Faculty Bibliography

Background/UNASSIGNED:(VRE) is associated with poor outcomes. This study evaluated the impact of VRE colonization on subsequent acquisition of enteric pathogens. Methods/UNASSIGNED:. Our primary outcome was the presence of any enteric pathogen. Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to adjust for factors associated with enteric infection. Results/UNASSIGNED:with VRE (57% vs 28%, p < 0.01). Conclusions/UNASSIGNED:enteric infection. VRE domination of the gut microbiome may protect against acquisition of common enteric pathogens.

A variant of the autophagy gene ATG16L1 is associated with Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and poor survival in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients. We demonstrate that ATG16L1 in the intestinal epithelium is essential for preventing loss of Paneth cells and exaggerated cell death in animal models of virally triggered IBD and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Intestinal organoids lacking ATG16L1 reproduced this loss in Paneth cells and displayed TNFalpha-mediated necroptosis, a form of programmed necrosis. This cytoprotective function of ATG16L1 was associated with the role of autophagy in promoting mitochondrial homeostasis. Finally, therapeutic blockade of necroptosis through TNFalpha or RIPK1 inhibition ameliorated disease in the virally triggered IBD model. These findings indicate that, in contrast to tumor cells in which autophagy promotes caspase-independent cell death, ATG16L1 maintains the intestinal barrier by inhibiting necroptosis in the epithelium.

Broad-spectrum antibiotics are frequently prescribed to children. Early childhood represents a dynamic period for the intestinal microbial ecosystem, which is readily shaped by environmental cues; antibiotic-induced disruption of this sensitive community may have long-lasting host consequences. Here we demonstrate that a single pulsed macrolide antibiotic treatment (PAT) course early in life is sufficient to lead to durable alterations to the murine intestinal microbiota, ileal gene expression, specific intestinal T-cell populations, and secretory IgA expression. A PAT-perturbed microbial community is necessary for host effects and sufficient to transfer delayed secretory IgA expression. Additionally, early-life antibiotic exposure has lasting and transferable effects on microbial community network topology. Our results indicate that a single early-life macrolide course can alter the microbiota and modulate host immune phenotypes that persist long after exposure has ceased.High or multiple doses of macrolide antibiotics, when given early in life, can perturb the metabolic and immunological development of lab mice. Here, Ruiz et al. show that even a single macrolide course, given early in life, leads to long-lasting changes in the gut microbiota and immune system of mice.

Early life short-course antibiotic use may affect the progression of subsequent disease conditions by changing both host microbiota and immunologic development. Epidemiologic studies provide evidence that early life antibiotic exposures predispose to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). By using a murine model of Dextran Sodium Sulfate (DSS)-induced colitis, we evaluated the effect on disease outcomes of early-life pulsed antibiotic treatment (PAT) using tylosin, a macrolide. PAT (tylosin) or not (Control) was added to drinking water starting at day 5 of life for 5 days. Fifteen days later, mice were given 2% DSS (or H20) for 7 days to induce colitis. Groups included Control/H2O (n=15), PAT/H2O (n=16), Control/DSS (n=16), and PAT/DSS (n=16) mice, which were sacrificed day 10 days post-DSS treatment and tissue samples harvested. Pre-challenge, Ileal Th17 and Treg cells were significantly lower in the PAT-treated mice, confirming prior work, and indicating a persistent immunological effect. For DSS-treated mice, colitis severity was significantly worse in those exposed to PAT compared to control. PAT mice showed significantly decreased microbial richness and evenness compared to the controls at weaning (day 21, 11 days after PAT), with distinct microbial community structure from day 21-32. With DSS challenge 30 days after PAT, differential effects remained, but were reduced. Comparing PAT-perturbed and control microbiota to conventionalize germ-free mice, we found that the altered microbiota conveyed the heightened inflammatory effects. These experiments showed that early-life antibiotic treatment worsened DSS colitis severity, with both altered immunological development and microbiota, as possibly causal pathways

