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Development of an opsonophagocytic assay for the measurement of functional antibody activity against Bordetella pertussis
Brázdilová, Ludmila ; Bumba, Ladislav (advisor) ; Dráber, Peter (referee)
The Gram-negative pathogen bacterium Bordetella pertussis is the infectious agent causing pertussis or whooping cough. The infection is dangerous to infants, often being deadly if untreated. Since whole-cell pertussis vaccines have been replaced by acellular pertussis vaccines, pertussis has become the most prevalent vaccine-preventable disease in developed countries. Therefore, the development of a new generation of pertussis vaccines has become a high priority. Opsonophagocytic assays are one method used to assess the efficacy of new vaccines. The main objective of the thesis is to develop opsonophagocytic killing and uptake assays for the measurement of functional antibody activity against Bordetella pertussis. Neutrophils from mice and humans were isolated by three different methods and used for the assessment of different human and mouse sera in opsonophagocytic killing and uptake assays. Different experimental conditions were tested, including multiplicity of infection and serum dilutions. The opsonophagocytic uptake assay proved to discriminate between naïve and immune sera. Serum from mice vaccinated with the whole-cell pertussis vaccine enhanced opsonophagocytic uptake of B. pertussis cells into neutrophils, while serum from mice immunized with the acellular pertussis vaccine did not....
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Somatic driver mutations during early differentiation of bladder carcinoma cell of origin
Brázdilová, Ludmila ; Drbal, Karel (advisor) ; Láníková, Lucie (referee)
A normal healthy cell traves through different routes to become a tumor cell, which according to the cell-of-origin theory initiates the whole tumor. Deregulation of cell processes by somatic mutations directs the cell into transformation. To this day, many mutations that cause a tumor phenotype, termed driver mutations, have been identified by genomic and targeted analyses. Not only for optimal therapy management but also for the prediction of disease progression the detection of driver mutations accumulating in the cell of origin of a specific tumor is very important. This thesis is focused on driver mutations of bladder carcinoma cell of origin, which is a tumor with a high mutation load. Bladder carcinomas compose a very heterogeneous group of tumors, having phenotype parallels in many other carcinomas, such as breast cancer. The driver mutations could be used as diagnostic and prognostic markers, but are not yet used in clinical practice. This thesis intends to summarize known findings about bladder carcinoma tumor initiation, based on understanding its cell of origin. Further characterisation of important driver mutations in bladder carcinoma and a comparison to other carcinomas is shown here, with respect to their molecular classification.
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