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Pathogenic Microbiology Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Pathogenic Microbiology

Novel Role Of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Lptd Operon, Sundar Pandey Jun 2018

Novel Role Of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Lptd Operon, Sundar Pandey

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pseudomonas aeruginosais an opportunistic pathogen that infects cystic fibrosis (CF) patients contributing to their high morbidity and mortality. P. aeruginosaundergoes a phenotypic conversion in the CF lung, from nonmucoid to mucoid, by constitutively producing a polysaccharide called alginate. These mucoid strains often revert to nonmucoid in vitrodue to second-site suppressor mutations. We hypothesized that mapping these mutations would lead to the identification of novel genes involved in alginate production. In a previous study, a mucoid strain, PDO300 (PAOmucA22), was used to isolate suppressors of alginate phenotype (sap). One of the uncharacterized nonmucoid revertants, …


Quorum Sensing Signals Produced By Heterotrophic Bacteria In Black Band Disease (Bbd) Of Corals And Their Potential Role In Bbd Pathogenesis, Chinmayee D. Bhedi Jun 2017

Quorum Sensing Signals Produced By Heterotrophic Bacteria In Black Band Disease (Bbd) Of Corals And Their Potential Role In Bbd Pathogenesis, Chinmayee D. Bhedi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Black band disease (BBD) of corals is a temperature dependent, highly virulent, polymicrobial disease affecting reef-building corals globally. The microbial consortium of BBD is primarily comprised of functional physiological groups that include photosynthetic cyanobacteria, sulfate reducers, sulfide oxidizers and a vast repertoire of heterotrophic bacteria. Quorum sensing (QS), the cell-density dependent communication phenomenon in bacteria, is known to induce expression of genes for a variety of virulence factors in diseases worldwide. Microbes capable of QS release signals such as acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) and autoinducer-2 (AI-2), which coordinate microbial interaction. The focus of the present study was to investigate the …


Phenomenological And Molecular Basis Of The Cnidarian Immune System, Tanya Brown Jun 2017

Phenomenological And Molecular Basis Of The Cnidarian Immune System, Tanya Brown

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coral reefs are one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet due partially to the habitat structure provided by corals. Corals are long lived organisms that can live for hundreds of years and as a result growth of many species is very slow. As a result of this, recovery of corals from disease outbreaks is very slow and difficult and therefore the ecosystem is deteriorating rapidly. Due to this increase in disease and its detrimental effect on coral reefs, it has become imperative to study how corals respond to disease outbreaks. The response of the coral to pathogens is …


Elucidating The Role Of Mifs-Mifr Two-Component System In Regulating Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Pathogenicity, Gorakh Digambar Tatke Nov 2016

Elucidating The Role Of Mifs-Mifr Two-Component System In Regulating Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Pathogenicity, Gorakh Digambar Tatke

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative, metabolically versatile, opportunistic pathogen that exhibits a multitude of virulence factors, and is extraordinarily resistant to a gamut of clinically significant antibiotics. This ability is in part mediated by two-component systems (TCS) that play a crucial role in regulating virulence mechanisms, metabolism and antibiotic resistance. Our sequence analysis of the P. aeruginosa PAO1 genome revealed the presence of two open reading frames, mifS and mifR, which encodes putative TCS proteins, a histidine sensor kinase MifS and a response regulator MifR, respectively. This two-gene operon was found immediately upstream of the poxAB operon, where poxB encodes …


Characterization Of The Poxab Operon Encoding A Class D Carbapenemase In Pseudomonas Aeruginosa,, Diansy Zincke Mar 2015

Characterization Of The Poxab Operon Encoding A Class D Carbapenemase In Pseudomonas Aeruginosa,, Diansy Zincke

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a dreaded opportunistic pathogen that causes severe and often intractable infections in immunocompromised and critically ill patients. This bacterium is also the primary cause of fatal lung infections in patients with cystic fibrosis and a leading nosocomial pathogen responsible for nearly 10% of all hospital-acquired infections. P. aeruginosa is intrinsically recalcitrant to most classes of antibiotics and has the ability to acquire additional resistance during treatment. In particular, resistance to the widely used β-lactam antibiotics is frequently mediated by the expression of AmpC, a chromosomally encoded β-lactamase that is ubiquitously found in P. aeruginosa strains. This dissertation …


The Roles Of Microcystin And Sulfide In Physiology And Tactic Responses Of Pathogenic And Non-Pathogenic Mat-Forming Cyanobacteria, Abigael C. Brownell Mar 2014

The Roles Of Microcystin And Sulfide In Physiology And Tactic Responses Of Pathogenic And Non-Pathogenic Mat-Forming Cyanobacteria, Abigael C. Brownell

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Planktothricoides raciborskii and Roseofilum reptotaenium are physiologically similar, yet ecologically distinct organisms found in a hot spring outflow and coral black band disease (BBD), respectively. The aim of this study was to elucidate the relationship between R. reptotaenium and sulfide in BBD, to compare microcystin (MC) production in response to environmental factors, and to determine chemotactic responses to MC and sulfide by the two organisms. Results showed that the pathogenicity of R. reptotaenium in BBD is dependent on sulfate-reducing bacteria as secondary pathogens. Roseofilum reptotaenium produced significantly more MC than P. raciborskii, as measured using ELISA. Roseofilum reptotaenium …