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Browsing by Author "Cornetta, Kenneth G."
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Item Electroceutical fabric lowers zeta potential and eradicates coronavirus infectivity upon contact(Nature, 2021-12) Ghatak, Subhadip; Khona, Dolly K.; Sen, Abhishek; Huang, Kaixiang; Jagdale, Gargi; Singh, Kanhaiya; Gopalakrishnan, Vinoj; Cornetta, Kenneth G.; Roy, Sashwati; Khanna, Savita; Baker, Lane A.; Sen, Chandan K.; Medical and Molecular Genetics, School of MedicineCoronavirus with intact infectivity attached to PPE surfaces pose significant threat to the spread of COVID-19. We tested the hypothesis that an electroceutical fabric, generating weak potential difference of 0.5 V, disrupts the infectivity of coronavirus upon contact by destabilizing the electrokinetic properties of the virion. Porcine respiratory coronavirus AR310 particles (105) were placed in direct contact with the fabric for 1 or 5 min. Following one minute of contact, zeta potential of the porcine coronavirus was significantly lowered indicating destabilization of its electrokinetic properties. Size-distribution plot showed appearance of aggregation of the virus. Testing of the cytopathic effects of the virus showed eradication of infectivity as quantitatively assessed by PI-calcein and MTT cell viability tests. This work provides the rationale to consider the studied electroceutical fabric, or other materials with comparable property, as material of choice for the development of PPE in the fight against COVID-19.Item Molecular Mechanisms of FLT3-ITD-Induced Leukemogenesis(2012-08-07) Nabinger, Sarah Cassidy; Chan, Rebecca, J.; Cornetta, Kenneth G.; Morral, Nuria; Kapur, ReubenInternal tandem duplications in FMS-like receptor tyrosine kinase (FLT3-ITDs) are seen in approximately 25% of all acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. FLT3-ITDs induce FLT3 ligand (FL)-independent cellular hyperproliferation, promiscuous and aberrant activation of STAT5, and confer a poor prognosis in patients; however, the molecular mechanisms contributing to FLT3-ITD-induced malignancy remain largely unknown. The protein tyrosine phosphatase, Shp2, is important for normal hematopoiesis as well as hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) differentiation, engraftment, and self-renewal. Furthermore, FLT3-ITD- or constitutive active STAT5-expressing CD34+ cells demonstrate enhanced hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal. Together with the previous findings that Shp2 is critical for normal hematopoiesis, that dysregulated Shp2 function contributes to myeloid malignancies, and that Shp2 has been shown to interact with WT-FLT3 tyrosine 599, which is commonly duplicated in FLT3-ITDs, a positive role for Shp2 in FLT3-ITD-induced signaling and leukemogenesis is implied. I demonstrated that Shp2 is constitutively associated with the reported FLT3-ITDs, N51-FLT3 and N73-FLT3, compared to WT-FLT3; therefore, I hypothesized that increased Shp2 recruitment to N51-FLT3 or N73-FLT3 contributes to hyperproliferation and hyperactivation of STAT5. I also hypothesized that Shp2 cooperates with STAT5 to activate STAT5 transcriptional targets contributing to the up-regulation of pro-leukemic proteins. Finally, I hypothesized that reduction of Shp2 would result in diminished N51-FLT3-induced hyperproliferation and activation of STAT5 in vitro, and prevent FLT3-ITD-induced malignancy in vivo. I found that genetic disruption of Ptpn11, the gene encoding Shp2, or pharmacologic inhibition of Shp2 with the novel Shp2 inhibitor, II-B08, resulted in significantly reduced FLT3-ITD-induced hematopoietic cell hyperproliferation and STAT5 hyperphosphorylation. I also demonstrated a novel role of Shp2 in the nucleus of FLT3-ITD-expressing hematopoietic cells where Shp2 and STAT5 co-localized at the promoter region of STAT5-transcriptional target and pro-survival protein, Bcl-XL. Furthermore, using a Shp2flox/flox;Mx1Cre+ mouse model, I demonstrated that reduced Shp2 expression in hematopoietic cells resulted in an increased latency to and reduced severity of FLT3-ITD-induced malignancy. