Alice Kane

@alicekane.bsky.social

Ling/Obrzut Assistant Professor at the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in Seattle. Originally from Australia, now in the US. Interested in frailty, aging, epigenetics and mouse models.

Why do current diagnostics struggle to detect Lyme disease? Our new preprint reveals highly localized immune responses: tissue and vascular responses dominate, while peripheral activation is minimal. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #LymeDisease #Multiomics #Immunology A thread ⬇️

Multiomics Reveals Compartmentalized Immune Responses and Tissue-Vascular Signatures in Lyme Disease

Lyme disease (LD) is growing in incidence, with nearly 500,000 cases diagnosed annually in the United States. Despite treatment, some patients experience persistent symptoms. The immune mechanisms underlying LD remain poorly understood. We conducted a multiomic longitudinal analysis of 49 LD patients and matched controls, integrating plasma proteomics, metabolomics, PBMC immunophenotyping, and a meta-analysis of skin lesions. We identified compartmentalized immune responses in acute LD, with coordinated alterations in circulating plasma proteins and metabolites linked to endothelial barrier stability, metabolic reprogramming, and symptom severity, predominantly traced to tissue and vascular immune processes at the site of infection. In contrast, PBMCs remained largely quiescent, revealing a disconnect between localized tissue responses and systemic immunity. These findings provide novel insights into LD pathophysiology and highlight the potential for diagnostics leveraging tissue and vascular immune markers detectable in blood. They also provide a resource for biomarker discovery and predictive modeling to improve LD management. ### Competing Interest Statement CR, AB, HH, LP, MEB, DC, CL, ASA, BS, KS, PT, KW, NR, LH, and NS declare no competing financial interests. GPW reports receiving research grants from Biopeptides Corp., has served as an expert witness in malpractice cases involving Lyme disease, and is an unpaid board member of the non-profit American Lyme Disease Foundation. United States Department of Defense, https://ror.org/0447fe631, W81XWH2110664 Wilke Family Foundation Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation Global Lyme Alliance, https://ror.org/05tzrqq19

biorxiv.org

Data request! Do you assess frailty index in your aging C57 mouse studies? @dantong-zhu.bsky.social is making new and improved clocks to predict age and lifespan based on frailty data & we aim to validate widely! Reach out if you want to collaborate 🐀👵⏰ Especially if you have female data + lifespan!

Introducing "Metagenomic Estimation of Dietary Intake", or "MEDI": a data-driven approach to estimating dietary and nutritional intake from stool DNA 💩 - 🍌🥦🐟🥩📈 See @cdiener.com's excellent thread below. We are really proud of this work, and we hope it is useful to the scientific community.

Christian Diener@cdiener.com · last yr.

Happy to announce that MEDI, our method to quantify dietary intake through metagenomics is out now. 🧬 🧪🧫🦠 www.nature.com/articles/s42... #metagenomics #microbiome #microbiomesky So what is MEDI? A combination of two things:

Interested in doing a PhD in Austria focused on understanding how to engineer the composition of the gut microbiota? Want to work with a brilliant computational biologist and microbiome researcher? See below!

Christian Diener@cdiener.com · last yr.

Hi, we have an open PhD position in our lab starting winter 2025. Join the great MolMed PhD program at a vibrant research institution and help us understand probiotic engraftment. More info at www.dienerlab.com/posts/phd2025/ . Application through the MedUni portal: phd-recruiting.medunigraz.at