New month, new paper! Very happy to have this review published in Life

mdpi.com/2075-1729/13/2/396

I put together an overview of what we know about how microbes affect the physiology of cell-cell junctions in the gut (we know a bit), the blood-brain barrier (we know a little bit) and the epidermis (we know very little at all...). Hopefully it'll be useful/interesting, but the main conclusion is that there is still so much more to learn!

Professor in Neuroscience position open at Nottingham Trent University in the School of Science and Technology. Closing date for applications is 16 February 2023.

vacancies.ntu.ac.uk/Job/JobDet

#jobs #neuroscience

I needed to read this today. My New Years revolution is to live life vibrantly, like a benevolent alien.

I think it might help. 🧡

Reaching out to the #brain #science community out there! Let's say we are planning a #Wikipedia raid to improve pages of women scientists in fields related to the brain (#psychology #neuroscience #psychiatry etc). Can you think of women scientists who deserve improving or creating a Wikipedia page?

Resharing everything I ever found useful on 🐦🐤 part 3

Connected Papers!

Makes a graph of papers connected to the article you search!🔎🤓💻

connectedpapers.com/

Absolute time saver #AcademicMastodon 🐘 #lifehacks #research #academia

RT @SteveStuWill@twitter.com

Wow! Scientists have observed a single-cell alga evolve in real time into a multicellular organism. The transition took around a year and was caused by the introduction of a predator into the environment. nature.com/articles/s41598-019

🐦🔗: twitter.com/SteveStuWill/statu

The dear leader, light of a thousand suns has had some thoughts and committed them to paper. And being who he is, Nature have published those thoughts.

nature.com/articles/d41586-021

These thoughts aren't as awful as some of the thoughts he has previously had, and in fact are in opposition to what he was saying before he became president of the Royal Society.

#Research #StructuralBiology #Alphafold #DubiousCareerChoices

🧵⬇️

“The disproportionate scientific productivity of elite researchers can be largely explained by their substantial labor advantage rather than inherent differences in talent.” #AcademicMastodon #ScienceMastodon science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv

16/ Takeaway: adding research labor, eg, via targeted funding, is likely a strong policy lever for mitigating prestige-driven inequalities 📈; and, it raises an uncomfortable question: What discoveries aren't being made because non-elite faculty lack sufficient labor? 🤔

Hello, and an #introduction.

I use and integrate omics data to understand how the gut microbiota influences mammalian intestinal and systemic health. I'm particularly interested in how microbially produced metabolites interact with host metabolic pathways.

My team is looking at functional and genomic aspects of gut bacteria, especially Klebsiella and Collinsella spp.

I have a soft spot for phages.

#microbiome #NAFLD #cancer #gutbrainaxis

In vitro, brain endothelial cells exposed to haemodialysis patient serum (high in pCS) were affected in the same way as treatment with pCS: i.e. blood-brain barrier integrity was impaired. Erlotinib protected against effects seen in cells treated with patient serum.

Targeting the EGFR-mediated pathway may be useful in reducing cerebrovascular damage in chronic kidney disease.

4/4

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pCS binds to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), leading via annexin A1 and STAT3 signalling to mobilisation of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2/9.

Pre-treatment with the EGFR antagonist erlotinib or the MMP2/9 inhibitor SB-3CT prevents the damaging effects of pCS.

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Patients with #chronickidneydisease have high levels of the microbiome-associated metabolite p-cresol sulfate (pCS) in their blood.

We hypothesized this metabolite could impair the functioning of the blood-brain barrier in these patients.

Using mouse work, we were able to show suppression of neuronal activity, transcription and mitochondrial respiration pathways by pCS.

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Very pleased to see this out. Another huge effort from @SimonMcArthur and his research team.

Cerebrovascular damage caused by the gut microbe-derived uraemic toxin p-cresol sulfate is prevented by blockade of the epidermal growth factor receptor biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20

#gutbrainaxis #microbiome #metabolome #chronickidneydisease

Presenting our new preprint on the gut-brain axis in chronic kidney disease 

Very pleased to present our latest work on the mechanisms of the gut-brain axis (doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.12.516) and how the blood-brain barrier is affected in chronic kidney disease

Work was led by Sita Shah and co-authors Tobias Knausenberger, Emily Connell, Gwen Le Gall, Tom Hardy, David Randall, Kieran McCafferty, Magdi Yaqoob, Egle Solito, Michael Muller, Andrew Stachulski, Bobby Glen, David Vauzour and @BugsInYourGuts

People with CKD are at increased risk of stroke and brain blood vessel disease, but we don’t really know why. We looked at the role of the gut microbe-derived toxin p-cresol sulfate (pCS)

Using cell and mouse models we show that pCS activates the EGF receptor to cause metalloprotease release, damaging and weakening the blood-brain barrier

Importantly, we also showed that serum from patients undergoing haemodialysis for CKD damaged blood-brain barrier integrity in vitro, an effect we could block by treating with an EGF receptor inhibitor

We think this further highlights the importance of gut microbes in disease, and shows just how interlinked different organ systems are

And maybe EGF receptor inhibitors might be useful in modifying CKD stroke risk?

All of this was made possible by Alzheimer's Research UK awarding us a pilot project grant six years ago. Think we might have got a bit carried away with the amount of work we did with it, but we are incredibly grateful!

'sResearchUK

Timeline cleanse: This baby elephant messing around with an on air reporter is totally adorbs 🥰

(h/t Sheldrick Wildlife Trust)

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