotes CAR mRNA degradation. Consequently, matrin-3 deletion impaired CAR signaling by reducing CAR expression. Matrin-3 levels positively correlate with CAR expression in human livers. Ces2a and Il1r1 were identified as new target genes of CAR. Interestingly, we found that CAR discords with the expression of its target genes including Cyp2b10 and Ces2a in response to HFD, indicating CAR signaling is dysregulated by HFD despite increased CAR expression. Dysregulated CAR signaling upon matrin-3 deficiency reduced Ces2a and de-repressed Il1r1 expression. CAR restoration partially abrogated the dysregulated gene expression, exacerbated hepatic steatosis, acute phase response, and inflammation in liver-specific matrin-3 knockout mice fed a HFD. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that matrin-3 is a key upstream regulator maintaining CAR signaling upon metabolic stress, and the matrin-3-CAR axis limits hepatic steatosis and stress response signaling that may give insights for therapeutic intervention.

Influenza C and D Viruses Demonstrated a Differential Respiratory Tissue Tropism in a Comparative Pathogenesis Study in Guinea Pigs.

Influenza C virus (ICV) is increasingly associated with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children and its disease severity is worse than the influenza B virus, but similar to influenza A virus associated CAP. Despite the ubiquitous infection landscape of ICV in humans, little is known about its replication and pathobiology in animals. The goal of this study was to understand the replication kinetics, tissue tropism, and pathogenesis of human ICV (huICV) in comparison to the swine influenza D virus (swIDV) in guinea pigs. Intranasal inoculation of both viruses did not cause clinical signs, however, the infected animals shed virus in nasal washes. The huICV replicated in the nasal turbinates, soft palate, and trachea but not in the lungs while swIDV replicated in all four tissues. A comparative analysis of tropism and pathogenesis of these two related seven-segmented influenza viruses revealed that swIDV-infected animals exhibited broad tissue tropism with an increased rate of shedding on 3, 5, and 7 dpi and high viral loads in the lungs compared to huICV. Seroconversion occurred late in the huICV group at 14 dpi, while swIDV-infected animals seroconverted at 7 dpi. Guinea pigs infected with huICV exhibited mild to moderate inflammatory changes in the epithelium of the soft palate and trachea, along with mucosal damage and multifocal alveolitis in the lungs. In summary, the replication kinetics and pathobiological characteristics of ICV in guinea pigs agree with the clinical manifestation of ICV infection in humans, and hence guinea pigs could be used to study these distantly related influenza viruses. IMPORTANCE Similar to influenza A and B, ICV infections are seen associated with bacterial and viral co-infections which complicates the assessment of its real clinical significance. Further, the antivirals against influenza A and B viruses are ineffective against ICV which mandates the need to study the pathobiological aspects of this virus. Here we demonstrated that the respiratory tract of guinea pigs possesses specific viral receptors for ICV. We also compared the replication kinetics and pathogenesis of huICV and swIDV, as these viruses share 50% sequence identity. The tissue tropism and pathology associated with huICV in guinea pigs are analogous to the mild respiratory disease caused by ICV in humans, thereby demonstrating the suitability of guinea pigs to study ICV. Our comparative analysis revealed that huICV and swIDV replicated differentially in the guinea pigs suggesting that the type-specific genetic differences can result in the disparity of the viral shedding and tissue tropism.

Text Feature Adversarial Learning for Text Generation With Knowledge Transfer From GPT2.

Text generation is a key component of many natural language tasks. Motivated by the success of generative adversarial networks (GANs) for image generation, many text-specific GANs have been proposed. However, due to the discrete nature of text, these text GANs often use reinforcement learning (RL) or continuous relaxations to calculate gradients during learning, leading to high-variance or biased estimation. Furthermore, the existing text GANs often suffer from mode collapse (i.e., they have limited generative diversity). To tackle these problems, we propose a new text GAN model named text feature GAN (TFGAN), where adversarial learning is performed in a continuous text feature space. In the adversarial game, GPT2 provides the "true" features, while the generator of TFGAN learns from them. TFGAN is trained by maximum likelihood estimation on text space and adversarial learning on text feature space, effectively combining them into a single objective, while alleviating mode collapse. TFGAN achieves appealing performance in text generation tasks, and it can also be used as a flexible framework for learning text representations.