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that Shp2 plays an integral role in FLT3-ITD-induced malignancy and suggest that targeting Shp2 may be a future therapeutic option for treating FLT3-ITD-positive AML patients.Item Use of murine models to test novel gene transfer strategies for the treatment of Fanconi anemia(2011-03-09) Leath, Anna C.; Clapp, D. Wade; Broxmeyer, Hal E.; Cornetta, Kenneth G.; Srour, Edward F.The dawn of the genetic era has allowed for investigation of gene transfer therapy as a treatment for certain diseases. Fanconi anemia (FA) is a rare genetic disorder in which the majority of patients develops progressive bone marrow failure (BMF) and require bone marrow transplantation. A possible alternative treatment is autologous gene therapy; however, original clinical trials involving gene transfer for FA were unsuccessful. This has led to re-evaluation of the gene transfer protocols, the vectors and also a deeper investigation of the FA pathway itself. My work has focused on illuminating these areas to further advance gene transfer therapy for FA. Many gene transfer protocols require the hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSC/HPC) to be collected and then transduced ex vivo. The most common collection method is mobilization of the HSC/HPC to the peripheral blood (PB) using granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and collection via apheresis. In FA patients G-CSF fails to mobilize a sufficient number of HSC/HPC. This has led to research into agents such as AMD3100, a CXCR4 antagonist, which may replace or augment G-CSF mobilization. These data show in two FA murine models that AMD3100 synergizes with G-CSF resulting in a significant increase in mobilization as compared to G-CSF alone. Previous work in our lab has shown that prototype foamy virus (FV) is an efficient gene transfer vector. Here a modified FV vector is used to transduce mobilized FA cells. The data indicate that long-term repopulating cells mobilized with both G-CSF and AMD3100 can be efficiently transduced by our FV vector. Clinically, FA is characterized mainly by BMF, but also by myelodysplasia (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, current FA murine models do not display these disease phenotypes. These data show that double-mutant Fancc-/-;Fancg-/- mice spontaneously develop BMF, MDS and complex random chromosomal abnormalities that the single-mutant mice do not. Importantly, this model closely recapitulates the phenotypes found in FA patients and may be useful as a preclinical platform to evaluate the molecular pathogenesis of spontaneous BMF and MDS in FA and novel gene transfer protocols for FA.Item Vaccinia Virus Binding and Infection of Primary Human Leukocytes(2014) Byrd, Daniel James; Yu, Andy; Brutkiewicz, Randy R.; Cornetta, Kenneth G.; Kaplan, Mark H.Vaccinia virus (VV) is the prototypical member of the orthopoxvirus genus of the Poxviridae family, and is currently being evaluated as a vector for vaccine development and cancer cell-targeting therapy. Despite the importance of studying poxvirus effects on the human immune system, reports of the direct interactions between poxviruses and primary human leukocytes (PHLs) are limited. We studied the specific molecular events that determine the VV tropism for major PHL subsets including monocytes, B cells, neutrophils, NK cells, and T cells. We found that VV exhibited an extremely strong bias towards binding and infecting monocytes among PHLs. VV binding strongly co-localized with lipid rafts on the surface of these cell types, even when lipid rafts were relocated to the cell uropods upon cell polarization. In humans, monocytic and professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) have so far only been reported to exhibit abortive infections with VV. We found that monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs), including granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)-polarized M1 and macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF)-polarized M2, were permissive to VV replication. The majority of virions produced in MDMs were extracellular enveloped virions (EEV). Visualization of infected MDMs revealed the formation of VV factories, actin tails, virion-associated branching structures and cell linkages, indicating that infected MDMs are able to initiate de novo synthesis of viral DNA and promote virus release. Classical activation of MDMs by LPS plus IFN-γ stimulation caused no effect on VV replication, whereas alternative activation of MDMs by IL-10 or LPS plus IL-1β treatment significantly decreased VV production. The IL-10-mediated suppression of VV replication was largely due to STAT3 activation, as a STAT3 inhibitor restored virus production to levels observed without IL-10 stimulation. In conclusion, our data indicate that PHL subsets express and share VV protein receptors enriched in lipid rafts. We also demonstrate that primary human macrophages are permissive to VV replication. After infection, MDMs produced EEV for long-range dissemination and also form structures associated with virions which may contribute to cell-cell spread.