Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more

Immunology

Super-cold technique = hot way to see enzyme structure

In the last decade, a revolution has been taking place in structural biology, the field in which scientists produce detailed maps of how enzymes and other machines in the cell work. That revolution is being driven by cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM for short), which is superseding X-ray crystallography as the main data-production technique and earned a chemistry Nobel in 2017.

Just before COVID-19 sent some Emory researchers home and drove others to pivot their work toward coronavirus, Lab Land had a chance to tour the cryo-EM facility and take photos, with the help of Puneet Juneja, director of the core. Juneja demonstrated how samples are prepared for data collection — see the series of photos below.

Someone coming into the facility in the Biochemistry Connector area will notice a sign telling visitors and those passing by to stay quiet (forgot to take a photo of that!). The facility has electrical shielding and temperature/humidity controls. Also two levels of cooling are required for samples, since they are flash-frozen or “vitrified” in liquid ethane, which is in turn cooled by liquid nitrogen. The cooling needs to happen quickly so that ice crystals do not form. The massive cryo-EM equipment rests on a vibration-reduction platform; no music and no loud conversation are allowed during data collection.

One of the first structures obtained in this relatively new facility was the structure of a viral RNA polymerase, the engine behind viral replication. It wasn’t a coronavirus enzyme – it was from RSV (respiratory syncytial virus).

Still, cryo-EM is a way to visualize exactly how drugs that inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 polymerase – such as remdesivir or Emory’s own EIDD-2801 – exert their effects. Chinese researchers recently published a cryo-EM structure of the SARS-CoV-2 polymerase with remdesivir in Science. Read more

Posted on by Quinn Eastman in Immunology, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Can blood from coronavirus survivors save the lives of others?

Donated blood from COVID-19 survivors could be an effective treatment in helping others fight the illness – and should be tested more broadly to see if it can “change the course of this pandemic,” two Emory pathologists say.

The idea of using a component of survivors’ donated blood, or “convalescent plasma,” is that antibodies from patients who have recovered can be used in other people to help them defend against coronavirus.

Emory pathologists John Roback, MD, PhD and Jeannette Guarner, MD, wrote about the prospects of using the donated blood in a commentary published in JAMA. Their article accompanied a small study in China of five patients on ventilators whose condition improved after they were treated with convalescent plasma.

“Deploying passive antibody therapies against the rapidly increasing number of COIVD-19 cases provides an unprecedented opportunity to perform clinical studies of the efficacy of this treatment against a viral agent,” the two wrote. “If the results of rigorously conducted investigations, such as a large-scale randomized clinical trial, demonstrate efficacy, use of this therapy also could help change the course of this pandemic.”

The patients in Shenzhen were also treated with other antiviral and antiinflammatory agents, and the study was too small to come to definite conclusions. Still, the Emory authors say, the Shenzhen study provides an example of an approach that should be tested on a larger scale. Read more

Posted on by Wayne Drash in Immunology, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Immunotherapy combo achieves reservoir shrinkage in HIV model

Stimulating immune cells with two cancer immunotherapies together can shrink the size of the viral “reservoir” in SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus)-infected nonhuman primates treated with antiviral drugs, Emory researchers and their colleagues have concluded. The reservoir includes immune cells that harbor virus despite potent antiviral drug treatment.

The findings, reported in Nature Medicine, have important implications for the quest to cure HIV because reservoir shrinkage has not been achieved consistently before. However, the combination treatment does not prevent or delay viral rebound once antiviral drugs are stopped. Finding an HIV cure is important because, although antiretroviral therapy can reduce the amount of circulating virus to undetectable levels, problematic issues remain such as social stigma in addition to the long-term toxicity and cost of antiretroviral drugs.

“It’s a glass-half-full situation,” says senior author Mirko Paiardini, PhD. “We concluded immune checkpoint blockade, even a very effective combination, is unlikely to achieve viral remission as a standalone treatment during antiretroviral therapy.”

He adds the approach may have greater potential if combined with other immune-stimulating agents. Or it could be deployed at a different point — when the immune system is engaged in fighting the virus, creating a target-rich environment. Other HIV/AIDS researchers have started to test those tactics, he says.

