Patients with Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (SJIA) Show Differences in Autoantibody Signatures Based on Disease Activity.

Systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (SJIA) is a severe rheumatic disease in children. It is a subgroup of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA; MIM #604302), which is the most common rheumatic disease in children. The diagnosis of SJIA often comes with a significant delay, and the classification between autoinflammatory and autoimmune disease is still discussed. In this study, we analyzed the immunological responses of patients with SJIA, using human proteome arrays presenting immobilized recombinantly expressed human proteins, to analyze the involvement of autoantibodies in SJIA. Results from group comparisons show several differentially reactive antigens involved in inflammatory processes. Intriguingly, many of the identified antigens had a high reactivity against proteins involved in the NF-κB pathway, and it is also notable that many of the detected DIRAGs are described as dysregulated in rheumatoid arthritis. Our data highlight novel proteins and pathways potentially dysregulated in SJIA and offer a unique approach to unraveling the underlying disease pathogenesis in this chronic arthropathy.

Aberrant Naive CD4-Positive T Cell Differentiation in Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Committed to B Cell Help.

OBJECTIVE: Systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) features characteristics of autoinflammation and autoimmunity, culminating in chronic arthritis. In this study, we hypothesized that aberrant or incomplete polarization of T helper cells contributes to disease pathology. METHODS: Cells or serum samples were obtained from healthy controls (n = 72) and systemic JIA patients (n = 171). Isolated naive T helper cells were cultured under Th1, Th17, and T follicular helper (Tfh) or T peripheral helper (Tph)-polarizing conditions and were partly cocultured with allogenic memory B cells. Cell samples were then analyzed for surface marker, transcription factor, and cytokine expression, as well as plasmablast generation. Serum samples were subjected to multiplexed bead and self-antigen arrays and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and all data were compared to retrospective RNA profiling analyses. RESULTS: Differentiation of systemic JIA-naive T helper cells toward Th1 cells resulted in low expression levels of interferon-γ (IFNγ) and eomesodermin, which was associated in part with disease duration. In contrast, developing Th1 cells in patients with systemic JIA were found to produce elevated levels of interleukin-21 (IL-21), which negatively correlated with cellular expression of IFNγ and eomesodermin. In both in vitro and ex vivo analyses, IL-21 together with programmed cell death 1 (PD-1), inducible T cell costimulator (ICOS), and CXCR5 expression induced naive T helper cells from systemic JIA patients to polarize toward a Tfh/Tph cell phenotype. Retrospective analysis of whole-blood RNA-sequencing data demonstrated that Bcl-6, a master transcription factor in Tfh/Tph cell differentiation, was overexpressed specifically in patients with systemic JIA. Naive T helper cells from systemic JIA patients which were stimulated in vitro promoted B cellular plasmablast generation, and self-antigen array data indicated that IgG reactivity profiles of patients with systemic JIA differed from those of healthy controls. CONCLUSION: In the pathogenesis of systemic JIA, skewing of naive T helper cell differentiation toward a Tfh/Tph cell phenotype may represent an echo of autoimmunity, which may indicate the mechanisms driving progression toward chronic destructive arthritis.

Full pathogen characterisation: species identification including the detection of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance genes via multiplex DNA-assays.

Antibiotic resistances progressively cause treatment failures, and their spreading dynamics reached an alarming level. Some strains have already been classified as highly critical, e.g. the ones summarised by the acronym ESKAPE (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter spp.). To restrain this trend and enable effective medication, as much information as possible must be obtained in the least possible time. Here, we present a DNA microarray-based assay that screens for the most important sepsis-relevant 44 pathogenic species, 360 virulence factors (mediate pathogenicity in otherwise non-pathogenic strains), and 409 antibiotic resistance genes in parallel. The assay was evaluated with 14 multidrug resistant strains, including all ESKAPE pathogens, mainly obtained from clinical isolates. We used a cost-efficient ligation-based detection platform designed to emulate the highly specific multiplex detection of padlock probes. Results could be obtained within one day, requiring approximately 4 h for amplification, application to the microarray, and detection.

ResiDB: An automated database manager for sequence data.

