News
TCD was awarded the prestigious ‘Green Flag' as part of An Taisce's Green-Campus programme , recognising the quality of its environment.
The Green Flag is an international award and comes following years of work by those at the university. Green-Campus is operated by the Environmental Education unit of An Taisce on behalf of the internationally-based Foundation for Environmental Education. Trinity College is now only the second university to hold this status. The flag is flown beside the Moyne Institute, Trinity's Department of Microbiology which assisted in development of the EcoSchools project in the EU, the international Blue Flag scheme, WHO standards for recreational waters and many other aspects of water research.
TCD Researchers Discover How the Bacterium Staphylococcus Aureus that plays a vital role in spread of MRSA Colonises the Human Nose
Jan 29, 2013
Staphylococcus aureus: why it gets up your nose!
A collaboration between researchers at the School of Biochemistry and Immunology and the Department of Microbiology at Trinity College Dublin has identified a mechanism by which the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) colonises our nasal passages. The study, recently published in the prestigious journal PLOS Pathogens, shows for the first time that a protein located on the bacterial surface called clumping factor B (ClfB) recognises a protein called loricrin that is a major component of the envelope of cells in the nose and skin.
S. aureus is an important human pathogen, with the potential to cause severe invasive diseases. It is a major concern in hospitals and healthcare facilities, where many infections are caused by strains such as MRSA that are resistant to commonly used antibiotics. Interestingly, S. aureus persistently colonises about 20% of the human population by binding to skin-like cells within the nasal cavity. Being colonised predisposes an individual towards becoming infected so it is vital that we understand the mechanisms involved.
ClfB was previously shown to promote S. aureus colonisation in a human nasal volunteer study. This paper now identifies the mechanism by which ClfB facilitates S. aureus nasal colonisation. ClfB binding to loricrin was shown to be crucial for successful colonisation of the nose in a mouse model. A mouse lacking loricrin allowed fewer bacterial cells to colonise its nasal passages than a normal mouse. When S. aureus strains that lacked ClfB were used nasal colonisation was dramatically reduced. Finally it was shown that soluble loricrin could reduce binding of S. aureus to human nasal skin cells and that nasal administration of loricrin reduced S. aureus colonisation of mice.
Trinity's Assistant Professor at the School of Biochemistry and Immunology Rachel McLoughlin and Professor of Molecular Microbiology Tim Foster, the study's corresponding authors concluded: “Loricrin is a major determinant of S. aureus nasal colonisation. This discovery opens new avenues for developing therapeutic strategies to reduce the burden of nasal carriage and consequently infections with this bacterium. This is particularly important given the difficulties associated with treating MRSA infections”.
This project was supported by a Science Foundation Ireland Programme Investigator award and the Wellcome Trust.
The paper describes research performed by Michelle Mulcahy, postgraduate student in Microbiology, with the assistance of Joan Geoghegan (Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Ian Monk (postdoctoral associate, Microbiology) and Kate O'Keefe (PhD student, Biochemistry and Immunology).
CITATION: Mulcahy ME, Geoghegan JA, Monk IR, O'Keeffe KM, Walsh EJ, et al. (2012) Nasal Colonisation by Staphylococcus aureus Depends upon Clumping Factor
B Binding to the Squamous Epithelial Cell Envelope Protein Loricrin. PLoS Pathog 8(12): e1003092. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1003092
The paper was published December 27th 2012 in the Open Access journal PLOS Pathogens, http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1003092
PLOS Pathogens ( www.plospathogens.org ) publishes outstanding original articles that significantly advance the understanding of pathogens and how they interact with their host organisms. All works published in PLOS Pathogens are open access
Serial Academic Inventor
September, 2012
Prof. Tim Foster, B.A., Ph.D.(BRIST.), S.F.T.C.D-
is Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Director of Postgraduate Teaching and Learning in Microbiology. He is worldrenowned for his pioneering research on Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium that can cause serious infections in humans and farm animals, and is notorious for being resistant to many antibiotics (MRSA). By studying proteins from the bacterial cell surface he tries to understand the mechanisms that allow the bacterium to colonize human skin as well as occasionally to cause invasive disease. His excellence in research has afforded him inventorship on multiple patent portfolios, many of which are currently licenced to multi-national companies for both animal and human vaccine development. Much of Tim’s early work on S. aureus binding proteins is patent protected, with many patents granted internationally. This patent portfolio has been licenced to Inhibitex/Pfizer for development. In recent years, a novel protein, patent protected in numerous countries, has been licensed for development by a major international pharmaceutical company as a vaccine to combat S.aureus infections. This licence deal has brought in revenue of over €350,000 to Trinity College and the inventors to date. Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health, the European market leader in equine vaccines, has developed EQUILIS® StrepE, the only strangles vaccine for horses in Europe. The key component of the vaccine was developed by the Foster lab and is licensed to Intervet.
