The Host Response to Viral Infections Reveals Common and Virus-Specific Signatures in the Peripheral Blood.
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2021-01
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Viruses cause a wide spectrum of clinical disease, the majority being acute respiratory infections (ARI). In most cases, ARI symptoms are similar for different viruses although severity can be variable. The objective of this study was to understand the shared and unique elements of the host transcriptional response to different viral pathogens. We identified 162 subjects in the US and Sri Lanka with infections due to influenza, enterovirus/rhinovirus, human metapneumovirus, dengue virus, cytomegalovirus, Epstein Barr Virus, or adenovirus. Our dataset allowed us to identify common pathways at the molecular level as well as virus-specific differences in the host immune response. Conserved elements of the host response to these viral infections highlighted the importance of interferon pathway activation. However, the magnitude of the responses varied between pathogens. We also identified virus-specific responses to influenza, enterovirus/rhinovirus, and dengue infections. Influenza-specific differentially expressed genes (DEG) revealed up-regulation of pathways related to viral defense and down-regulation of pathways related to T cell and neutrophil responses. Functional analysis of entero/rhinovirus-specific DEGs revealed up-regulation of pathways for neutrophil activation, negative regulation of immune response, and p38MAPK cascade and down-regulation of virus defenses and complement activation. Functional analysis of dengue-specific up-regulated DEGs showed enrichment of pathways for DNA replication and cell division whereas down-regulated DEGs were mainly associated with erythrocyte and myeloid cell homeostasis, reactive oxygen and peroxide metabolic processes. In conclusion, our study will contribute to a better understanding of molecular mechanisms to viral infections in humans and the identification of biomarkers to distinguish different types of viral infections.
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Tsalik, Ephraim L, Cassandra Fiorino, Ammara Aqeel, Yiling Liu, Ricardo Henao, Emily R Ko, Thomas W Burke, Megan E Reller, et al. (2021). The Host Response to Viral Infections Reveals Common and Virus-Specific Signatures in the Peripheral Blood. Frontiers in immunology, 12. p. 741837. 10.3389/fimmu.2021.741837 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/24293.
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Ephraim Tsalik
My research at Duke has focused on understanding the dynamic between host and pathogen so as to discover and develop host-response markers that can diagnose and predict health and disease. This new and evolving approach to diagnosing illness has the potential to significantly impact individual as well as public health considering the rise of antibiotic resistance.
With any potential infectious disease diagnosis, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine at the time of presentation what the underlying cause of illness is. For example, acute respiratory illness is among the most frequent reasons for patients to seek care. These symptoms, such as cough, sore throat, and fever may be due to a bacterial infection, viral infection, both, or a non-infectious condition such as asthma or allergies. Given the difficulties in making the diagnosis, most patients are inappropriately given antibacterials. However, each of these etiologies (bacteria, virus, or something else entirely) leaves a fingerprint embedded in the host’s response. We are very interested in finding those fingerprints and exploiting them to generate new approaches to understand, diagnose, and manage disease.
These principles also apply to sepsis, defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Just as with acute respiratory illness, it is often difficult to identify whether infection is responsible for a patient’s critical illness. We have embarked on a number of research programs that aim to better identify sepsis; define sepsis subtypes that can be used to guide future clinical research; and to better predict sepsis outcomes. These efforts have focused on many systems biology modalities including transcriptomics, miRNA, metabolomics, and proteomics. Consequently, our Data Science team has utilized these highly complex data to develop new statistical methods, furthering both the clinical and statistical research communities.
These examples are just a small sampling of the breadth of research Dr. Tsalik and his colleagues have conducted.
In April 2022, Dr. Tsalik has joined Danaher Diagnostics as the VP and Chief Scientific Officer for Infectious Disease, where he is applying this experience in biomarkers and diagnostics to shape the future of diagnostics in ID.
Emily Ray Ko
Clinical and translational research, COVID-19 therapeutics, clinical biomarkers for infectious disease.
Megan Elizabeth Reller
Micah Thomas McClain
Geoffrey Steven Ginsburg
Dr. Geoffrey S. Ginsburg's research interests are in the development of novel paradigms for developing and translating genomic information into medical practice and the integration of personalized medicine into health care.
Gayani Tillekeratne
Global health
Antimicrobial resistance/ stewardship
Acute respiratory tract infections
Emerging infections/ dengue
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