The heart and the gut seem to be two organs that do not have much in common. However, there is an obvious and clinically relevant impact of gut functions on the absorption of drugs and oral therapies on the one hand. On the other hand, the gut determines the quantity of nutrient uptake and plays a central role in metabolic diseases. Patients with inflammatory bowel diseases appear to have a hig...

Because of the anatomical position and its unique vascular system, the liver is susceptible to the exposure to the microbial products from the gut. Although large amount of microbes colonize in the gut, translocation of the microbes or microbial products into the liver and systemic circulation is prevented by gut epithelial barrier function and cleansing and detoxifying functions of the liver i...

The brain is well protected against microbial invasion by cellular barriers, such as the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier (BCSFB). In addition, cells within the central nervous system (CNS) are capable of producing an immune response against invading pathogens. Nonetheless, a range of pathogenic microbes make their way to the CNS, and the resulting infections ...

The aim of the current study was to investigate the therapeutic effect of Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F multiglycosides (TWG) on gut barrier dysfunction in rats with acute necrotizing pancreatitis (ANP). ANP was induced in rats using 3.5% sodium taurocholate. The rats were divided into 3 groups: the sham operation (SO), ANP and ANP+TWG groups. Biochemical and pathological change of pancreatic t...

Although the nucleotides in tRNA required for aminoacylation are conserved in evolution, bacterial aminoacyl-transfer RNA synthetases are unable to acylate eukaryotic tRNA. The cross-species barrier may be due to the absence of eukaryote-specific domains from bacterial aminoacyl-transfer RNA synthetases. Here we show that whereas Escherichia coli CysRS cannot acylate human tRNA(Cys), the fusion...

Abstract Type-III secretion systems (T3SSs) of the bacterial flagellum and evolutionarily related injectisome are capable translocating proteins with a remarkable speed several thousand amino acids per second. Here, we investigate how T3SSs able to transport at such high rate while preventing leakage small molecules. Our mutational evolutionary analyses demonstrate that an ensemble conserved me...

We present a static microfluidic device without use of hydrogel barrier for the generation of chemical gradient. The microfluidic device allows for the analysis of bacterial chemotaxis without use of hydrogel, membrane, and pump. We demonstrate a chemotactic response to attractant and repellent by measuring of dynamic change of bacterial population in detection area. In this chemotaxis assay, b...

Background and aims: The colonic epithelium plays a key role in host defence. During colitis, epithelial function is impaired, leading to elevated bacterial translocation and exacerbation of inflammation. We previously documented perturbation of epithelial function, in terms of secretion and as a barrier to bacterial translocation, that persisted long after resolution of a bout of colitis in th...