Article taken from: Trinity Technology Transfer News, September addtion http://www.tcd.ie/research_innovation/assets/PDF%20Open%20Access/TTO%20ezine%20-%20Sept%202012.pdf
Flu is Transmitted before Symptoms Appear, Study Suggests
August 30, 2012
Research examining influenza transmission in ferrets suggests that the virus can be passed on before the appearance of symptoms. If the finding applies to humans, it means that people pass on flu to others before they know they're infected, making it very difficult to contain epidemics.
During the early phase of the 2009 influenza pandemic, attempts were made to contain the spread of the virus. Success of reactive control measures may be compromised if the proportion of transmission that occurs before overt clinical symptoms develop is high. In this study we investigated the timing of transmission of an early prototypic strain of pandemic H1N1 2009 influenza virus in the ferret model. Ferrets are the only animal model in which this can be assessed because they display typical influenza-like clinical signs including fever and sneezing after infection. We assessed transmission from infected animals to sentinels that were placed either in direct contact or in adjacent cages, the latter reflecting the respiratory droplet (RD) transmission route. We found that pre-symptomatic influenza transmission occurred via both contact and respiratory droplet exposure before the earliest clinical sign, fever, developed. Three of 3 animals exposed in direct contact between day 1 and 2 after infection of the donor animals became infected, and 2/3 of the animals exposed at this time period by the RD route acquired the infection, with the third animal becoming seropositive indicating either a low level infection or significant exposure. Moreover, this efficient transmission did not temporally correlate with respiratory symptoms, such as coughs and sneezes, but rather with the peak viral titre in the nose. Indeed respiratory droplet transmission did not occur late in infection, even though this was when sneezing and coughing were most apparent. None of the 3 animals exposed at this time by the RD route became infected and these animals remained seronegative at the end of the experiment. These data have important implications for pandemic planning strategies and suggest that successful containment is highly unlikely for a human-adapted influenza virus that transmits efficiently within a population. See Link to Paper: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0043303
Click on the news links for extra reading: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/flu-may-spread-before-symptoms-show-8095489.html , http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2195649/Flu-spread-symptoms-finds-study-ferrets.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Discovery of Missing Links for Salmonella's Weapon System (Extract from Communications Office)
Apr 24, 2012
Scientists have discovered multiple gene switches in Salmonella that offer new ways to curb human infection. The discovery of the mechanisms of gene regulation could lead to the development of antibiotics to reduce the levels of disease caused by Salmonella. The breakthrough was made by Professor Jay Hinton, Stokes Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis, Trinity College Dublin and his research team and has just been published in the leading journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Science Foundation Ireland funded the research.
Salmonella causes food poisoning and kills around 400,000 people worldwide every year. The bacteria are particularly effective at causing human infection because they can survive a series of harsh conditions that kill most bacteria including strong acids in the stomach and the anaerobic and salty environment of the intestine.
Professor Jay Hinton and Dr Carsten Kroger.
“It's a decade since we discovered the Salmonella genes active during infection of mammalian cells,” said Professor Hinton. “Now we have found the switches that control these critical genes. My team has gained an unprecedented view of the way that Salmonella modulates the level of the weapon systems that cause human disease.”
