Biomedical subjects

Jean-Pierre Levraud

Publications and source records attributed to Jean-Pierre Levraud.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Imaging early macrophage differentiation, migration, and behaviors in live zebrafish embryos.

Because zebrafish embryos are transparent, cell behaviors and interactions can be directly imaged noninvasively in live embryos using differential interference contrast-Nomarski light microscopy. We found that the imaging quality can be much improved by coupling differential interference contrast-Nomarski to true (analogical) color video so as to visualize the image in real time on a high-resolution colour video monitor. We explain here how to apply this approach to the in vivo imaging of embryonic macrophages, which constitute a distinct early macrophage lineage, that originates from the rostral-most lateral mesoderm--adjacent to the cardiac field, differentiate in the yolk sac, and rapidly spread in embryonic tissues, although still retaining proliferative capacity.

Animals↗

PubMed2003

Developmental cell death in dictyostelium does not require paracaspase.

Apoptotic cell death often requires caspases. Caspases are part of a family of related molecules including also paracaspases and metacaspases. Are molecules of this family generally involved in cell death? More specifically, do non-apoptotic caspase-independent types of cell death require paracaspases or metacaspases? Dictyostelium discoideum lends itself well to answering these questions because 1) it undergoes non-apoptotic developmental cell death of a vacuolar autophagic type and 2) it bears neither caspase nor metacaspase genes and apparently only one paracaspase gene. This only paracaspase gene can be inactivated by homologous recombination. Paracaspase-null clones were thus obtained in each of four distinct Dictyostelium strains. These clones were tested in two systems, developmental stalk cell death in vivo and vacuolar autophagic cell death in a monolayer system mimicking developmental cell death. Compared with parent cells, all of the paracaspase-null cells showed unaltered cell death in both test systems. In addition, paracaspase inactivation led to no alteration in development or interaction with a range of bacteria. Thus, in Dictyostelium, vacuolar programmed cell death in development and in a monolayer model in vitro would seem not to require paracaspase. To our knowledge, this is the first instance of developmental programmed cell death shown to be independent of any caspase, paracaspase or metacaspase. These results have implications as to the relationship in evolution between cell death and the caspase family.

Animals↗

PubMed2003

Dictyostelium cell death: early emergence and demise of highly polarized paddle cells.

Cell death in the stalk of Dictyostelium discoideum, a prototypic vacuolar cell death, can be studied in vitro using cells differentiating as a monolayer. To identify early events, we examined potentially dying cells at a time when the classical signs of Dictyostelium cell death, such as heavy vacuolization and membrane lesions, were not yet apparent. We observed that most cells proceeded through a stereotyped series of differentiation stages, including the emergence of "paddle" cells showing high motility and strikingly marked subcellular compartmentalization with actin segregation. Paddle cell emergence and subsequent demise with paddle-to-round cell transition may be critical to the cell death process, as they were contemporary with irreversibility assessed through time-lapse videos and clonogenicity tests. Paddle cell demise was not related to formation of the cellulose shell because cells where the cellulose-synthase gene had been inactivated underwent death indistinguishable from that of parental cells. A major subcellular alteration at the paddle-to-round cell transition was the disappearance of F-actin. The Dictyostelium vacuolar cell death pathway thus does not require cellulose synthesis and includes early actin rearrangements (F-actin segregation, then depolymerization), contemporary with irreversibility, corresponding to the emergence and demise of highly polarized paddle cells.

Actins↗

PubMed2003

Cell-death alternative model organisms: why and which?

Classical model organisms have helped greatly in our understanding of cell death but, at the same time, might have constrained it. The use of other, non-classical model organisms from all biological kingdoms could reveal undetected molecular pathways and better-defined morphological types of cell death. Here we discuss what is known and what might be learned from these alternative model systems.

Animals↗

PubMed2000

Characterization and localization of the neonatal Fc receptor in adult human kidney.

The binding of Fc fragments of Ig on glomerular epithelial cells (GEC) was observed previously, but the receptor could not be identified. In immunofluorescence and immunohistochemical studies using normal adult human kidney sections, the presence of the so-called neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn) was demonstrated on GEC as well as in the brush border of proximal tubular cells. FcRn transcripts were also detected on isolated glomeruli by reverse transcription-PCR. Using an immortalized GEC line, the presence of the FcRn was confirmed by flow cytometry, reverse transcription-PCR, Western blotting, and by the pH dependence of the binding of heat-aggregated IgG. Because it is well established that the FcRn is involved in IgG transcytosis, it is hypothesized that the FcRn in the kidney may play a role in the reabsorption of IgG. Ongoing studies should clarify the role of the FcRn as a potential target for immune complexes on GEC and should assess its relevance in physiology and pathology.

Adult↗