Microbiomes in One Health – Doctoral Training Unit
P18: Interactions between the lung microbiome, airway epithelial cells and immune cells in the context of allergic airway inflammation
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- P18: Interactions between the lung microbiome, airway epithelial cells and immune cells in the context of allergic airway inflammation
Principal Investigators Jacques Zimmer and Tatiana Michel
Host Institution LIH
Project Research Question: Are the lung (and gut) microbiomes different between wildtype (WT) and neurturin (NTN)-KO mice at steady state and in the context of allergic airway inflammation? To what extent does the microbiome influence epithelial integrity and immune cells in both strains of mice in this situation?
Abstract
We have previously described that mice knockout for the neurotrophic factor neurturin (NTN-KO) have a much stronger asthmatic phenotype than wildtype (WT) mice, likely due to anti-inflammatory properties of NTN (Mauffray et al., 2015, Michel et al., 2011). It has also been shown that the absence of the NTN receptor Ret leads to altered microbial communities in the gut. The project proposed will compare the microbiome composition of NTN-KO mice in lung and gut relative to WT mice at steady state and after asthmatic airway inflammation. We plan to investigate the interactions between neurotrophic factors (NTN and another family member, glial cell derived neurotrophic factor or GDNF), airway epithelial cells, immune cells and microbiome in asthmatic conditions, with a focus on epithelial integrity which favors pathology when disrupted.
Methods
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Mouse model of allergic asthma
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Cell culture
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ELISA
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Flow, imaging and mass cytometry
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omics technologies
