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Network Analysis: Ten Years Shining Light on Host–Parasite Interactions
2020
Biological interactions are key drivers of ecological and evolutionary processes. The complexity of such interactions hinders our understanding of ecological systems and our ability to make effective predictions in changing environments. However, network analysis allows us to better tackle the complexity of ecosystems because it extracts the properties of an ecological system according to the number and distribution of links among interacting entities. The number of studies using network analysis to solve ecological and evolutionary questions in parasitology has increased over the past decade. Here, we synthesise the contribution of network analysis toward disentangling host-parasite proces…
Cancer combination therapies with artemisinin-type drugs
2017
Artemisia annua L. is a Chinese medicinal plant, which is used throughout Asia and Africa as tea or press juice to treat malaria. The bioactivity of its chemical constituent, artemisinin is, however, much broader. We and others found that artemisinin and its derivatives also exert profound activity against tumor cells in vitro and in vivo. Should artemisinin-type drugs be applied routinely in clinical oncology in the future, then it should probably be as part of combination therapy regimens rather than as monotherapy. In the present review, I give a comprehensive overview on synergistic and additive effects of artemisinin-type drugs in combination with different types of cytotoxic agents an…
Advantageous use of HepaRG cells for the screening and mechanistic study of drug-induced steatosis
2016
Only a few in vitro assays have been proposed to evaluate the steatotic potential of new drugs. The present study examines the utility of HepaRG cells as a cell-based assay system for screening drug-induced liver steatosis. A high-content screening assay was run to evaluate multiple toxicity-related cell parameters in HepaRG cells exposed to 28 compounds, including drugs reported to cause steatosis through different mechanisms and non-steatotic compounds. Lipid content was the most sensitive parameter for all the steatotic drugs, whereas no effects on lipid levels were produced by non-steatotic compounds. Apart from fat accumulation, increased ROS production and altered mitochondrial membra…
Need for Deprescribing in Hospital Elderly Patients Discharged with a Limited Life Expectancy: The REPOSI Study
2019
<b><i>Objective:</i></b> Older people approaching the end of life are at a high risk for adverse drug reactions. Approaching the end of life should change the therapeutic aims, triggering a reduction in the number of drugs.<b><i></i></b>The main aim of this study is to describe the preventive and symptomatic drug treatments prescribed to patients discharged with a limited life expectancy from internal medicine and geriatric wards. The secondary aim was to describe the potentially severe drug-drug interactions (DDI). <b><i>Materials and Methods:</i></b> We analyzed Registry of Polytherapies Societa Italiana di Medicina I…
A Novel Open and Infectious Form of Echovirus 1.
2016
ABSTRACT One of the hallmarks of enterovirus genome delivery is the formation of an uncoating intermediate particle. Based on previous studies of mostly heated picornavirus particles, intermediate particles were shown to have externalized the innermost capsid protein (VP4) and exposed the N terminus of VP1 and to have reduced infectivity. Here, in addition to the native and intact particle type, we have identified another type of infectious echovirus 1 (E1) particle population during infection. Our results show that E1 is slightly altered during entry, which leads to the broadening of the major virion peak in the sucrose gradient. In contrast, CsCl gradient separation revealed that in addit…
SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: A genetic, epidemiological, and evolutionary perspective
2020
In less than five months, COVID-19 has spread from a small focus in Wuhan, China, to more than 5 million people in almost every country in the world, dominating the concern of most governments and public health systems. The social and political distresses caused by this epidemic will certainly impact our world for a long time to come. Here, we synthesize lessons from a range of scientific perspectives rooted in epidemiology, virology, genetics, ecology and evolutionary biology so as to provide perspective on how this pandemic started, how it is developing, and how best we can stop it.
Virus-host interactome: Putting the accent on how it changes
2017
[EN] Viral infections are extremely complex processes that could only be well understood by precisely characterizing the interaction networks between the virus and the host components. In recent years, much effort has gone in this directionwith the aimof unveiling themolecular basis of viral pathology. These networks are mostly formed by viral and host proteins, and are expected to be dynamic bothwith time and space (i.e., with the progression of infection, as well as with the virus and host genotypes; what we call plastodynamic). This largely overlooked spatio-temporal evolution urgently calls for a change both in the conceptual paradigms and experimental techniques used so far to characte…
Intensive aquaculture selects for increased virulence and interference competition in bacteria
2016
Although increased disease severity driven by intensive farming practices is problematic in food production, the role of evolutionary change in disease is not well understood in these environments. Experiments on parasite evolution are traditionally conducted using laboratory models, often unrelated to economically important systems. We compared how the virulence, growth and competitive ability of a globally important fish pathogen, Flavobacterium columnare , change under intensive aquaculture. We characterized bacterial isolates from disease outbreaks at fish farms during 2003–2010, and compared F. columnare populations in inlet water and outlet water of a fish farm during the 2010 outbre…
Direct observation of alpha-lactalbumin, adsorption and incorporation into lipid membrane and formation of lipid/protein hybrid structures
2019
The interaction between proteins and membranes is of great interest in biomedical and biotechnological research for its implication in many functional and dysfunctional processes. We present an experimental study on the interaction between model membranes and alpha-lactalbumin (alpha-La). alpha-La is widely studied for both its biological function and its anti-tumoral properties. We use advanced fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy techniques to characterize alpha-La-membrane mechanisms of interaction and alpha-La-induced modifications of membranes when insertion of partially disordered regions of protein chains in the lipid bilayer is favored. Moreover, using fluorescence lifetime imag…
Microevolutionary response of a gut nematode to intestinal inflammation.
2017
7 pages; International audience; Parasitic helminths interfere with the immune response of their hosts to establish long-lasting, chronic infections. While favorable to the parasite, the capacity to dampen the immune response can also provide a benefit to the host in terms of reduced risk of immune disorders and immunopathology. The immunomodulatory role of nematodes has been exploited in clinical trials to treat a number of inflammatory and immune diseases. However, how parasites adapt to an inflammatory environment remains a poorly explored question. Here, we conducted a serial passage experiment where the gut nematode Heligmosomoides polygyrus was maintained for nine generations in mice …