A novel assessment system of toxicity and stability of CuO nanoparticles via copper super sensitive Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutants.

CuO nanoparticles (CuO-NPs) toxicity in organisms is contributed mainly through the copper uptake by both the ionic and nanoparticle form. However, the relative uptake ratio and bioavailability of the two different forms is not well known due to a lack of sensitive and effective assessment systems. We developed a series of both copper resistant and hyper sensitive Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutants to investigate and compare the effects of CuO-NPs and dissolved copper (CuCl2), on the eukaryote with the purpose of quantitating the relative contributions of nanoparticles and dissolved species for Cu uptake. We observed the toxicity of 10 mM CuO-NPs for copper sensitive strains is equal to that of 0.5 mM CuCl2 and the main toxic effect is most likely generated from oxidative stress through reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. About 95% CuO-NPs exist in nanoparticle form under neutral environmental conditions. Assessing the cellular metal content of wild type and copper transporter 1(CTR1) knock out cells showed that endocytosis is the major absorption style for CuO-NPs. This study also found a similar toxicity of Ag for both 10 mM Ag-NPs and 0.2 mM AgNO3 in the copper super sensitive strains. Our study revealed the absorption mechanism of soluble metal based nanomaterials CuO-NPs and Ag-NPs as well as provided a sensitive and delicate system to precisely evaluate the toxicity and stability of nanoparticles.

A novel functional role of nickel in sperm motility and eukaryotic cell growth.

BACKGROUND: Metal ions are essential for numerous life processes. This study aims to investigate the relationship between seminal quality and ion levels in seminal plasma. BASIC PROCEDURES: A total of 205 semen samples were collected and seminal plasma ion levels were examined with inductively-coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. The nickel function was demonstrated by in vitro assay and cell growth. MAIN FINDINGS: The low sperm motility group showed distinctively reduced nickel concentration in seminal plasma compared with the normal sperm motility group. However, arsenic, sulfur, selenium, magnesium and zinc were negatively associated with sperm quality. No significant relationship between other examined cations and semen quality was observed. In vitro assay suggested low concentration of nickel significantly increased sperm total motility and progressive motility. Cell growth assay further confirmed nickel promoted eukaryotic yeast cell growth. Nickel level in seminal plasma may play important functions to determine sperm quality. PRINCIPAL CONCLUSIONS: Our study reveals a strong correlation between S, Mg, Se, Zn, As, Ni and seminal quality as well as discovers a novel functional role of nickel in sperm motility and eukaryotic cell growth. These findings may provide a potential avenue for assessment of sperm quality and treatment of reproduction disorders.

Craniomaxillofacial Bony Structures Segmentation from MRI with Deep-Supervision Adversarial Learning.

Automatic segmentation of medical images finds abundant applications in clinical studies. Computed Tomography (CT) imaging plays a critical role in diagnostic and surgical planning of craniomaxillofacial (CMF) surgeries as it shows clear bony structures. However, CT imaging poses radiation risks for the subjects being scanned. Alternatively, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is considered to be safe and provides good visualization of the soft tissues, but the bony structures appear invisible from MRI. Therefore, the segmentation of bony structures from MRI is quite challenging. In this paper, we propose a cascaded generative adversarial network with deep-supervision discriminator (Deep-supGAN) for automatic bony structures segmentation. The first block in this architecture is used to generate a high-quality CT image from an MRI, and the second block is used to segment bony structures from MRI and the generated CT image. Different from traditional discriminators, the deep-supervision discriminator distinguishes the generated CT from the ground-truth at different levels of feature maps. For segmentation, the loss is not only concentrated on the voxel level but also on the higher abstract perceptual levels. Experimental results show that the proposed method generates CT images with clearer structural details and also segments the bony structures more accurately compared with the state-of-the-art methods.