Paiardini is an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and a researcher at Yerkes National Primate Research Center. The study performed in nonhuman primates, considered the best animal model for HIV studies, was carried out in collaboration with co-authors Shari Gordon and David Favre at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and GlaxoSmithKline; Katharine Bar at the University of Pennsylvania; and Jake Estes at Oregon Health & Science University. Read more

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Antios moving ahead with potential drug vs hepatitis B

Antios Therapeutics is moving ahead with Phase I clinical studies in Canada and Europe of an antiviral drug aimed at hepatitis B. Antios was formed in 2018 based on technology licensed from DRIVE, the non-profit drug development company owned by Emory.

Antios is developing ATI-2173, which was designed to direct a form of the drug clevudine to the liver. Pharmasset, formed by Emory scientists and later acquired by Gilead, was previously developing clevudine against hepatitis B. Pharmasset decided to stop clinical studies of clevudine in 2009 because of reports of drug-induced myopathy from South Korea. ATI-2173 is supposed to selectively deliver the drug to the liver, potentially eliminating off-target effects.

(DRIVE is also developing an drug with activity against influenza and the new coronavirus, but hepatitis B – with a weird partly double-stranded DNA genome— is quite different from both flu and coronaviruses. It does underline DRIVE’s experience with antivirals.)

Antios recently announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office has issued a notice of allowance for a patent covering ATI-2173. A full description is available from the World Intellectual Property Organization portal.

The patent is based on research carried out at Emory by Antios CEO and co-founder Abel De La Rosa, PhD, who was previously chief scientific officer at DRIVE and Emory Institute for Drug Development, and before that, an executive at Pharmasset. Read more

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Stem-like CD8 T cells stay in lymph nodes/spleen

In a mouse model of chronic viral infection, there are very few virus-specific killer T cells in the blood, Emory Vaccine Center scientists report in a new paper in PNAS. This has implications for efforts to enhance cancer immunotherapy, because in both chronic viral infection and cancer, the same types of exhausted T cells accumulate.

CD8 T cells in lymphoid tissue (spleen) – from Im et al Nature (2016)

Vaccine Center director Rafi Ahmed’s lab has learned a great deal about exhausted T cells by studying the LCMV (lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus) model. In this situation, virus-specific CD8 T cells accumulate in lymph nodes and in other organs, without circulating in the blood, because they acquire a residency program, the PNAS authors write. Postdoc Sejin Im’s 2016 paper defined these “stem-like” cells – he is the first author of the new one as well.

A related phenomenon can be seen in the Kissick lab’s recent paper on immune “outposts” in kidney and other urologic tumors. The stem-like cells stay within the tumor and give rise to similar progeny. One consequence may be that treatments aimed at reactivating those cells need to get inside the tumor.

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Microbiome critical for bone hormone action

Intestinal microbes are necessary for the actions of an important hormone regulating bone density, according to two papers from the Emory Microbiome Research Center. The papers represent a collaboration between Roberto Pacifici, MD and colleagues in the Department of Medicine and laboratory of Rheinallt Jones, PhD in the Department of Pediatrics.

Together, the results show how probiotics or nutritional supplementation could be used to modulate immune cell activity related to bone health. The two papers, published in Nature Communications and Journal of Clinical Investigation, are the first reports of a role for intestinal microbes in the mechanism of action of PTH (parathyroid hormone), Pacifici says.

PTH increases calcium levels in the blood and can either drive bone loss or bone formation, depending on how it is produced or administered. Continuous excessive production of PTH, or primary hyperparathyroidism, is a common endocrine cause of osteoporosis. Yet in another context, intermittent external PTH stimulates bone formation, and is an FDA-approved treatment for osteoporosis – also used off-label for fracture repair in athletes. Read more

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New animal model for elimination of latent TB

The significance of a recent Tulane/Yerkes study on eradicating latent tuberculosis in non-human primates may not be apparent at first glance. After all, it used the same antibiotic regimen (isoniazid + rifapentine) that is recommended by the CDC for human use.

But consider whether someone who was exposed to TB in childhood might still have it in their lungs somewhere. It’s difficult to know if treatments get rid of the bacteria completely.

“The antibiotic treatment we used for this study is a new, shorter regimen the CDC recommends for treating humans with latent tuberculosis, but we did not have direct evidence for whether it completely clears latent infection,” says Yerkes/Emory Vaccine Center researcher Jyothi Rengarajan, who was co-principal investigator along with Deepak Kaushal of Tulane. “Our experimental study in macaques showing almost complete sterilization of bacteria after treatment suggests this three-month regimen sterilizes humans as well.”

