The clinical effectiveness of KRASG12C inhibitors (G12Ci) is limited both by intrinsic and acquired resistance, necessitating the development of combination approaches. Here, we identified targeting proximal receptor tyrosine kinase signaling using the SOS1 inhibitor (SOS1i) BI-3406 as a strategy to improve responses to G12Ci treatment. SOS1i enhanced the efficacy of G12Ci and limited rebound receptor tyrosine kinase/ERK signaling to overcome intrinsic/adaptive resistance, but this effect was modulated by SOS2 protein levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBoth abdominal radiotherapy and a nuclear event can result in gastrointestinal symptoms, including acute radiation syndrome (GI-ARS). GI-ARS is characterized by compromised intestinal barrier integrity increasing the risk for infectious complications. Physiologically relevant animal models are crucial for elucidating host responses and therapeutic targets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Treatments that currently exist in the strategic national stockpile for acute radiation syndrome (ARS) focus on the hematopoietic subsyndrome, with no treatments on gastrointestinal (GI)-ARS. While the gut microbiota helps maintain host homeostasis by mediating GI epithelial and mucosal integrity, radiation exposure can alter gut commensal microbiota which may leave the host susceptible to opportunistic pathogens and serious sequelae such as sepsis. To mitigate the effects of hematopoietic ARS irradiation, currently approved treatments exist in the form of colony stimulating factors and antibiotics: however, there are few studies examining how these therapeutics affect GI-ARS and the gut microbiota.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHematopoietic acute radiation syndrome (H-ARS) involves injury to multiple organ systems following total body irradiation (TBI). Our laboratory demonstrated that captopril, an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, mitigates H-ARS in Göttingen minipigs, with improved survival and hematopoietic recovery, as well as the suppression of acute inflammation. However, the effects of captopril on the gastrointestinal (GI) system after TBI are not well known.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFollowing burn injury, alterations in host commensal microbiota across body spaces may leave patients susceptible to opportunistic pathogens and serious sequelae such as sepsis. Generally, studies examining the microbiome postburn have had a limited sample size and lack of longitudinal data, which coupled with experimental and analytic variation, impacts overall interpretation. We performed a meta-analysis of publicly available sequencing data from preclinical and clinical burn studies to determine if there were consistent alterations in the microbiome across various anatomical sites and hosts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhole-genome sequencing (WGS) has shown immense value in enabling identification and characterization of bacterial taxa. This is particularly true for mycobacteria, where culture-based characterization becomes delayed by the inherently slow growth rate of these organisms. This chapter reviews the general techniques behind WGS and their optimization, existing techniques for species-level identification and the advantages of WGS for this purpose, and a variety of useful tools for the genomic characterization of mycobacterial strains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe function of the SARS-CoV-2 accessory protein p6, encoded by ORF6, is not fully known. Based upon its similarity to p6 from SARS-CoV, it may play a similar role, namely as an antagonist of type I interferon (IFN) signaling. Here we report the sequencing of a SARS-CoV-2 strain passaged six times after original isolation from a clinical patient in Hong Kong.
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