Salmonella bacteria use a variety of proteins that act as weapons to hijack and attack human cells. Despite many decades of research throughout the world, little was understood about the way that Salmonella genes that control this weapon system are switched on. Now Professor Hinton's team has used a new approach to identify the switches of the Salmonella Typhimurium genes. The exciting new findings show that Salmonella bacteria have more than 1,800 switches, called ‘promoters' and reveals how they work.
Understanding how Salmonella switches on its genes should aid the discovery of new antibiotics that will knock out the weapon systems of Salmonella and stop the bacteria causing infection.
The researchers also identified 60 new RNA molecules, called ‘small RNAs'. Some of these can actually override the switches of Salmonella genes.
“Just five years ago, we didn't realise that small RNAs played such an important role – or that the switches of so many Salmonella genes were controlled by small RNAs. Identifying these small RNAs could lead to completely new ways to prevent bacterial disease, but this will take at least a decade, ” said Professor Hinton.
Professor Hinton's team worked in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the University of Würzburg, and used several cutting edge techniques during the project, called chip-chip and RNA-seq. “I think one reason that our findings are making such impact is that this combination of the new technologies has not been used before for a bacterial pathogen” says lead author Dr Carsten Kröger.
The research was led by scientists at Trinity College Dublin, and involved the following collaborating institutions: Institute of Food Research, UK; University College Dublin, Ireland; University of Wurzburg, Germany; Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK; Technical University of Denmark.
Full title of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) article: "The transcriptional landscape and small RNAs of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium"
Normanby Visit to Department (October 27, 2011) - Extract from Communications Office
Research Laboratories Refurbished at Moyne Institute of Preventive Medicine - Communications office
The research laboratories in the east wing of the Moyne Institute of Preventive Medicine, which houses the Department of Microbiology , were recently reopened following an extensive refurbishment project funded in part by a donation of €250,000 from the Normanby Trust. To mark the occasion the chairman of the trust, Constantine Phipps, the Marquess of Normanby, visited the Moyne Institute accompanied by his wife, Nicola and son, Tom. Members of the Department of Microbiology and academic staff who occupy the research laboratories were on hand to demonstrate some of the research conducted in the laboratories.
The refurbished laboratories will house the research of Head of the Department, Dr Ursula Bond, who focuses on yeast, concentrating on industrial yeasts such as those used for making beer and lagers. In one project she is using knowledge gained from genome analysis and transcriptional profiling to understand better how yeasts function during fermentation in the manufacture of beer. Another project aims to modify yeast so that it can use cellulose waste products as a source of sugars for the production of biofuels.
Constantine Phipps, the Marquess of Normanby, with his wife, Nicola and son, Tom at the Moyne Institute of Preventive Medicine.
Lecturer in Microbiology, Dr Alastair Fleming is researching the coordination of cell rest, knows as quiescence, and controlled cell death, known as apoptosis, which represent two processes required for the correct development of organisms. Dr Fleming is using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism to study the epigenetic changes that occur during cell growth and cell death, with a view to shedding light on diseases in which these processes are aberrant, including cancer.
Science Foundation Ireland Stokes Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis, Professor Jay Hinton is investigating an exciting new class of small RNA molecules that control the ability of pathogenic Salmonella to cause disease. These bacteria have the unusual ability to survive within macrophages, one of the main types of cell involved in defending humans against microbial attack. Salmonella is responsible for severe gastroenteritis, and one particularly nasty serotype causes typhoid fever.
The Moyne Institute of Preventive Medicine was built in 1953 and was funded by a gift from Constantine's mother, Grania Guinness. Since then the Normanby Trust has funded three extensions to the building, the last being opened in 1995. The memorial plaque in the foyer of the Moyne Institute records the opening of the building in May 1953 in memory of Grania Guinness's father, the first Lord Moyne.
Dublin Academy of Pathogenomics and Infection Biology
SGM - Society for General Microbiology