Design of efficacious Treg-based therapies and establishment of clinical tolerance in autoimmune diseases have proven to be challenging. The clinical implementation of Treg immunotherapy has been hampered by various impediments related to the stability and isolation procedures of Tregs as well as the specific in vivo targets of Treg modalities. Herein, we have demonstrated that Foxp3+ Tregs potently suppress autoimmune responses in vivo through inhibition of the autophagic machinery in DCs in a cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4-dependent (CTLA4-dependent) manner. Autophagy-deficient DCs exhibited reduced immunogenic potential and failed to prime autoantigen-specific CD4+ T cells to mediate autoimmunity. Mechanistically, CTLA4 binding promoted activation of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR axis and FoxO1 nuclear exclusion in DCs, leading to decreased transcription of the autophagy component microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3beta (Lc3b). Human DCs treated with CTLA4-Ig, a fusion protein composed of the Fc region of IgG1 and the extracellular domain of CTLA4 (also known as abatacept, marketed as Orencia), demonstrated reduced levels of autophagosome formation, while DCs from CTLA4-Ig-treated rheumatoid arthritis patients displayed diminished LC3B transcripts. Collectively, our data identify the canonical autophagy pathway in DCs as a molecular target of Foxp3+ Treg-mediated suppression that leads to amelioration of autoimmune responses. These findings may pave the way for the development of therapeutic protocols that exploit Tregs for the treatment of autoimmunity as well as diseases in which disturbed tolerance is a common denominator.

Autophagy has broad functions in immunity, ranging from cell-autonomous defence to coordination of complex multicellular immune responses. The successful resolution of infection and avoidance of autoimmunity necessitates efficient and timely communication between autophagy and pathways that sense the immune environment. The recent literature indicates that a variety of immune mediators induce or repress autophagy. It is also becoming increasingly clear that immune signalling cascades are subject to regulation by autophagy, and that a return to homeostasis following a robust immune response is critically dependent on this pathway. Importantly, examples of non-canonical forms of autophagy in mediating immunity are pervasive. In this article, the progress in elucidating mechanisms of crosstalk between autophagy and inflammatory signalling cascades is reviewed. Improved mechanistic understanding of the autophagy machinery offers hope for treating infectious and inflammatory diseases.

The early life microbiome plays important roles in host immunological and metabolic development. Because the incidence of type 1 diabetes (T1D) has been increasing substantially in recent decades, we hypothesized that early-life antibiotic use alters gut microbiota, which predisposes to disease. Using non-obese diabetic mice that are genetically susceptible to T1D, we examined the effects of exposure to either continuous low-dose antibiotics or pulsed therapeutic antibiotics (PAT) early in life, mimicking childhood exposures. We found that in mice receiving PAT, T1D incidence was significantly higher, and microbial community composition and structure differed compared with controls. In pre-diabetic male PAT mice, the intestinal lamina propria had lower Th17 and Treg proportions and intestinal SAA expression than in controls, suggesting key roles in transducing the altered microbiota signals. PAT affected microbial lipid metabolism and host cholesterol biosynthetic gene expression. These findings show that early-life antibiotic treatments alter the gut microbiota and its metabolic capacities, intestinal gene expression and T-cell populations, accelerating T1D onset in non-obese diabetic mice.

Increasing incidence of inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease (CD) in developed nations is associated with changes to the environment, such as decreased prevalence of helminth colonization and alterations to the gut microbiota. We find that helminth infection protects mice deficient in the CD susceptibility geneNod2from intestinal abnormalities by inhibiting colonization with an inflammatoryBacteroidesspecies. Colonization resistance toBacteroideswas dependent on type-2 immunity, which promoted the establishment of a protective microbiota enriched in Clostridiales. Additionally, we show that individuals from helminth-endemic regions harbor a similar protective microbiota, and that deworming treatment reduced Clostridiales and increased Bacteroidales. These results support a model of the hygiene hypothesis whereby certain individuals are genetically susceptible to the consequences of a changing microbial environment.

The intestinal epithelium is a single cell layer that facilitates the absorption of nutrients but also provides a tight barrier to prevent pathogen invasion and dissemination of commensal microbes. Specialized epithelial cells of the gastrointestinal tract achieve this frontline defense by working in concert with lymphoid, myeloid, and stromal cells to secrete an array of factors that limit direct contact between the epithelium and infectious agents. The importance of these mechanisms is underscored by the ability of enteric pathogens to target these mechanisms to achieve invasion and dissemination. This review highlights recent advances in our understanding of these intricate molecular and cellular mechanisms adopted by these cells to promote spatial segregation and barrier maintenance.