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Biology subjects

Tarasova, I.

Publications and source records attributed to Tarasova, I..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Defining influenza-specific B cells in vaccine responders, non-responders and influenza breakthrough infections

Although seasonal influenza vaccination programs are effective at a population level, our data from inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) cohorts in years 2015-2022 reveal that 50-60% of individuals do not seroconvert following immunization. The underlying mechanisms of vaccine non-responsiveness are far from understood. In this study, we sought to define key determinants of optimal B cell immune responses elicited by seasonal influenza vaccination, and to explore why some individuals fail to elicit humoral immunity following immunization. Immune responses associated with seroconversion and vaccine failure from individuals immunized with IIVs were compared at cellular and molecular levels using single-cell transcriptomics. We analyzed HA-specific B cell immunity across vaccine-responders, breakthrough infections and patients hospitalized with acute influenza. Droplet-based single-cell RNA sequencing and VDJ-sequencing of influenza-specific B cells from stored PBMCs was performed using 10x Genomics. Our results show that atypical B cells are the major subset of B cell responses in vaccine non-responders on day 28 post-vaccination. Conversely, individuals who seroconvert had diverse B cell phenotypes. The use of recombinant influenza-specific HA probes allowed us to dissect expression patterns on influenza HA-specific B cells. We found that HA-specific B cells of vaccine non-responders for A/H1N1 and A/H3N2 components displayed elevated atypical-like markers (CD11c, FcRL-5) at baseline, compared to responders. Analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between responders and non-responders identified differential expression of HLA-DR, CD74, CD83, and CXCR3 genes. We subsequently demonstrated reduced frequencies of HLA-DR-, CD74- and CD83-expressing B cells in patients hospitalized with influenza, compared to healthy participants. Hospitalized influenza patients also had significantly higher proportions of atypical CD21-CD27- B cells. Overall, our data demonstrate an association between elevated frequencies of atypical-like B cells with both lack of seroconversion following immunization and severe influenza infection. These findings broaden our understanding of humoral immunity in influenza vaccination and infection, providing novel insights for vaccination strategies and design.

immunology↗

Study on the mechanism of action of the Pt(IV) complex with lonidamine ligands by ultrafast chemical proteomics

Platinum (II) complexes such as cisplatin among the few others are well-known and approved for clinical use as anticancer metal-based drugs. In spite of their successful and wide acceptance, the respective chemotherapy is associated with severe side effects and the ability of tumors to quickly develop resistance. To overcome these drawbacks the novel strategy is considered, which is based on the use of platinum complexes with bioactive ligands attached to act in synergy with platinum and further improve its pharmacological properties. Among the recently introduced such multi-action prodrugs is Pt(IV) complex with two lonidamine ligands, the latter selectively inhibiting hexokinase and, thus, the glycolysis in cancer cells. While platinum based multi-action prodrugs are exhibiting increased levels of activity towards cancer cells and, thus, considered as potent to overcome the resistance to cisplatin, there is a crucial need to uncover their mechanism of action by revealing all possibly affected processes and targets across the whole cellular proteomes. These are the challenging tasks in proteomics requiring high-throughput analysis of hundreds of samples for just a single drug-to-proteome system. In this work we performed these analyses for 8-azaguanine and experimental Pt(IV)-lonidamine complex applied to ovarian cancer cell line A2780, using both mechanism- and compound-centric chemical proteomics approaches based on ultrafast expression proteomics and thermal proteome profiling, respectively. Analysis of data obtained for Pt(IV)-lonidamine complex revealed regulation of proteins involved in glucose metabolic process associated with lonidamine further supporting the multi-action mechanism of this prodrug action.

pharmacology and toxicology↗

Myeloid-instructed CD14+CD4+ T cells within the tumor microenvironment are associated with TNFα signaling and prolonged survival in non-small cell lung cancer

The tumor microenvironment (TME) harbors a diverse array of innate and adaptive immune cells that can either support anti-tumor immunity or facilitate tumor progression. Among these, myeloid cells are key drivers of immunosuppression, yet therapeutic strategies targeting their function have achieved limited clinical success. A deeper understanding of the mechanisms by which immunosuppressive myeloid cells promote tumor progression is needed to guide the development of more effective treatments. Using spatial multi-omics analyses, we identified a population of myeloid-instructed CD14+ T cells present in both the tumor core and adjacent non-malignant lung tissue of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). CD4+ T cells acquired CD14 from myeloid cells by trogocytosis, resulting in an atypical T cell phenotype. High infiltration of CD14+CD4+ T cells in the tumor core was associated with poor patient survival. Spatial transcriptomics profiling revealed that tumors enriched in CD14+CD4+ T cells exhibited increased TNF signaling. Functional assays demonstrated that TNF enhanced trogocytosis, promoting the transfer of myeloid membrane components to CD4{square} T cells and driving the accumulation of CD14{square}CD4{square} T cells. These findings uncover a novel TNF-mediated mechanism of immunosuppression in the TME, whereby TNF promotes aberrant myeloid-T cell interactions that may contribute to tumor progression. This work highlights a previously unrecognized axis of innate-adaptive immune crosstalk in NSCLC and suggests that targeting TNF could disrupt this pathway, restore effective T cell function, and improve therapeutic outcomes.

cancer biology↗

The T2T-CHM13 reference genome has more accurate sequences for immunoglobulin genes than GRCh38

Antibody production by B-cells is essential for protective immunity. The clonal selection theory posits that each mature B cell has a unique immunoglobulin receptor generated through random gene recombination and, when stimulated to differentiate into an antibody-secreting cell, has the capacity to produce only a single antibody specificity. It follows from this "one-cell-one-antibody" dogma, that single-cell RNA-seq profiling of antibody-secreting cells should find that each cell expresses only a single form of each of the immunoglobulin heavy and light chains. However, when using GRCh38 as the genome reference, we found that many antibody-secreting cells appeared to express multiple immunoglobulin isotypes. When the newly published T2T-CHM13 genome was used instead as the genome reference, every antibody-secreting cell was found to express a unique isotype, and read mapping quality was also improved. We show that the superior performance of T2T-CHM13 was due to its European origin matching the genetic background of the query samples. On the other hand, T2T-CHM13 failed to appropriately fit the "one-cell-one-antibody" dogma when applied to data derived from East Asia. Our results show that read assignment to human immunoglobulin isotype genes is very sensitive to the ancestral origin of the genome reference.

genomics↗