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Functional Characterization Of The Cholera Toxin Promoter Of Vibrio Cholerae, Jennifer Dittmer
Functional Characterization Of The Cholera Toxin Promoter Of Vibrio Cholerae, Jennifer Dittmer
Wayne State University Dissertations
Vibrio cholerae is the bacterium responsible for the severe diarrheal disease cholera. The disease is directly caused by cholera toxin, which is secreted by the bacterium in the upper small intestinal lumen during the course of infection. Expression of cholera toxin, along with other virulence genes, is activated by the positive transcriptional regulator, ToxT. ToxT binds to DNA sequences known as toxboxes that are found within promoters of virulence genes and subsequently ToxT activates transcription. However, the toxboxes have not been previously characterized in arguably the most important virulence promoter in V. cholerae, the cholera toxin promoter (PctxAB). …
Human Cytomegalovirus Us17 Locus Fine-Tunes Innate And Intrinsic Immune Responses, Stephen James Gurczynski
Human Cytomegalovirus Us17 Locus Fine-Tunes Innate And Intrinsic Immune Responses, Stephen James Gurczynski
Wayne State University Dissertations
HCMV employs numerous strategies to combat, subvert, or co-opt host immunity. One evolutionary strategy for this involves "capture" of a host gene and then its successive duplication and divergence, forming a gene family, many of which have immunomodulatory activities. The HCMV US12 family consists of ten tandemly arranged sequence-related genes in the unique short region of the HCMV genome (US12-US21). Each gene encodes a protein possessing seven predicted transmembrane domains, and patches of sequence similarity with cellular GPCRs and the bax inhibitor-1 family of anti-apoptotic proteins. We show that one member, US17, plays an important role during virion maturation. Microarray …