Host Response Monitoring

Sempowski, Gregory D.

Abstract

The overall objective of the Host Response Monitoring Core is to provide centralized, comprehensive and consistent immune monitoring to enhance the activities of the Atlantic Coast Sexually Transmitted Infection Cooperative Research Center investigators. The shared scientific/resource core will provide expertise in systemic and mucosal immunity with an emphasis on humoral, cellular and biomarker analysis. To accomplish Core goals the efforts and expertise of Dr. Sempowski's cellular immunology lab and Dr. Staats'mucosal immunology lab have been united. Centralized immune monitoring assays have been divided into three specific aims. 1) Humoral Responses: Provide antibody quantity and isotype assessment by ELISA, and antibody quality (avidity) by surface plasmon resonance. 2) Cellular Responses: Provide mucosal tissue procurement, cellular subset isolation, polychromatic flow cytometry/cell sorting, and functional in vitro restimulation assays for comprehensive host response monitoring to both challenge pathogens and experimental vaccines/adjuvants. Supporting technologies include analysis of the frequency of cytokine producing cells by intracellular staining and flow cytometry, and ELISpot. 3) Multiplex Biomarker Analysis: Provide targeted multiplex protein array profiling of biological samples, such as culture supernatant, serum/plasma, urine or inflammatory exudate, using the luminex bead array platform (Mouse and Human). This technology has the capability of simultaneously quantifying up to 50 distinct analytes (e.g. cytokines, chemokines, hormones, signaling transduction proteins) in a single 50 uL sample. This core will be utilized by all AC-STI-CRC research projects and is critical to the success of the center.

Public Health Relevance

The overall objective of the Host Response Monitoring Core is to provide centralized, comprehensive and consistent immune monitoring to enhance the activities of the Atlantic Coast Sexually Transmitted Infection Cooperative Research Center investigators. The core will provide expertise in systemic and mucosal immunity with an emphasis on humoral, cellular and biomarker analysis. This core will be utilized by all research projects and is critical to the success of the center.

Funding Agency

• Agency: National Institute of Health (NIH)
• Institute: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
• Type: Research Program--Cooperative Agreements (U19)
• Project #: 1U19AI113170-01
• Application #: 8769566
• Study Section: Special Emphasis Panel (ZAI1)
• Budget Start: 2014-08-01
• Budget End: 2015-07-31
• Support Year: 1
• Fiscal Year: 2014

Institution

• Name: Henry M. Jackson Fdn for the Adv Mil/Med
• City: Bethesda
• State: MD
• Country: United States

Publications

Zheng, Xiaojing; O'Connell, Catherine M; Zhong, Wujuan et al. (2018) Gene Expression Signatures Can Aid Diagnosis of Sexually Transmitted Infection-Induced Endometritis in Women. Front Cell Infect Microbiol 8:307

Kahler, Charlene M; Nawrocki, K L; Anandan, A et al. (2018) Structure-Function Relationships of the Neisserial EptA Enzyme Responsible for Phosphoethanolamine Decoration of Lipid A: Rationale for Drug Targeting. Front Microbiol 9:1922

Zhu, Weiyan; Tomberg, Joshua; Knilans, Kayla J et al. (2018) Properly folded and functional PorB from Neisseria gonorrhoeae inhibits dendritic cell stimulation of CD4+ T cell proliferation. J Biol Chem 293:11218-11229

Zheng, Xiaojing; O'Connell, Catherine M; Zhong, Wujuan et al. (2018) Discovery of Blood Transcriptional Endotypes in Women with Pelvic Inflammatory Disease. J Immunol 200:2941-2956

Rouquette-Loughlin, Corinne E; Dhulipala, Vijaya; Reimche, Jennifer L et al. (2018) cis- and trans-Acting Factors Influence Expression of the norM-Encoded Efflux Pump of Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Levels of Gonococcal Susceptibility to Substrate Antimicrobials. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 62:

Vincent, Leah R; Kerr, Samuel R; Tan, Yang et al. (2018) In Vivo-Selected Compensatory Mutations Restore the Fitness Cost of Mosaic penA Alleles That Confer Ceftriaxone Resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. MBio 9:

Tomberg, Joshua; Fedarovich, Alena; Vincent, Leah R et al. (2017) Alanine 501 Mutations in Penicillin-Binding Protein 2 from Neisseria gonorrhoeae: Structure, Mechanism, and Effects on Cephalosporin Resistance and Biological Fitness. Biochemistry 56:1140-1150

Rouquette-Loughlin, Corinne E; Zalucki, Yaramah M; Dhulipala, Vijaya L et al. (2017) Control of gdhR Expression in Neisseria gonorrhoeae via Autoregulation and a Master Repressor (MtrR) of a Drug Efflux Pump Operon. MBio 8:

Rice, Peter A; Shafer, William M; Ram, Sanjay et al. (2017) Neisseria gonorrhoeae: Drug Resistance, Mouse Models, and Vaccine Development. Annu Rev Microbiol 71:665-686

Gangaiah, Dharanesh; Raterman, Erica L; Wu, Hong et al. (2017) Both MisR (CpxR) and MisS (CpxA) Are Required for Neisseria gonorrhoeae Infection in a Murine Model of Lower Genital Tract Infection. Infect Immun 85: