LasR-deficient Pseudomonas aeruginosa variants increase airway epithelial mICAM-1 expression and enhance neutrophilic lung inflammation.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes chronic airway infections, a major determinant of lung inflammation and damage in cystic fibrosis (CF). Loss-of-function lasR mutants commonly arise during chronic CF infections, are associated with accelerated lung function decline in CF patients and induce exaggerated neutrophilic inflammation in model systems. In this study, we investigated how lasR mutants modulate airway epithelial membrane bound ICAM-1 (mICAM-1), a surface adhesion molecule, and determined its impact on neutrophilic inflammation in vitro and in vivo.

Quorum Sensing Down-Regulation Counteracts the Negative Impact of on CFTR Channel Expression, Function and Rescue in Human Airway Epithelial Cells.

The function of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) channels is crucial in human airways. However unfortunately, chronic infection has been shown to impair CFTR proteins in non-CF airway epithelial cells (AEC) and to alter the efficiency of new treatments with CFTR modulators designed to correct the basic CFTR default in AEC from cystic fibrosis (CF) patients carrying the F508del mutation. Our aim was first to compare the effect of laboratory strains, clinical isolates, engineered and natural mutants to determine the role of the LasR quorum sensing system in CFTR impairment, and second, to test the efficiency of a quorum sensing inhibitor to counteract the deleterious impact of both on wt-CFTR and on the rescue of F508del-CFTR by correctors.

Quorum-sensing inhibition abrogates the deleterious impact of Pseudomonas aeruginosa on airway epithelial repair.

Chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa lung infections are associated with progressive epithelial damage and lung function decline. In addition to its role in tissue injury, the persistent presence of P. aeruginosa-secreted products may also affect epithelial repair ability, raising the need for new antivirulence therapies.

Cystic fibrosis-adapted quorum sensing mutants cause hyperinflammatory responses.

Cystic fibrosis lung disease is characterized by chronic airway infections with the opportunistic pathogen and severe neutrophilic pulmonary inflammation. undergoes extensive genetic adaptation to the cystic fibrosis (CF) lung environment, and adaptive mutations in the quorum sensing regulator gene commonly arise. We sought to define how mutations in alter host-pathogen relationships.

Staphylococcus aureus Inhibits IL-8 Responses Induced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa in Airway Epithelial Cells.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) and Staphylococcus aureus (SA) are major respiratory pathogens and can concurrently colonize the airways of patients with chronic obstructive diseases, such as cystic fibrosis (CF). Airway epithelial cell signalling is critical to the activation of innate immune responses. In the setting of polymicrobial colonization or infection of the respiratory tract, how epithelial cells integrate different bacterial stimuli remains unknown.

PKC signaling regulates drug resistance of the fungal pathogen Candida albicans via circuitry comprised of Mkc1, calcineurin, and Hsp90.

Fungal pathogens exploit diverse mechanisms to survive exposure to antifungal drugs. This poses concern given the limited number of clinically useful antifungals and the growing population of immunocompromised individuals vulnerable to life-threatening fungal infection. To identify molecules that abrogate resistance to the most widely deployed class of antifungals, the azoles, we conducted a screen of 1,280 pharmacologically active compounds.