CREBH mediates metabolic inflammation to hepatic VLDL overproduction and hyperlipoproteinemia.

Metabolic inflammation is closely associated with hyperlipidemia and cardiovascular disease. However, the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. The current study established that cAMP-responsive-element-binding protein H (CREBH), an acute-phase transcription factor, enhances very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) assembly and secretion by upregulating apolipoprotein B (apoB) expression and contributes to metabolic inflammation-associated hyperlipoproteinemia induced by TNFα, lipopolysaccharides (LPS), and high-fat diet (HFD) in mice. Specifically, overexpression of CREBH significantly induced mRNA and protein expression of apoB in McA-7777 cells. Luciferase assay further revealed that the presence of CREBH could significantly increase the activity of the apoB gene promoter. In contrast, genetic depletion of CREBH in mice resulted in significant reduction in expression of hepatic apoB mRNA. Challenging mice with an acute fat load led to upregulation of triglyceride (TG)-rich lipoprotein secretion in wild type mice, but not in CREBH-null mice. TNFα treatment activated hepatic CREBH expression, which in turn enhanced hepatic apoB biosynthesis and VLDL secretion. Metabolic inflammation induced by LPS or HFD also resulted in overproduction of apoB and hyperlipoproteinemia in wild type mice, but not in CREBH-null mice. This study demonstrates that CREBH could be a mediator between metabolic inflammation and hepatic VLDL overproduction in chronic metabolic disorders. This novel finding establishes CREBH as the first transcription factor that regulates apoB expression on the transcriptional level and the subsequent VLDL biosynthesis in response to metabolic inflammation. The study also provides novel insight into the pathogenesis of hyperlipidemia in metabolic syndrome. KEY MESSAGES: CREBH mediates inflammatory signaling to VLDL overproduction in metabolic stress. Activation of CREBH in inflammation enhances mRNA and protein expression of apoB. CREBH presents a potential novel therapeutic target for hyperlipoproteinemia.

Glucagon regulates hepatic lipid metabolism via cAMP and Insig-2 signaling: implication for the pathogenesis of hypertriglyceridemia and hepatic steatosis.

Insulin induced gene-2 (Insig-2) is an ER-resident protein that inhibits the activation of sterol regulatory element-binding proteins (SREBPs). However, cellular factors that regulate Insig-2 expression have not yet been identified. Here we reported that cyclic AMP-responsive element-binding protein H (CREBH) positively regulates mRNA and protein expression of a liver specific isoform of Insig-2, Insig-2a, which in turn hinders SREBP-1c activation and inhibits hepatic de novo lipogenesis. CREBH binds to the evolutionally conserved CRE-BP binding elements located in the enhancer region of Insig-2a and upregulates its mRNA and protein expression. Metabolic hormone glucagon and nutritional fasting activated CREBH, which upregulated expression of Insig-2a in hepatocytes and inhibited SREBP-1c activation. In contrast, genetic depletion of CREBH decreased Insig-2a expression, leading to the activation of SREBP-1c and its downstream lipogenic target enzymes. Compromising CREBH-Insig-2 signaling by siRNA interference against Insig-2 also disrupted the inhibitory effect of this signaling pathway on hepatic de novo triglyceride synthesis. These actions resulted in the accumulation of lipid droplets in hepatocytes and systemic hyperlipidemia. Our study identified CREBH as the first cellular protein that regulates Insig-2a expression. Glucagon activated the CREBH-Insig-2a signaling pathway to inhibit hepatic de novo lipogenesis and prevent the onset of hepatic steatosis and hypertriglyceridemia.

