Search

Background: Ebola virus (EBOV) causes a serious hemorrhagic disease in humans, with a mortality rate of up to 80%. Despite significant achievements in the past decades elucidating the pathogenesis of EBOV, there is still much to be elucidated about the cell type-specific host response and their functional roles during infection. Objective: This study aimed to gain insight into cell type-specific host responses to EBOV infection. Methods: Real-time RT-qPCR analysis was used to identify host transcriptional changes in epithelial Caco-2 cells and endothelial HUVECs by EBOV infection. Results: EBOV efficiently infected to both Caco-2 cells and HUVECs, depending on the time of infection. However, changes in the transcriptional levels of several host cellular genes following viral infection showed significant differences between Caco-2 cells and HUVECs. EBOV infection increases the transcription of TGF-β1, a key factor in epithelium-to-mesenchyme transition (EMT), only in HUVECs, but not in Caco-2 cells. This upregulation in turn induces the transcription of other EMT signaling molecules such as snail, slug and MMP9, ultimately leading to endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EndMT). Furthermore, this EndMT process appears to be associated with increased transcription of stem-cell markers such as Klf4, Sox2 and Oct4. However, most of these transcriptional changes due to EBOV infection did not occur in Caco-2 cells, suggesting that EMT or EndMT by EBOV infection is cell type-specific. Conclusion: We propose that EBOV infection induces the expression of TGF-β1-mediated signals in endothelial HUVECs, resulting in EndMT. This could provide broader information to elucidate the pathogenesis of Ebola virus disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Alexandria University, El-Khartoum Square, Alexandria, 21521, Egypt. Correction to: I Scientific Reports i https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29135-w, published online 25 July 2018 This Article and the accompanying Supplementary Data file contain an error in the affiliations, where an affiliation was inadvertently omitted for author Yasmine Gomaa. [Extracted from the article]

The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) Filoviridae Study Group prepares proposals on the classification and nomenclature of filoviruses to reflect current knowledge or to correct disagreements with the International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature (ICVCN). In recent years, filovirus taxonomy has been corrected and updated, but parts of it remain controversial, and several topics remain to be debated. This article summarizes the decisions and discussion of the currently acting ICTV Filoviridae Study Group since its inauguration in January 2012. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we compare two North Carolina public schools that were simultaneously implementing reforms with seemingly different orientations, the A+ School Program and the ABCs of Public Education. We use the literature on caring and critiques of bureaucracy as a framework to look at the concurrent implementation of two educational reforms in North Carolina. We discuss data from a 5 year longitudinal study and critique our own assumptions as we develop portraits of schools that are both situated and complex. We do this to explore the question: In what ways does educational reform actually change educational practice? We develop a framework that articulates a critique of bureaucracy from the standpoint of caring, locate the culture of each school within the theoretical framework, and analyze how the culture of schools affects the implementation of educational reform. We conclude that reform is deeply cultural and that ethnographic methods are essential to understanding educational reform efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the legacy of segregation and desegregation in the town of Parsons, Kansas. We argue that school desegregation, the goal of which was to increase access and equalize educational opportunities for African Americans, did not have that desired affect. Fifty years after the closing of the all-Black Douglass School, Parsons’ citizens had not openly acknowledged the effects this event had on the African American community. Three generations later, African American student achievement still lags behind that of White students. These unresolved issues have contributed to a number of losses in the Black community, including loss of Black teachers and loss of talented Black young people. We use theories of social capital and cultural capital as a framework to illustrate how White, middle class students had greater access to school resources, and to identify the social and cultural resources within the Black community that the school district could build upon, such as strong leadership and a sense of resolve and resiliency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from a qualitative case study of a statewide early childhood initiative, this article critically examines the budding relationship between one state's early childhood initiative and the corporate community. The analysis is situated within assumptions about the benefits of public-private partnerships and early childhood and childcare as vital to the nation's current and future workforce. Early childhood stakeholders courted the business sector to gain support for the program, and their actions resulted in unintended consequences, including privileging the perspectives of businesspersons above those of parents, service providers, and other stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tripartite toxin produced by Bacillus anthracis is the key determinant in the etiology of anthrax. We have engineered a panel of toxin-neutralizing antibodies, including single-chain variable fragments (scFvs) and scFvs fused to a human constant κ domain (scAbs), that bind to the protective antigen subunit of the toxin with equilibrium dissociation constants (K[sub d]) between 63 nM and 0.25 nM. The entire antibody panel showed high serum, thermal, and denaturant stability. In vitro, post-challenge protection of macrophages from the action of the holotoxin correlated with the K[sub d] of the scFv variants. Strong correlations among antibody construct affinity, serum half-life, and protection were also observed in a rat model of toxin challenge. High-affinity toxinneutralizing antibodies may be of therapeutic value for alleviating the symptoms of anthrax toxin in infected individuals and for medium-term prophylaxis to infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A protein which produces a thermal hysteresis (a difference between the freezing and melting points) was purified from the hemolymph of the milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus. The amino acid composition of the Oncopeltus thermal hysteresis protein is somewhat different from that of the larvae of the beetle, Tenebrio molitor, which is the only other insect from which such a protein has as yet been purified. The major difference between the two is the large amount of serine (30.5% of the amino acid residues) and glycine (20.0%) present in the O. fasciatus protein. Both insect proteins have a composition which consists of approximately 60% polar amino acids and lacks large amounts of alanine. In these respects they are quite different from the fish protein antifreezes. The apparent differences in structure of the thermal hysteresis proteins and glycoproteins indicates that these proteins have evolved independently and therefore offer an interesting example of convergent evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of a safe and efficacious filovirus vaccine is of high importance to public health. In this study, we compared immune responses induced by Ebola virus (EBOV) glycoprotein (GP) subunit vaccines via intradermal immunization with microneedle (MN) patches and the conventional intramuscular (IM) injection in mice, which showed that MN delivery of GP induced higher levels and longer lasting antibody responses against GP than IM injection. Further, we found that EBOV GP in formulation with a saponin-based adjuvant, Matrix-M, can be efficiently loaded onto MN patches. Co-delivery of Matrix-M with GP significantly enhanced induction of antibody responses by MN delivery, as also observed for IM injection. Results from challenge studies showed that all mice that received the GP/adjuvant formulation by MN or IM immunizations were protected from lethal EBOV challenge. Further, 4 out of 5 mice vaccinated by MN delivery of unadjuvanted GP also survived the challenge, whereas only 1 out of 5 mice vaccinated by IM injection of unadjuvanted GP survived the challenge. These results demonstrate that MN patch delivery of EBOV GP subunit vaccines, which is expected to enable improved safety and thermal stability, can confer effective protection against EBOV infection that is superior to IM vaccination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]