Publications

Abstract: Septic shock is a life-threatening clinical condition characterized by a robust immune inflammatory response to disseminated infection. Little is known about its impact on the transcriptome of distinct human tissues. To address this, we performed RNA sequencing of samples from the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, heart, lung, kidney and colon of seven individuals who succumbed to sepsis and seven uninfected controls. We identified that the lungs and colon were the most affected organs....

Abstract: Free heme released from hemoglobin contributes to exacerbated inflammation and tissue damage in hemolytic diseases. While a moderate level of free heme does not cause intravascular inflammation by itself, its presence during infection greatly enhances inflammation. Although specific serum proteins have been found to affect heme-induced inflammation, the selective contribution of serum proteins inhibiting macrophage activation by heme or, conversely, amplifying the production of cytokines by macrophages stimulated with heme and microbial molecules, is poorly defined....

Abstract: CD8 T cell differentiation is controlled by the crosstalk of various transcription factors and epigenetic modulators. Uncovering the different players in regulating this process is fundamental to improving immunotherapy and designing novel therapeutic approaches. Here, we show that Polycomb Repressive Complex (PRC)1 subunit Chromobox (Cbx)4 favors differentiation to effector CD8 T cells. Cbx4 deficiency in CD8 T cells induced transcriptional signature and phenotype of memory cells, increasing the formation of memory population during acute viral infection....

Abstract: The rise of advanced chatbots, such as ChatGPT, has stirred excitement and curiosity in the scientific community. Powered by large language models (LLMs) GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, ChatGPT is a General Purpose Technology with the potential to impact the job market and research endeavors in numerous fields [1]. Although similar models have been fine-tuned for biology-specific projects, including text-based analysis and biological sequence decoding [2,3], ChatGPT provides a natural interface for bioinformaticians to begin using LLMs in their activities....

Abstract: Individuals infected with Leishmania (L.) chagasi may present different asymptomatic and symptomatic stages of infection, which vary in the clinical–immunological profiles that can be classified as asymptomatic infection (AI), subclinical resistant infection (SRI), indeterminate initial infection (III), subclinical oligosymptomatic infection (SOI), and symptomatic infection (SI) (=American visceral leishmaniasis, AVL). However, little is known about the molecular differences between individuals having each profile. Here, we performed whole-blood transcriptomic analyses of 56 infected individuals from Pará State (Brazilian Amazon), covering all five profiles....