In an editorial in the same journal, CDC and Johns Hopkins experts call the results “dramatic” and say application of the drug regimen “could presage a major step forward in TB prevention and control.” Read more

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Transplant research: immune control via Fc receptors on T cells

Emory transplant researchers have identified a control mechanism the immune system uses to tamp down chronic inflammation. The findings provide insight into how some people were able to stop taking immunosuppressive drugs after kidney transplant.

In addition, they may be important for a full understanding of how many drugs for cancer and autoimmune disorders (therapeutic antibodies) work. The results were published on January 14 in Immunity.

In a twist, scientists have known about the molecules involved for a long time. They’re Fc receptors. Usually, we can think of them acting like oven mitts that immune cells use to grab onto antibodies. Fc receptors bind the constant (unvarying) portions of antibodies, which are the same no matter what they’re directed against.

Mandy Ford, PhD and graduate student Anna Morris

The news here is that an inhibitory variety of Fc receptor – FcγRIIB — is found on CD8+ T cells, and is a way of squeezing off T cell activity. Dogma over the past few decades held that T cells do not express Fc receptors, although evidence for them doing so went back to the 1970s.

“Our data suggest that the physiologic relevance of this pathway is to allow for control of active, highly differentiated effector T cells in the setting of chronic inflammation in order to limit immune pathology,” says senior author Mandy Ford, PhD, scientific director of Emory Transplant Center.

The co-first authors of the paper are IMP graduate student Anna Morris and surgical resident Clara Farley. They and their colleagues probed the functions of FcγRIIB on T cells in mice, and also found that increased expression of FcγRIIB correlated with freedom from rejection following withdrawal from immunosuppression in a clinical trial of kidney transplant recipients. This data came from the CTOT09 study from the Clinical Trials in Organ Transplantation Consortium. Read more

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Immune outposts inside tumors predict post-surgery outcomes

The immune system establishes “forward operating bases”, or lymph node-like structures, inside the tumors of some patients with kidney and other urologic cancers, researchers at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have discovered.

From left to right: Carey Jansen, Nataliya Prokhnevska, Hadyn Kissick and Viraj Master

Patients with well-supported immune cells in their tumors are more likely to control their cancers’ growth for a longer time — findings that could guide treatment decisions after surgery for kidney cancer. In addition, ongoing work has found the observation is broadly applicable to many cancer types, and it could help researchers expand the dramatic but sparse benefits of cancer immunotherapy to more people.

The results were published Wednesday, Dec. 11 in Nature.

“We knew that if there are more T cells in a tumor, the patient is likely to respond better to cancer immunotherapy,” says lead author Haydn Kissick, PhD. “But we were looking at a more basic question: why do some tumors have lots of T cells in them, and others don’t?”

Kissick is assistant professor of urology and microbiology and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine, Emory Vaccine Center and Winship Cancer Institute. His lab collaborated with surgeons and oncologists at Winship to examine tumor samples removed from patients with kidney, prostate and bladder cancer.

CD8 T cells hunt down and eliminate intruders – in this case, cancer cells. In patients with high levels of CD8 T cells residing in their tumors, their immune systems appeared to be better trained to suppress cancer growth after surgery, when small numbers of cancer cells (micrometastases) may be lurking elsewhere in the body. The cancers of those who had lower levels of CD8 T cells tended to progress four times more quickly after surgery than those with higher levels.

The finding has important implications, says Viraj Master, MD, who performed most of the kidney cancer surgeries. In this situation, additional treatments are not performed unless or until kidney cancer reappears, says Master, who is Fray F. Marshall Chair and professor of urology at Emory University School of Medicine and Winship’s Director of Integrative Oncology and Survivorship.

“Even after potentially curative surgery for aggressive kidney cancers, a significant fraction of patients will experience cancer recurrence,” he says. “But with this information, we could predict more confidently that some people won’t need anything else, thus avoiding overtreatment. However, on the basis of these findings, for others who are at higher risk of recurrence, we could potentially scan at more regular intervals, and ideally, design adjuvant therapy trials.”

The findings also provide insights for scientists interested in how the immune system successfully controls some cancers, but with others, the T cells become increasingly exhausted and ineffective.