Endoplasmic Reticulum-associated Degradation of Pca1p, a Polytopic Protein, via Interaction with the Proteasome at the Membrane.

Endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation (ERAD) plays a critical role in the destruction of terminally misfolded proteins at the secretory pathway. The system also regulates expression levels of several proteins such as Pca1p, a cadmium exporter in yeast. To gain better insight into the mechanisms underlying ERAD of Pca1p and other polytopic proteins by the proteasome in the cytosol, our study determined the roles for the molecular factors of ERAD in dislodging Pca1p from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Inactivation of the 20S proteasome leads to accumulation of ubiquitinated Pca1p in the ER membrane, suggesting a role for the proteasome in extraction of Pca1p from the ER. Pca1p formed a complex with the proteasome at the membrane in a Doa10p E3 ligase-dependent manner. Cdc48p is required for recruiting the proteasome to Pca1p. Although the Ufd2p E4 ubiquitin chain extension enzyme is involved in efficient degradation of Pca1p, Ufd2p-deficient cells did not affect the formation of a complex between Pca1p and the proteasome. Two other polytopic membrane proteins undergoing ERAD, Ste6*p and Hmg2p, also displayed the same outcomes observed for Pca1p. However, poly-ubiquitinated Cpy1*p, a luminal ERAD substrate, was detected in the cytosol independent of proteolytic activities of the proteasome. These results indicate that extraction and degradation of polytopic membrane proteins at the ER is a coupled event. This mechanism would relieve the cost of exposed hydrophobic domains in the cytosol during ERAD.

Cadmium and Secondary Structure-dependent Function of a Degron in the Pca1p Cadmium Exporter.

Protein turnover is a critical cellular process regulating biochemical pathways and destroying terminally misfolded or damaged proteins. Pca1p, a cadmium exporter in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is rapidly degraded by the endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation (ERAD) system via a cis-acting degron that exists at the 250-350 amino acid region of Pca1p and is transferable to other proteins to serve as a degradation signal. Cadmium stabilizes Pca1p in a manner dependent on the degron. This suggested that cadmium-mediated masking of the degron impedes its interaction with the molecular factors involved in the ERAD. The characteristics and mechanisms of action of the degron in Pca1p and most of those in other proteins however remain to be determined. The results presented here indicate that specific cysteine residues in a degron of Pca1p sense cadmium. An unbiased approach selecting non-functional degrons indicated a critical role of hydrophobic amino acids in the degron for its function. A secondary structure modeling predicted the formation of an amphipathic helix. Site-directed mutagenesis confirmed the functional significance of the hydrophobic patch. Last, hydrophobic amino acids in the degron- and cadmium-binding region affected the interaction of Pca1p with the Ssa1p molecular chaperone, which is involved in ERAD. These results reveal the mechanism of action of the degron, which might be useful for the identification and characterization of other degrons.

Activation of hepatic CREBH and Insig signaling in the anti-hypertriglyceridemic mechanism of R-α-lipoic acid.

The activation of sterol regulatory element binding proteins (SREBPs) is regulated by insulin-induced genes 1 and 2 (Insig-1 and Insig-2) and SCAP. We previously reported that feeding R-α-lipoic acid (LA) to Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF) rats improves severe hypertriglyceridemia. In this study, we investigated the role of cyclic AMP-responsive element binding protein H (CREBH) in the lipid-lowering mechanism of LA and its involvement in the SREBP-1c and Insig pathway. Incubation of McA cells with LA (0.2 mM) or glucose (6 mM) stimulated activation of CREBH. LA treatment further induced mRNA expression of Insig-1 and Insig-2a, but not Insig-2b, in glucose-treated cells. In vivo, feeding LA to obesity-induced hyperlipidemic ZDF rats activated hepatic CREBH and stimulated transcription and translation of Insig-1 and Insig-2a. Activation of CREBH and Insigs induced by LA suppressed processing of SREBP-1c precursor into nuclear SREBP-1c, which subsequently inhibited expression of genes involved in fatty acid synthesis, including FASN, ACC and SCD-1, and reduced triglyceride (TG) contents in both glucose-treated cells and ZDF rat livers. Additionally, LA treatment also decreased abundances of very low density lipoprotein (VLDL)-associated apolipoproteins, apoB100 and apoE, in glucose-treated cells and livers of ZDF rats, leading to decreased secretion of VLDL and improvement of hypertriglyceridemia. This study unveils a novel molecular mechanism whereby LA lowers TG via activation of hepatic CREBH and increased expression of Insig-1 and Insig-2a to inhibit de novo lipogenesis and VLDL secretion. These findings provide novel insight into the therapeutic potential of LA as an anti-hypertriglyceridemia dietary molecule.

