School of Medicine and Health Sciences Poster Presentations

Comparative Analysis of serum samples from Immunized versus Naïve Mice in Malaria Using Untargeted Metabolomics

Poster Number

272

Document Type

Poster

Status

Medical Student

Abstract Category

Immunology/Infectious Diseases

Keywords

malaria, metabolomics, data analysis, basic sciences, infectious diseases

Publication Date

Spring 2018

Abstract

Malaria is a life-threatening parasitic infection caused by Plasmodium species. The causal organism of malaria was discovered over 100 years ago and over the last several decades, molecular biology has enabled major advances starting with traditional gene cloning, cell biology and pathogenesis studies. This was followed by the sequencing, annotation and investigation of complete genomes from several species, including human and mice. These advancing technologies have aided the development of rapid diagnostic tests, development of drugs, monitoring of drug resistance and advanced research towards developing malaria vaccines. However, there are still remaining gaps in our understanding of the relationship between Plasmodium and its host, and relatively few host-parasite interactions are currently known for malaria. Systems biology, comprising transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics among other “omics” is a very promising field of study that could give us the answer to those questions. Metabolomics is the study of chemicals in biosystems, and is a very powerful tool that can investigate metabolism in-depth as well as its byproducts and associated networks. The goal of this project is to identify putative metabolites and associated pathways that are differentially expressed in the serum of mice immunized with radiation attenuated sporozoites that confers sterile immunity versus that of naïve mice. This was achieved by (1) preparation of serum samples collected from immunized and naïve mice after challenge with sporozoites for LC/MS-MS, (2) untargeted metabolomic analysis using XCMS and MetaboAnalyst, (3) metabolite identification using Compound Discoverer, and (4) pathway analysis using Mummichog. After data analysis, 219 metabolites and 40 pathways were found to be differentially expressed between naïve and immunized mice. Research is still ongoing, now directed towards validating our results with targeted metabolomics using metabolites that are both differentially expressed and part of pathways that are known to be involved in cellular or humoral immunity.

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Creative Commons License
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Comparative Analysis of serum samples from Immunized versus Naïve Mice in Malaria Using Untargeted Metabolomics

Malaria is a life-threatening parasitic infection caused by Plasmodium species. The causal organism of malaria was discovered over 100 years ago and over the last several decades, molecular biology has enabled major advances starting with traditional gene cloning, cell biology and pathogenesis studies. This was followed by the sequencing, annotation and investigation of complete genomes from several species, including human and mice. These advancing technologies have aided the development of rapid diagnostic tests, development of drugs, monitoring of drug resistance and advanced research towards developing malaria vaccines. However, there are still remaining gaps in our understanding of the relationship between Plasmodium and its host, and relatively few host-parasite interactions are currently known for malaria. Systems biology, comprising transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics among other “omics” is a very promising field of study that could give us the answer to those questions. Metabolomics is the study of chemicals in biosystems, and is a very powerful tool that can investigate metabolism in-depth as well as its byproducts and associated networks. The goal of this project is to identify putative metabolites and associated pathways that are differentially expressed in the serum of mice immunized with radiation attenuated sporozoites that confers sterile immunity versus that of naïve mice. This was achieved by (1) preparation of serum samples collected from immunized and naïve mice after challenge with sporozoites for LC/MS-MS, (2) untargeted metabolomic analysis using XCMS and MetaboAnalyst, (3) metabolite identification using Compound Discoverer, and (4) pathway analysis using Mummichog. After data analysis, 219 metabolites and 40 pathways were found to be differentially expressed between naïve and immunized mice. Research is still ongoing, now directed towards validating our results with targeted metabolomics using metabolites that are both differentially expressed and part of pathways that are known to be involved in cellular or humoral immunity.