“This study may lead to new insights into why immunotherapy can be so effective in some cancer types, but rarely works in others such as prostate cancer, and may highlight a path forward for developing more effective immunotherapy treatments,” says Howard Soule, PhD, executive vice president and chief science officer for the Prostate Cancer Foundation, which supported the Winship team’s work.

Kissick and his colleagues were surprised to find “stem-like” T cells, or precursors of exhausted cells, inside tumor samples. Stem-like T cells are the ones that proliferate in response to cancer immunotherapy drugs, which can revive the immune system’s ability to fight the cancer.

Tumor sample with high level of T cell infiltration. Red = CD8, yellow = MHC class II, a sign of APCs

“Lymph nodes are like ‘home base’ for the stem-like T cells,” says Carey Jansen, an MD/PhD student who is the first author of the Nature paper. “We had expected that the stem-like cells would stay in lymphoid tissue and deploy other T cells to infiltrate and fight the cancer. But instead, the immune system seems to set up an outpost, or a forward base, inside the tumor itself.”

The researchers found that other immune cells called “antigen-presenting cells” or APCs, which are usually found within lymph nodes, can also be seen within tumors. APCs help the T cells figure out when and what to attack. Like high numbers of CD8 T cells, high numbers of APCs in tumors were also a predictor of longer progression-free survival in kidney cancer patients.

The APCs and the stem-like cells were usually together within the same “nests,” in a way that resemble how the two types of cells interact in lymph nodes. This relationship was apparent in kidney cancers and also in samples from prostate and bladder cancers.

“The question of how the stem-like cells get into a tumor was not answered, but we do think that the APCs support the stem-like cells and are necessary for their maintenance,” Kissick says. “Given that these are the cells responsive to cancer immunotherapy agents, focusing on the relationship between the APCs and the T cells within the tumors could be valuable.”

Additional co-authors include: graduate student Nataliya Prokhnevska, urology chair Martin Sanda, MD and biostatistician Yuan Liu, PhD.

The research was supported by the National Cancer Institute (R00CA197891, U01CA113913), the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Swim Across America, the James M. Cox Foundation, James C. Kennedy, the Dunwoody Country Club Senior Men’s Association and an educational grant from Adaptive Technologies.

 

 

Posted on by Quinn Eastman in Cancer, Immunology Leave a comment

Transition to exhaustion: clues for cancer immunotherapy

Research on immune cells “exhausted” by chronic viral infection provides clues on how to refine cancer immunotherapy. The results were published Tuesday, Dec. 3 in Immunity.

Scientists at Emory Vaccine Center, led by Rafi Ahmed, PhD, have learned about exhausted CD8 T cells, based on studying mice with chronic viral infections. In the presence of persistent virus or cancer, CD8 T cells lose much of their ability to fight disease, and display inhibitory checkpoint proteins such as PD-1 on their surfaces. PD-1 is targeted by cancer immunotherapy drugs, such as pembrolizumab and nivolumab, which allow CD8 T cells to regain their ability to attack and kill infected cells and cancers.

Those drugs are now FDA-approved for several types of cancer, yet some types of tumors do not respond to them. Studying exhausted CD8 T cells can help us understand how to better draw the immune system into action against cancer or chronic infections.

In previous research, Ahmed’s lab found that exhausted cells are not all alike, and the diversity within the exhausted T cell pool could explain variability in responses to cancer immunotherapy drugs. Specifically, they observed that a population of “stem-like” cells proliferated in response to PD-1-blocking drugs, while a more differentiated population of exhausted cells stayed inactive. The stem-like cells are responsible for maintaining the exhausted T cell population, but cannot kill virus-infected or tumor cells on their own.

The current paper defines a transitional stage in between the stem-like and truly exhausted cells. The truly exhausted cells are marked by a molecule called CD101, and are unable to migrate to sites of infection and contain lower amounts of proteins needed to kill infected or tumor cells.

“The transitional cells are not completely exhausted,” says postdoctoral fellow Will Hudson, PhD, first author of the Immunity paper. “They are still capable of proliferating and performing their ‘killer cell’ functions. In our experiments, they contribute to viral control.”

The transitional cells, lacking CD101, could be a good marker for response to PD-1 blocking drugs, Hudson says. Enhancing the proliferation or survival of these cells, or preventing their transition to lasting exhaustion, may be a novel therapeutic strategy for cancer. Read more

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