Kinetics of severe dengue virus infection and development of gut pathology in mice.

Dengue virus, an arbovirus, causes an estimated 100 million symptomatic infections annually and is an increasing threat as the mosquito range expands with climate change. Dengue epidemics are a substantial strain on local economies and health infrastructure, and an understanding of what drives severe disease may enable treatments to help reduce hospitalizations. Factors exacerbating dengue disease are debated, but gut-related symptoms are much more frequent in severe than mild cases.

SARS-CoV-2 drives NLRP3 inflammasome activation in human microglia through spike protein.

Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is primarily a respiratory disease, however, an increasing number of reports indicate that SARS-CoV-2 infection can also cause severe neurological manifestations, including precipitating cases of probable Parkinson's disease. As microglial NLRP3 inflammasome activation is a major driver of neurodegeneration, here we interrogated whether SARS-CoV-2 can promote microglial NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Using SARS-CoV-2 infection of transgenic mice expressing human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) as a COVID-19 pre-clinical model, we established the presence of virus in the brain together with microglial activation and NLRP3 inflammasome upregulation in comparison to uninfected mice.

Cell-Extrinsic Differentiation Block Mediated by EphA3 in Pre-Leukaemic Thymus Contributes to Disease Progression.

We recently characterised the () mouse as a model of T-cell pre-leukaemia, featuring thymocytes that can engraft in recipient animals and progress to T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL). However, loss of this engraftment ability by deletion of did not result in any loss of leukemogenesis activity. In the present study, we observe that thymocytes overexpress EPHA3, and we characterise thymocyte behaviour in mice with deletion of , which show a markedly reduced incidence of T-ALL.

Tea tree oil extract causes mitochondrial superoxide production and apoptosis as an anticancer agent, promoting tumor infiltrating neutrophils cytotoxic for breast cancer to induce tumor regression.

The antitumor activity of the tea tree oil (TTO) derived product, Melaleuca Alternifolia Concentrate (MAC) was characterized mechanistically at the molecular and cellular level. MAC was analyzed for its anticancer activity against human prostate (LNCaP) and breast (MCF-7) cancer cell lines growing in vitro. MAC (0.

Manipulation of epithelial cell death pathways by Shigella.

Shigella, a major cause of bacterial dysentery, knows when it is not wanted. To generate and maintain its niche within host cells, this unwelcome guest injects several dozen virulence factors via a type 3 secretion system (T3SS). In this issue, Ashida et al (2020) have elucidated the role of two such factors from Shigella flexneri-OspC1 and OspD3-that together counteract apoptotic and necroptotic death pathways in colonised epithelial cells.

The NUP98-HOXD13 fusion oncogene induces thymocyte self-renewal via Lmo2/Lyl1.

T cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) cases include subfamilies that overexpress the TAL1/LMO, TLX1/3 and HOXA transcription factor oncogenes. While it has been shown that TAL1/LMO transcription factors induce self-renewal of thymocytes, whether this is true for other transcription factor oncogenes is unknown. To address this, we have studied NUP98-HOXD13-transgenic (NHD13-Tg) mice, which overexpress HOXA transcription factors throughout haematopoiesis and develop both myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) progressing to acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) as well as T-ALL.

The in vitro and in vivo antiviral properties of combined monoterpene alcohols against West Nile virus infection.

West Nile Virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that can cause neuroinvasive disease in humans and animals for which no therapies are currently available. We studied an established combination of monoterpene alcohols (CMA) derived from Melaleuca alternifolia, against WNV infection. The in vitro results show that CMA exhibits virucidal activity, as well as reduces the viral titres and percentage of infected cells.