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Full-Text Articles in Pathogenic Microbiology
Insights Into Determinants That Contribute To Colonization, Virulence And Antibiotic Resistance In Enterococci, Maria Camila Montealegre
Insights Into Determinants That Contribute To Colonization, Virulence And Antibiotic Resistance In Enterococci, Maria Camila Montealegre
Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)
Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium are increasingly common as causative agents of human infections, many of which are very difficult to treat due to multi-drug resistance. The work presented in the first part of this dissertation elucidates a mechanism for the regulation of pilus expression. I showed that ATT is the initiation codon of ebpA, the first gene of an operon that codes for the endocarditis and biofilm-associated pili (Ebp), a recognized virulence factor in E. faecalis. The presence of this rare start codon downregulates EbpA translation and protein levels, diminishing biofilm and binding abilities of …
Characterization Of The Ato Gene Family In Alternative Carbon Metabolism, Heather A. Danhof
Characterization Of The Ato Gene Family In Alternative Carbon Metabolism, Heather A. Danhof
Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)
As a commensal colonizer and opportunistic pathogen, Candida albicans is the most clinically important human associated fungus. Systemic infection carries an unacceptably high mortality rate of ~40% in the growing population of immunocompromised individuals. Macrophages are important innate immune cells that limit the niches in the human body in which C. albicans can persist through phagocytic removal. However, following phagocytosis C. albicans readily escapes from the immune cell by differentiating into filamentous hyphae, a process that should be inhibited in the normally acidic phagolysosome. We have shown that C. albicans induces germination by neutralizing the phagolysosome. To better understand this …