Scholars@Duke
Trevor Deon Burt

Trevor Deon Burt

Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Pediatrics, Neonatology
trevor.burt@duke.edu
Box 2739 Med Ctr, Durham, NC 27710
207 Research Dr., Edwin Jones Bldg., Room #208, Durham, NC 27710

Selected Publications

Impact of air pollution exposure on cytokines and histone modification profiles at single-cell levels during pregnancy.

Journal Article Sci Adv · November 29, 2024 Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure can induce immune system pathology via epigenetic modification, affecting pregnancy outcomes. Our study investigated the association between PM2.5 exposure and immune response, as well as epigenetic changes using hi ... Full text Link to item Cite

In utero human cytomegalovirus infection expands NK-like FcγRIII+CD8+ T cells that mediate Fc antibody functions.

Journal Article J Clin Invest · November 12, 2024 Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) profoundly impacts host T and NK cells across the lifespan, yet how this common congenital infection modulates developing fetal immune cell compartments remains underexplored. Using cord blood from neonates with and without con ... Full text Link to item Cite

Subventricular zone stem cell niche injury is associated with intestinal perforation in preterm infants and predicts future motor impairment.

Journal Article Cell Stem Cell · April 4, 2024 Brain injury is highly associated with preterm birth. Complications of prematurity, including spontaneous or necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC)-associated intestinal perforations, are linked to lifelong neurologic impairment, yet the mechanisms are poorly und ... Full text Link to item Cite

An updated management approach of Pompe disease patients with high-sustained anti-rhGAA IgG antibody titers: experience with bortezomib-based immunomodulation.

Journal Article Front Immunol · 2024 INTRODUCTION: High sustained anti-rhGAA antibody titers (HSAT; ≥12,800) are directly linked to reduced efficacy of enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) and subsequent clinical deterioration in infantile-onset Pompe disease (IOPD). We have previously demonstrat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Homeostatic cytokines reciprocally modulate the emergence of prenatal effector PLZF+CD4+ T cells in humans.

Journal Article JCI Insight · November 22, 2023 The development of human prenatal adaptive immunity progresses faster than previously appreciated, with the emergence of memory CD4+ T cells alongside regulatory T cells by midgestation. We previously identified a prenatal specific population of promyelocy ... Full text Link to item Cite

Human fetal T cells: Insights into developmental specialization and mechanisms of lineage transition.

Journal Article Immunol Rev · May 2023 The switch from primitive to definitive hematopoiesis occurs early in development through the emergence of a wave of definitive hematopoietic stem cells from intraembryonic sites, supplanting the original primitive population of extraembryonically derived ... Full text Link to item Cite

Immunophenotype associated with high sustained antibody titers against enzyme replacement therapy in infantile-onset Pompe disease.

Journal Article Front Immunol · 2023 INTRODUCTION: The efficacy of enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) with alglucosidase alfa for infantile-onset Pompe disease (IOPD) is limited in some patients due to the development of high and sustained antibody titers (HSAT; ≥12,800). METHODS: We carried ou ... Full text Link to item Cite

Heritable vaginal bacteria influence immune tolerance and relate to early-life markers of allergic sensitization in infancy.

Journal Article Cell Rep Med · August 16, 2022 Maternal asthma status, prenatal exposures, and infant gut microbiota perturbation are associated with heightened risk of atopy and asthma risk in childhood, observations hypothetically linked by intergenerational microbial transmission. Using maternal vag ... Full text Link to item Cite

Increases in ambient air pollutants during pregnancy are linked to increases in methylation of IL4, IL10, and IFNγ.

Journal Article Clin Epigenetics · March 14, 2022 BACKGROUND: Ambient air pollutant (AAP) exposure is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preeclampsia, preterm labor, and low birth weight. Previous studies have shown methylation of immune genes associate with exposure to air pollutants in ... Full text Link to item Cite

dittoSeq: universal user-friendly single-cell and bulk RNA sequencing visualization toolkit.