The amount of publicly available DNA sequence data is drastically increasing, making it a tedious task to create sequence databases necessary for the design of diagnostic assays. The selection of appropriate sequences is especially challenging in genes affected by frequent point mutations such as antibiotic resistance genes. To overcome this issue, we have designed the webtool resiDB, a rapid and user-friendly sequence database manager for bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa, invertebrates, plants, archaea, environmental and whole genome shotgun sequence data. It automatically identifies and curates sequence clusters to create custom sequence databases based on user-defined input sequences. A collection of helpful visualization tools gives the user the opportunity to easily access, evaluate, edit, and download the newly created database. Consequently, researchers do no longer have to manually manage sequence data retrieval, deal with hardware limitations, and run multiple independent software tools, each having its own requirements, input and output formats. Our tool was developed within the H2020 project FAPIC aiming to develop a single diagnostic assay targeting all sepsis-relevant pathogens and antibiotic resistance mechanisms. ResiDB is freely accessible to all users through https://residb.ait.ac.at/.

Computational Design of Multiplex Oligonucleotide-Based Assays.

The success of any oligonucleotide-based experiment strongly depends on the accurate design of the components. Oli2go is a user-friendly web tool that provides efficient multiplex oligonucleotide design including specificity and primer dimer checks. Its fully automated workflow involves important design steps that use specific parameters to produce high-quality oligonucleotides. This chapter describes how these steps are computationally implemented by oli2go.

PRIMEval: Optimization and screening of multiplex oligonucleotide assays.

The development of multiplex polymerase chain reaction and microarray assays is challenging due to primer dimer formation, unspecific hybridization events, the generation of unspecific by-products, primer depletion, and thus lower amplification efficiencies. We have developed a software workflow with three underlying algorithms that differ in their use case and specificity, allowing the complete in silico evaluation of such assays on user-derived data sets. We experimentally evaluated the method for the prediction of oligonucleotide hybridization events including resulting products and probes, self-dimers, cross-dimers and hairpins at different experimental conditions. The developed method allows explaining the observed artefacts through in silico WGS data and thermodynamic predictions. PRIMEval is available publicly at https://primeval.ait.ac.at.

In-silico Design of DNA Oligonucleotides: Challenges and Approaches.

DNA oligonucleotides are essential components of a high number of technologies in molecular biology. The key event of each oligonucleotide-based assay is the specific binding between oligonucleotides and their target DNA. However, single-stranded DNA molecules also tend to bind to unintended targets or themselves. The probability of such unspecific binding increases with the complexity of an assay. Therefore, accurate data management and design workflows are necessary to optimize the in-silico design of primers and probes. Important considerations concerning computational infrastructure and run time need to be made for both data management and the design process. Data retrieval, data updates, storage, filtering and analysis are the main parts of a sequence data management system. Each part needs to be well-implemented as the resulting sequences form the basis for the oligonucleotide design. Important key features, such as the oligonucleotide length, melting temperature, secondary structures and primer dimer formation, as well as the specificity, should be considered for the in-silico selection of oligonucleotides. The development of an efficient oligonucleotide design workflow demands the right balance between the precision of the applied computer models, the general expenditure of time, and computational workload. This paper gives an overview of important parameters during the design process, starting from the data retrieval, up to the design parameters for optimized oligonucleotide design.

Oli2go: an automated multiplex oligonucleotide design tool.

The success of widely used oligonucleotide-based experiments, ranging from PCR to microarray, strongly depends on an accurate design. The design process involves a number of steps, which use specific parameters to produce high quality oligonucleotides. Oli2go is an efficient, user friendly, fully automated multiplex oligonucleotide design tool, which performs primer and different hybridization probe designs as well as specificity and cross dimer checks in a single run. The main improvement to existing oligonucleotide design web-tools is that oli2go combines multiple steps in an all-in-one solution, where other web applications only accomplish parts of the whole design workflow. Especially, the oli2go specificity check is not only performed against a single species (e.g. mouse), but against bacteria, viruses, fungi, invertebrates, plants, protozoa, archaea and sequences from whole genome shotgun sequence projects and environmental samples, at once. This allows the design of highly specific oligonucleotides in multiplex applications, which is further assured by performing dimer checks not only on the primers themselves, but in an all-against-all fashion. The software is freely accessible to all users at http://oli2go.ait.ac.at/.