Shane C Burgess

PMID: 20020041;PMCID: PMC2791215;Abstract:

Background: Attrition of students from aviation training is a serious financial and operational concern for the U.S. Navy. Each late stage navy aviator training failure costs the taxpayer over $1,000,000 and ultimately results in decreased operational readiness of the fleet. Currently, potential aviators are selected based on the Aviation Selection Test Battery (ASTB), which is a series of multiple-choice tests that evaluate basic and aviation-related knowledge and ability. However, the ASTB does not evaluate a person's response to stress. This is important because operating sophisticated aircraft demands exceptional performance and causes high psychological stress. Some people are more resistant to this type of stress, and consequently better able to cope with the demands of naval aviation, than others. Methodology/Principal Findings: Although many psychological studies have examined psychological stress resistance none have taken advantage of the human genome sequence. Here we use high-throughput -omic biology methods and a novel statistical data normalization method to identify plasma proteins associated with human performance under psychological stress. We identified proteins involved in four basic physiological processes: innate immunity, cardiac function, coagulation and plasma lipid physiology. Conclusions/Significance: The proteins identified here further elucidate the physiological response to psychological stress and suggest a hypothesis that stress-susceptible pilots may be more prone to shock. This work also provides potential biomarkers for screening humans for capability of superior performance under stress.

PMID: 15356338;PMCID: PMC518847;Abstract:

Animal models are essential for elucidating the molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis. Hodgkin's and many diverse non-Hodgkin's lymphomas overexpress the Hodgkin's disease antigen CD30 (CD30^hi), a tumor necrosis factor receptor II family member. Here we show that chicken Marek's disease (MD) lymphoma cells are also CD30^hi and are a unique natural model for CD30^hi lymphoma. Chicken CD30 resembles an ancestral form, and we identify a previously undescribed potential cytoplasmic signaling domain conserved in chicken, human, and mouse CD30. Our phylogeneic analysis defines a relationship between the structures of human and mouse CD30 and confirms that mouse CD30 represents the ancestral mammalian gene structure. CD30 expression by MD virus (MDV)-transformed lymphocytes correlates with expression of the MDV Meq putative oncogene (a c-Jun homologue) in vivo. The chicken CD30 promoter has 15 predicted high-stringency Meq-binding transcription factor recognition motifs, and Meg enhances transcription from the CD30 promoter in vitro. Plasma proteomics identified a soluble form of CD30. CD30 overexpression is evolutionarily conserved and defines one class of neoplastic transformation events, regardless of etiology. We propose that CD30 is a component of a critical intracellular signaling pathway perturbed in neoplastic transformation. Specific anti-CD30 Igs occurred after infection of genetically MD-resistant chickens with oncogenic MDV, suggesting immunity to CD30 could play a role in MD lymphoma regression.

PMID: 16571149;Abstract:

The present study evaluated the effect of dietary methionine on breast-meat accretion and protein expression in skeletal muscle of broiler chickens in vivo. All broilers received a common pre-test diet up to 21 d of age, and were subsequently fed either a methionine-deficient (MD) or -adequate (MA) diet (3.1 v. 4.5 g/kg diet) from age 21 to 42 d. Dietary cystine levels were 3.7 v. 3.6 g/kg diet for the MD and MA diet, respectively. Detrimental effects on carcass yield (P=0.004), abdominal fat percentage (P=0.001), and breast-meat weight (P=0.001), yield (P=0.001), and uniformity (P=0.002) were observed and validated in birds fed MD diets. Via tandem MS, a total of 190 individual proteins were identified from pectoralis major (PM) muscle tissue. From the former composite, peptides from three proteins were observed to be present exclusively in breast muscle from those chickens fed the MD diet (pyruvate kinase, myosin alkali light chain-1, ribosomal-protein-L-29). No proteins were observed to be uniquely expressed in chickens fed MA diets. Research is warranted to further explore the possibility of the proteins pyruate kinase, myosin alkali light chain-1, or ribosomal protein L-29, as potential biological indicators of differences in protein expression of PM of chickens in response to a dietary methionine deficiency. © The Authors 2006.

PMID: 18980092;Abstract:

Background and aim of the study: The endothelium of diseased heart valves is known to express the adhesion molecules VCAM-1, ICAM-1 and E-selectin, while healthy valves lack these pro-inflammatory proteins. The study aim was to determine if mechanical forces were responsible for the pro-inflammatory reaction in aortic valve endothelial cells. Methods: Isolated porcine aortic valve endothelial cells (PAVEC) were cultured and seeded onto BioFlex™ culture plates. The cells were exposed to equibiaxial cyclic strains of 5,10 and 20% for 24 h in a Flexcell FX-4000T™ Tension Plus system at 1 Hz. Pro-inflammatory protein expression was detected through the use of monoclonal antibodies via fluorescence-assisted cell sorting (FACS) and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). Results: Pro-inflammatory protein expression was evident at cyclic strains of 5 and 20%, while a 10% strain did not elicit an inflammatory response. Confocal images indicated a disrupted endothelial monolayer, evidence of significant cell death, and the presence of all adhesion molecules at 5% strain. PAVEC exposed to 10% cyclic strain failed to express any of the pro-inflammatory proteins, while the cellular monolayer appeared near-confluent and characteristically similar to cellular images captured prior to cyclic stretching. CLSM images of PAVEC cyclically stretched by 20% demonstrated a similar proinflammatory reaction to those with 5% strain, while the cellular environment also showed decreased monolayer integrity. FACS data showed a significant up-regulation of the membrane-bound VCAM-1-, ICAM-1- and E-selectin-positive cells at 5% and 20% strain, compared to 10% strain and controls. Conclusion: The finding that equibiaxial cyclic strain regulates the pro-inflammatory response in PAVEC suggests that alterations in the mechanical environment of heart valves may contribute to valve pathogenesis. © Copyright by ICR Publishers 2008.

PMID: 22253803;PMCID: PMC3254643;Abstract:

Background: Distinguishing between individuals is critical to those conducting animal/plant breeding, food safety/quality research, diagnostic and clinical testing, and evolutionary biology studies. Classical genetic identification studies are based on marker polymorphisms, but polymorphism-based techniques are time and labor intensive and often cannot distinguish between closely related individuals. Illumina sequencing technologies provide the detailed sequence data required for rapid and efficient differentiation of related species, lines/cultivars, and individuals in a cost-effective manner. Here we describe the use of Illumina high-throughput exome sequencing, coupled with SNP mapping, as a rapid means of distinguishing between related cultivars of the lignocellulosic bioenergy crop giant miscanthus (Miscanthus × giganteus). We provide the first exome sequence database for Miscanthus species complete with Gene Ontology (GO) functional annotations. Results: A SNP comparative analysis of rhizome-derived cDNA sequences was successfully utilized to distinguish three Miscanthus × giganteus cultivars from each other and from other Miscanthus species. Moreover, the resulting phylogenetic tree generated from SNP frequency data parallels the known breeding history of the plants examined. Some of the giant miscanthus plants exhibit considerable sequence divergence. Conclusions: Here we describe an analysis of Miscanthus in which high-throughput exome sequencing was utilized to differentiate between closely related genotypes despite the current lack of a reference genome sequence. We functionally annotated the exome sequences and provide resources to support Miscanthus systems biology. In addition, we demonstrate the use of the commercial high-performance cloud computing to do computational GO annotation. © 2012 Chouvarine et al.