Increased hepatic apoptosis in high-fat diet-induced NASH in rats may be associated with downregulation of hepatic stimulator substance.

The mechanisms of progression from fatty liver to steatohepatitis and cirrhosis are not well elucidated. Hepatocellular apoptosis could be one of the key factors in the pathogenesis of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Hepatic stimulator substance (HSS) protects liver cells from various toxins. We previously reported that HSS is critically important for the survival of hepatocytes due to its mitochondrial association. This study aims to investigate the relationship between HSS and hepatocellular apoptosis in vivo models of high-fat diet-induced NASH and in vitro models of palmitic acid-induced hepatocyte injury. Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a high-fat diet for 8, 12 and 16 weeks. Hepatic histological lesions, liver function and apoptosis were examined. HSS expression, in association with caspase-3 and cytochrome c leakage, which are both indicators of cell apoptosis, was measured. Results showed that a high-fat diet altered liver function and histology in a manner resembling NASH. Hepatic protein and mRNA HSS expression was decreased as NASH progressed. Meanwhile, cell apoptosis increased as result of caspase-3 activation and cytochrome c release, indicating that HSS might be involved in NASH pathogenesis. Furthermore, in palmitic acid-induced hepatic cell damage, over-expression of HSS decreased cells apoptosis. In contrast, repression of HSS expression by siRNA increased cell apoptosis. In conclusion, these data imply that cell apoptosis contributes to the pathogenesis of NASH, during which HSS expression is downregulated. Increasing HSS expression in hepatocytes may forestall cell apoptosis as result of fatty acid insult.

Pentoxifylline alleviates high-fat diet-induced non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and early atherosclerosis in rats by inhibiting AGE and RAGE expression.

AIM: To investigate the expression of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and their receptor RAGE in the livers and blood vessels of rats with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and the effect of pentoxifylline (PTX) on liver and artery function in rats with NASH. METHODS: Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a high-fat diet for 12 weeks and given PTX by gavage for 4 weeks. The effects of PTX on hepatic liver and vessel function as well as the expression of AGE and RAGE in rats with NASH were assessed. The intima-media thickness (IMT) of the aorta and carotid artery was evaluated using ultrasonography. RESULTS: Serum aspartic aminotransferase (AST) and blood levels of glucose (GLU) were reduced in the PTX group relative to the NASH group. The IMT of the aorta and carotid artery was increased in the NASH group compared with the control group. The IMT was reduced in NASH rats after treatment with PTX. Rats with NASH demonstrated higher AGE and RAGE protein levels in the liver and arteries compared with those of control rats. PTX treatment in NASH rats resulted in a decrease in AGE and RAGE protein levels in the liver and arteries compared with those in the NASH group. CONCLUSION: Early atherosclerosis was observed in rats with NASH induced by a 16-week high-fat diet. High expression of AGE and RAGE in the livers and arteries of rats with NASH may contribute to the pathogenesis of NASH and early atherosclerosis. PTX showed protective effects on hepatic and arterial function, partially through inhibition of AGE and RAGE expression.