Journal Article Bioinformatics · April 1, 2021 SUMMARY: A visualization suite for major forms of bulk and single-cell RNAseq data in R. dittoSeq is color blindness-friendly by default, robustly documented to power ease-of-use and allows highly customizable generation of both daily-use and publication-q ... Full text Link to item Cite

Single-cell transcriptional profiling of human thymic stroma uncovers novel cellular heterogeneity in the thymic medulla.

Journal Article Nat Commun · February 17, 2021 The thymus' key function in the immune system is to provide the necessary environment for the development of diverse and self-tolerant T lymphocytes. While recent evidence suggests that the thymic stroma is comprised of more functionally distinct subpopula ... Full text Link to item Cite

Single-Cell Mapping of Progressive Fetal-to-Adult Transition in Human Naive T Cells.

Journal Article Cell Rep · January 5, 2021 Whereas the human fetal immune system is poised to generate immune tolerance and suppress inflammation in utero, an adult-like immune system emerges to orchestrate anti-pathogen immune responses in post-natal life. It has been posited that cells of the adu ... Full text Link to item Cite

Viable bacterial colonization is highly limited in the human intestine in utero.

Journal Article Nat Med · April 2020 Mucosal immunity develops in the human fetal intestine by 11-14 weeks of gestation, yet whether viable microbes exist in utero and interact with the intestinal immune system is unknown. Bacteria-like morphology was identified in pockets of human fetal meco ... Full text Link to item Cite

Understanding Early-Life Adaptive Immunity to Guide Interventions for Pediatric Health.

Journal Article Front Immunol · 2020 Infants are capable of mounting adaptive immune responses, but their ability to develop long-lasting immunity is limited. Understanding the particularities of the neonatal adaptive immune system is therefore critical to guide the design of immune-based int ... Full text Link to item Cite

Helios enhances the preferential differentiation of human fetal CD4+ naïve T cells into regulatory T cells.

Journal Article Sci Immunol · November 22, 2019 T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation and cytokine cues drive the differentiation of CD4+ naïve T cells into effector T cell populations with distinct proinflammatory or regulatory functions. Unlike adult naïve T cells, human fetal naïve CD4+ T cells preferent ... Full text Link to item Cite

Landscape of stimulation-responsive chromatin across diverse human immune cells.

Journal Article Nat Genet · October 2019 A hallmark of the immune system is the interplay among specialized cell types transitioning between resting and stimulated states. The gene regulatory landscape of this dynamic system has not been fully characterized in human cells. Here we collected assay ... Full text Link to item Cite

CD161 contributes to prenatal immune suppression of IFNγ-producing PLZF+ T cells.

Journal Article J Clin Invest · May 30, 2019 BACKGROUND: While the human fetal immune system defaults to a program of tolerance, there is concurrent need for protective immunity to meet the antigenic challenges encountered after birth. Activation of T cells in utero is associated with the fetal infla ... Full text Link to item Cite

In utero priming of highly functional effector T cell responses to human malaria.

Journal Article Sci Transl Med · October 17, 2018 Malaria remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, particularly in infants and children. Some studies have reported that exposure to malaria antigens in utero results in the development of tolerance, which could contribute to poor im ... Full text Link to item Cite

Anti-TNF and thiopurine therapy in pregnant IBD patients does not significantly alter a panel of B-cell and T-cell subsets in 1-year-old infants.

Journal Article Clin Transl Gastroenterol · April 3, 2018 OBJECTIVES: Infants exposed to combination therapy with anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) agents and thiopurines may exhibit increased infections at 1 year of age compared to unexposed infants. We hypothesized that this increased risk of infection is d ... Full text Link to item Cite

Lin28b Regulates Fetal Regulatory T Cell Differentiation through Modulation of TGF-β Signaling.

Journal Article J Immunol · December 1, 2016 Immune tolerance between the fetus and mother represents an active process by which the developing fetus must not mount immune responses to noninherited Ags on chimeric maternal cells that reside in fetal tissue. This is, in part, mediated by the suppressi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Distinct functional programming of human fetal and adult monocytes.

