Biology subjects

Horiguchi, Y.

Publications and source records attributed to Horiguchi, Y..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Hydrogel Microdroplet-Based Digital Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction

Droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) is accurate in nucleic acid quantification owing to its linearity and high sensitivity. Amplification of nucleic acid in droplets, however, is limited by the stability of droplets against thermal cycling. While the use of fluorinated oil or supplementation of surfactant could improve the stability of droplets, this process has also greatly increased the cost of ddPCR and limited post-PCR analysis. Here, we report a novel method known as gel capsule-based digital PCR (gc-dPCR) which includes method to prepare hydrogel capsules encapsulating PCR reaction mix, conducting PCR reaction, and readout by either qPCR system or fluorescence microplate reader. We have compared our method to existing methods, i.e., quantitative PCR or vortex ddPCR. Our approach results in higher fluorescence intensity compared to ddPCR suggesting higher sensitivity of the system. As hydrogel capsules are more stable than droplets in fluorinated oil throughout thermal cycling, all partitions can be quantified, thus preventing loss of information from low-concentration samples. Our approach should extend to all droplet-based PCR methods. Generally, our approach has greatly improved ddPCR by increasing droplets stability and sensitivity, and reducing the cost of ddPCR, which help to remove the barrier of ddPCR in settings with limited resources. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=62 SRC="FIGDIR/small/534823v2_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (13K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@15a291eorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@4189e2org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@c35fd8org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@c972d0_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Landscape of infection enhancing antibodies in COVID-19 and healthy donors

To assess the frequency of SARS-CoV-2 infection enhancing antibodies in the general population, we searched over 64 million heavy chain antibody sequences from healthy and COVID-19 patient repertoires for sequences similar to 11 previously reported enhancing antibodies. Although the distribution of sequence identities was similar in COVID-19 and healthy repertoires, the COVID-19 hits were significantly more clonally expanded than healthy hits. Furthermore, among the tested hits, 17 out of 94 from COVID-19, compared with 2 out of 96 from healthy, bound to the enhancing epitope. A total of 6 of the 19 epitope-binding antibodies enhanced ACE2 receptor binding to the spike protein. Together, this study revealed that enhancing antibodies are far more frequent in COVID-19 patients than in healthy donors, but a reservoir of potential enhancing antibodies exists in healthy donors that could potentially mature to actual enhancing antibodies upon infection.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2020

Lipooligosaccharide, Vag8, and pertussis toxin of Bordetella pertussis cooperatively cause coughing in mice

Whooping cough, a contagious respiratory disease caused by Bordetella pertussis, is characterized by paroxysmal coughing; however, the mechanism has not been studied because of the lack of versatile animal models that reproduce the cough. Here, we present a mouse model that reproduces coughing after intranasal inoculation with the bacteria or its components and demonstrate that lipooligosaccharide (LOS), pertussis toxin (PTx), and Vag8 of the bacteria cooperatively function to cause coughing. LOS-induced bradykinin sensitized a transient receptor potential ion channel, TRPV1, which acts as a sensor to evoke the cough reflex. Vag8 further increased bradykinin levels by inhibiting the C1 esterase inhibitor, the major downregulator of the contact system, which generates bradykinin. PTx inhibits intrinsic negative regulation systems for TRPV1 through inactivation of Gi GTPases. Our findings provide a basis for answering long-standing questions on the pathophysiology of the pertussis cough.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2020

Localization of regions of a Bordetella pertussis autotransporter, Vag8, interacting with C1 inhibitor

Bordetella pertussis is the causative agent of pertussis (whooping cough), a contagious respiratory disease that has recently seen a resurgence despite high vaccination coverage, necessitating improvement of current pertussis vaccines. An autotransporter of B. pertussis, virulence-associated gene 8 (Vag8), has been proposed as an additional component to improve pertussis vaccines. Vag8 is known to play a role in evasion of the complement system and activation of the contact system by inactivating the complement regulating factor, C1 inhibitor (C1 Inh), which inhibits serine proteases, such as plasma kallikrein (PK). However, the nature of the molecular interaction between Vag8 and C1 Inh remains to be determined. In the present study, we attempted to determine the minimum region of Vag8 that interacts with C1 Inh by examining the differently-truncated Vag8 derivatives for the ability to bind and inactivate C1 Inh. The region of Vag8 from amino-acid residues 102 to 548 was found to bind C1 Inh and cancel its inhibitory action on the protease activity of PK at the same level as a Vag8 fragment from amino-acid residues 52 to 648 covering the passenger domain, which carries its extracellular function. In contrast, the truncated Vag8 containing amino-acid residues 102 - 479 or 202 - 648 barely interacted with C1 Inh. These results indicated that the two separate regions of amino-acid residues 102 - 202 and 479 - 548 are likely required for the interaction with C1 Inh. ImportancePertussis is currently reemerging worldwide, and is still one of the greatest disease burdens in infants. B. pertussis produces a number of virulence factors, including toxins, adhesins, and autotransporters. One of the autotransporters, Vag8, which binds and inactivates the complement regulator C1 Inh, is considered to contribute to the establishment of B. pertussis infection. However, the nature of the interaction between Vag8 and C1 Inh remains to be explored. In this study, we narrowed down the region of Vag8 that interacts with C1 Inh and demonstrated that at least two separate regions of Vag8 are necessary for the interaction with C1 Inh. Our results provide insight into the structure-function relationship of the Vag8 molecule and information to determine its potential role in the pathogenesis of B. pertussis.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2019

Nuclear GAPDH signaling mediates pathological cardiac hypertrophy

Here we report that stress-induced nuclear translocation of GAPDH mediates heart hypertrophy via Brahma-Related-Gene-1 (BRG1)-associated chromatin remodelling. In response to pressure overload elicited by transverse aortic constriction, we observed nuclear translocation of GAPDH in the mouse heart. We also demonstrated a robust nuclear localization of GAPDH in cardiomyocytes from patients with dilated hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, whereas negligible GAPDH in the nucleus in control subjects. This is the first demonstration of disease-associated nuclear GAPDH directly in living patients. Using immunohistochemical methods and a pharmacological way that selectively blocks GAPDH nuclear translocation (RR compound), we proved the causal involvement of GAPDH cysteine-150 modification in this translocation in Gq-induced cell model for heart hypertrophy. Accordingly, both pharmacological and genetic interventions proved that the same mechanism played a causal role for heart hypertrophy and dysfunction in vivo. We discovered that, upon nuclear translocation, GAPDH augmented the protein interaction of BRG1 and histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2), which further facilitated the Myh7/Myh6 isoform ratio from the mature to immature status, an essential mechanism for heart hypertrophy. Beyond medical implications, we provide a novel mechanism of stress-induced reversion of a cellular phenotype from adult to fetal state, which is mediated by a "moonlighting" function of GAPDH.

molecular biology↗