Biology subjects

Ransom, M. R.

Publications and source records attributed to Ransom, M. R..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Targeting Acute Myeloid Leukemia Stem Cells Through Perturbation of Mitochondrial Calcium

We previously reported that acute myeloid leukemia stem cells (LSCs) are uniquely reliant on oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) for survival. Moreover, maintenance of OXPHOS is dependent on BCL2, creating a therapeutic opportunity to target LSCs using the BCL2 inhibitor drug venetoclax. While venetoclax-based regimens have indeed shown promising clinical activity, the emergence of drug resistance is prevalent. Thus, in the present study, we investigated how mitochondrial properties may influence mechanisms that dictate venetoclax responsiveness. Our data show that utilization of mitochondrial calcium is fundamentally different between drug responsive and non-responsive LSCs. By comparison, venetoclax-resistant LSCs demonstrate a more active metabolic (i.e., OXPHOS) status with relatively high steady-state levels of calcium. Consequently, we tested genetic and pharmacological approaches to target the mitochondrial calcium uniporter, MCU. We demonstrate that inhibition of calcium uptake sharply reduces OXPHOS and leads to eradication of venetoclax-resistant LSCs. These findings demonstrate a central role for calcium signaling in the biology of LSCs and provide a therapeutic avenue for clinical management of venetoclax resistance. SignificanceWe identify increased utilization of mitochondrial calcium as distinct metabolic requirement of venetoclax-resistant LSCs and demonstrate the potential of targeting mitochondrial calcium uptake as a therapeutic strategy.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2023

Transcriptional adaptation of drug-tolerant Mycobacterium tuberculosis in mice

Transcriptome evaluation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the lungs of laboratory animals during long-term treatment has been limited by extremely low abundance of bacterial mRNA relative to eukaryotic RNA. Here we report a targeted amplification RNA sequencing method called SEARCH-TB. After confirming that SEARCH-TB recapitulates conventional RNA-seq in vitro, we applied SEARCH-TB to Mycobacterium tuberculosis-infected BALB/c mice treated for up to 28 days with the global standard isoniazid, rifampin, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol regimen. We compared results in mice with 8-day exposure to the same regimen in vitro. After treatment of mice for 28 days, SEARCH-TB suggested broad suppression of genes associated with bacterial growth, transcription, translation, synthesis of rRNA proteins and immunogenic secretory peptides. Adaptation of drug-stressed Mycobacterium tuberculosis appeared to include a metabolic transition from ATP-maximizing respiration towards lower-efficiency pathways, modification and recycling of cell wall components, large-scale regulatory reprogramming, and reconfiguration of efflux pumps expression. Despite markedly different expression at pre-treatment baseline, murine and in vitro samples had broadly similar transcriptional change during treatment. The differences observed likely indicate the importance of immunity and pharmacokinetics in the mouse. By elucidating the long-term effect of tuberculosis treatment on bacterial cellular processes in vivo, SEARCH-TB represents a highly granular pharmacodynamic monitoring tool with potential to enhance evaluation of new regimens and thereby accelerate progress towards a new generation of more effective tuberculosis treatment.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2022

MuVEH and mitoMuVEH improve discovery of genetic variation from single cells.

Understanding the genetic underpinnings and clonal structure of malignancies at single-cell resolution is critical to accurately predicting drug response and understanding mechanisms of drug resistance and disease evolution in heterogeneous populations of cells. Here, we introduce an accessible, multiplexable, targeted mutation enrichment approach and end-to-end analysis pipeline called MuVEH (Multiplexed Variant Enrichment by Hybridization) that increases the resolution of variant detection in scRNA-seq analysis. When applied specifically to the mitochondrial chromosome ("mitoMuVEH"), this technique can also be used to reconstruct and trace clonal relationships between individual cells. We applied both approaches to two pairs of primary bone marrow specimens from acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) patients collected at diagnosis and after relapse following Venetoclax+Azacitidine (Ven/Aza) therapy. Used together, MuVEH and mitoMuVEH reveal clonal evolution and changing mutational burden in response to treatment at single-cell resolution in these patients. Ultimately, these approaches have the potential to extract additional biological insights from precious patient samples and provide insight into the contributions clonality and genotype have during disease progression.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Identification of zinc-dependent mechanisms used by Group B Streptococcus to overcome calprotectin-mediated stress

Nutritional immunity is an elegant host mechanism used to starve invading pathogens of necessary nutrient metals. Calprotectin, a metal binding protein, is produced abundantly by neutrophils and is found in high concentrations within inflammatory sites during infection. Group B Streptococcus (GBS) colonizes the gastrointestinal and female reproductive tracts and is commonly associated with severe invasive infections in newborns such as pneumonia, sepsis, and meningitis. Though GBS infections induce robust neutrophil recruitment and inflammation, the dynamics of GBS and calprotectin interactions remain unknown. Here we demonstrate that disease and colonizing isolate strains exhibit susceptibility to metal starvation by calprotectin. We constructed a mariner transposon (Krmit) mutant library in GBS and identified 258 genes that contribute to surviving calprotectin stress. Nearly 20% of all underrepresented mutants following treatment with calprotectin, are predicted metal transporters, including known zinc systems. As calprotectin binds zinc with picomolar affinity, we investigated the contribution of GBS zinc uptake to overcoming calprotectin-imposed starvation. Quantitative RT-PCR revealed a significant upregulation of genes encoding zinc-binding proteins, adcA, adcAII, and lmb, following calprotectin exposure, while growth in calprotectin revealed a significant defect for a global zinc acquisition mutant ({Delta}adcA{Delta}adcAII{Delta}lmb) compared to the GBS WT strain. Further, mice challenged with the {Delta}adcA{Delta}adcAII{Delta}lmb mutant exhibited decreased mortality and significantly reduced bacterial burden in the brain compared to mice infected with WT GBS; this difference was abrogated in calprotectin knockout mice. Collectively, these data suggest that GBS zinc transport machinery are important for combatting zinc-chelation by calprotectin and establishing invasive disease. ImportanceGBS asymptomatically colonizes the female reproductive tract but is a common causative agent of meningitis. GBS meningitis is characterized by extensive infiltration of neutrophils, carrying high concentrations of calprotectin, a metal chelator. To persist within inflammatory sites and cause invasive disease, GBS must circumvent host starvation attempts. Here, we identified global requirements for GBS survival during calprotectin challenge, including known and putative systems involved in metal ion transport. We characterized the role of zinc import in tolerating calprotectin stress in vitro, and in a mouse model of infection. We observed that a global zinc-uptake mutant was less virulent compared to the parental GBS strain and found calprotectin knockout mice to be equally susceptible to infection by WT and mutant strains. These findings suggest that calprotectin production at the site of infection results in a zinc-limited environment and reveals the importance of GBS metal homeostasis to invasive disease.

microbiology↗