Journal Article Blood · March 20, 2014 Preterm birth affects 1 out of 9 infants in the United States and is the leading cause of long-term neurologic handicap and infant mortality, accounting for 35% of all infant deaths in 2008. Although cytokines including interferon-γ (IFN-γ), interleukin-10 ... Full text Link to item Cite

Levels of circulating myeloid subpopulations and of heme oxygenase-1 do not predict CD4(+) T cell recovery after the initiation of antiretroviral therapy for HIV disease.

Journal Article AIDS Res Ther · 2014 The level (or frequency) of circulating monocyte subpopulations such as classical (CD14(hi)CD16(-)) and non-classical (CD14(dim)CD16(+)) monocytes varies during the course of HIV disease progression and antiretroviral therapy (ART). We hypothesized that su ... Full text Link to item Cite

Fetal regulatory T cells and peripheral immune tolerance in utero: implications for development and disease.

Journal Article Am J Reprod Immunol · April 2013 The developing fetus must actively learn to tolerate benign antigens or suffer the consequences of broken tolerance. Tolerance of self-antigens prevents development of autoimmune diseases and is achieved by both deletion of autoreactive T cell clones in th ... Full text Link to item Cite

Variations in the heme oxygenase-1 microsatellite polymorphism are associated with plasma CD14 and viral load in HIV-infected African-Americans.

Journal Article Genes Immun · April 2012 Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is an anti-inflammatory enzyme that maintains homeostasis during cellular stress. Given previous findings that shorter length variants of a HO-1 promoter region GT(n) microsatellite polymorphism are associated with increased HO-1 ex ... Full text Link to item Cite

Fetal and adult hematopoietic stem cells give rise to distinct T cell lineages in humans.

Journal Article Science · December 17, 2010 Although the mammalian immune system is generally thought to develop in a linear fashion, findings in avian and murine species argue instead for the developmentally ordered appearance (or "layering") of distinct hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that give ri ... Full text Link to item Cite

Naive human T cells are activated and proliferate in response to the heme oxygenase-1 inhibitor tin mesoporphyrin.

Journal Article J Immunol · November 1, 2010 Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and its catabolic by-products have potent anti-inflammatory activity in many models of disease. It is not known, however, if HO-1 also plays a role in the homeostatic control of T cell activation and proliferation. We demonstrate he ... Full text Link to item Cite

Maternal alloantigens promote the development of tolerogenic fetal regulatory T cells in utero.

Journal Article Science · December 5, 2008 As the immune system develops, T cells are selected or regulated to become tolerant of self antigens and reactive against foreign antigens. In mice, the induction of such tolerance is thought to be attributable to the deletion of self-reactive cells. Here, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Apolipoprotein (apo) E4 enhances HIV-1 cell entry in vitro, and the APOE epsilon4/epsilon4 genotype accelerates HIV disease progression.

Journal Article Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · June 24, 2008 Originally recognized for their role in lipoprotein metabolism and cardiovascular disease, apolipoprotein (apo) E isoforms (apoE2, apoE3, and apoE4) have also been implicated to play a key role in several biological processes not directly related to their ... Full text Link to item Cite

Increased circulating interleukin-7 levels in HIV-1-infected women.

Journal Article J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr · December 15, 2005 Sex-based differences in CD4 T-cell (CD4) counts are well recognized, but the basis for these differences has not been identified. Conceivably, homeostatic factors may play a role in this process by regulating T-cell maintenance and repletion. Interleukin ... Full text Link to item Cite

Medial smooth muscle cell loss in arterial allografts occurs by cytolytic cell induced apoptosis.

Journal Article Eur J Cardiothorac Surg · July 1998 OBJECTIVE: Experimental arterial allografts, used as models of chronic rejection, undergo marked loss of smooth muscle cells (SMC) from their media prior to the development of occlusive, intimal proliferative lesions. Medial SMC loss has been described in ... Full text Link to item Cite