Digital Commons Network^™

Clinical And Microbiological Aspects Of Linezolid Resistance Mediated By The Cfr Gene Encoding A 23s Rrna Methyltransferase, Cesar A Arias, Martha Vallejo, Jinnethe Reyes, Diana Panesso, Jaime Moreno, Elizabeth Castañeda, Maria V Villegas, Barbara E Murray, John P Quinn

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The cfr (chloramphenicol-florfenicol resistance) gene encodes a 23S rRNA methyltransferase that confers resistance to linezolid. Detection of linezolid resistance was evaluated in the first cfr-carrying human hospital isolate of linezolid and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (designated MRSA CM-05) by dilution and diffusion methods (including Etest). The presence of cfr was investigated in isolates of staphylococci colonizing the patient's household contacts and clinical isolates recovered from patients in the same unit where MRSA CM-05 was isolated. Additionally, 68 chloramphenicol-resistant Colombian MRSA isolates recovered from hospitals between 2001 and 2004 were screened for the presence of the cfr gene. In addition to erm(B), …

Cryo-Electron Tomography Of Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Capsids Reveals Dynamic Scaffolding Structures Essential To Capsid Assembly And Maturation, Binbin Deng, Christine M O'Connor, Dean H Kedes, Z Hong Zhou

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is a recently discovered DNA tumor virus that belongs to the gamma-herpesvirus subfamily. Though numerous studies on KSHV and other herpesviruses, in general, have revealed much about their multilayered organization and capsid structure, the herpesvirus capsid assembly and maturation pathway remains poorly understood. Structural variability or irregularity of the capsid internal scaffolding core and the lack of adequate tools to study such structures have presented major hurdles to earlier investigations employing more traditional cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) single particle reconstruction. In this study, we used cryo-electron tomography (cryoET) to obtain 3D reconstructions of individual KSHV capsids, allowing …

Unique Structures In A Tumor Herpesvirus Revealed By Cryo-Electron Tomography And Microscopy, Wei Dai, Qingmei Jia, Eric Bortz, Sanket Shah, Jun Liu, Ivo Atanasov, Xudong Li, Kenneth A Taylor, Ren Sun, Z Hong Zhou

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Gammaherpesviruses, including the human pathogens Epstein-Barr virus and Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, are causative agents of lymphomas and other malignancies. The structural characterization of these viruses has been limited due to difficulties in obtaining adequate amount of virion particles. Here we report the first three-dimensional structural characterization of a whole gammaherpesvirus virion by an emerging integrated approach of cryo-electron tomography combined with single-particle cryo-electron microscopy, using murine gammaherpesvirus-68 (MHV-68) as a model system. We found that the MHV-68 virion consists of distinctive envelope and tegument compartments, and a highly conserved nucleocapsid. Two layers of tegument are identified: an inner tegument layer …

Sp1 Up-Regulates Camp-Response-Element-Binding Protein Expression During Retinoic Acid-Induced Mucous Differentiation Of Normal Human Bronchial Epithelial Cells, Jeong Soo Hong, Seung-Wook Kim, Ja Seok Koo

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

CREB [CRE (cAMP-response element)-binding protein] is an important transcription factor that is differentially regulated in cells of various types. We recently reported that RA (retinoic acid) rapidly activates CREB without using RARs (RA receptors) or RXRs (retinoid X receptors) in NHTBE cells (normal human tracheobronchial epithelial cells). However, little is known about the role of RA in the physiological regulation of CREB expression in the early mucous differentiation of NHTBE cells. In the present study, we report that RA up-regulates CREB gene expression and that, using 5'-serial deletion promoter analysis and mutagenesis analyses, two Sp1 (specificity protein 1)-binding sites located …

Save The Date: Digital Discovery Conference, March 27, 2008 Vol.6 (1) January - February 2008, Houston Academy Of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

The Insider (2003-2008)

No abstract provided.

Save The Date Digital Discovery Conference, Houston Academy Of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

Insider Express (2003-2013)

No abstract provided.

Medulloblastomas Overexpress The P53-Inactivating Oncogene Wip1/Ppm1d, Robert C. Castellino, Massimiliano De Bortoli, Xiongbin Lu, Sung-Hwan Moon, Thuy-Ai Nguyen, Mark A. Shepard, Pulivarthi H. Rao, Lawrence A. Donehower, John Y H Kim

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor of childhood. Despite numerous advances, clinical challenges range from recurrent and progressive disease to long-term toxicities in survivors. The lack of more effective, less toxic therapies results from our limited understanding of medulloblastoma growth. Although TP53 is the most commonly altered gene in cancers, it is rarely mutated in medulloblastoma. Accumulating evidence, however, indicates that TP53 pathways are disrupted in medulloblastoma. Wild-type p53-induced phosphatase 1 (WIP1 or PPM1D) encodes a negative regulator of p53. WIP1 amplification (17q22-q23) and its overexpression have been reported in diverse cancer types. We examined primary medulloblastoma specimens …

Dissociation Predicts Later Attention Problems In Sexually Abused Children, Julie B Kaplow, Erin Hall, Karestan C Koenen, Kenneth A Dodge, Lisa Amaya-Jackson

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

OBJECTIVE: The goals of this research are to develop and test a prospective model of attention problems in sexually abused children that includes fixed variables (e.g., gender), trauma, and disclosure-related pathways.

METHODS: At Time 1, fixed variables, trauma variables, and stress reactions upon disclosure were assessed in 156 children aged 8-13 years. At the Time 2 follow-up (8-36 months following the initial interview), 56 of the children were assessed for attention problems.

RESULTS: A path analysis involving a series of hierarchically nested, ordinary least squares multiple regression analyses indicated two direct paths to attention problems including the child's relationship to …

Molecular Studies In Treponema Pallidum Evolution: Toward Clarity?, Connie J. Mulligan, Steven J. Norris, Sheila A. Lukehart

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Caring Minds, University Of Texas Health Science Center At Houston School Of Nursing

Caring Minds

• DEAN’S MESSAGE
• CELEBRATING 35 YEARS
• AKERS SCHOLARSHIP ENDOWMENT
• NANCY B. WILLERSON ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIP
• PARTNERS LUNCHEON
• UT PARTNERS WITH ALDINE ISD
• THE FUTURE IS HERE
• RETIRED PHYSICIANS SHARE YEARS OF KNOWLEDGE
• CARING FOR BABIES
• RESEARCH STARS
• CENTER ON AGING VIDEOS/ALUMNI NEWS
• FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP

Ic107: Program: 11th Biennial Symposium On Minorities, The Medically Underserved & Cancer. Charting A New Course Together, Quality Health Care For All, Intercultural Cancer Council

Informational and Promotional Materials

Program details the events, speakers, attendees, and discussions during the 11th Biennial Symposium on Minorities, the Medically Underserved & Cancer presented by Intercultural Cancer Council and jointly sponsored by Baylor College of Medicine. The symposium took place April 3-6, 2008 at the OMNI Shoreham in Washington, DC. See more at Intercultural Cancer Council Records.

Gsbs News, Winter 2008, Graduate School Of Biomedical Sciences, University Of Texas Health Science Center At Houston/M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

GSBS News

No abstract provided.

Devices In Heart Failure: Potential Methods For Device-Based Monitoring Of Congestive Heart Failure, Shahzeb M Munir, Roberta C Bogaev, Ed Sobash, K J Shankar, Sreedevi Gondi, Igor V Stupin, Jillian Robertson, M Alan Brewer, S Ward Casscells, Reynolds M Delgado, Amany Ahmed

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Congestive heart failure has long been one of the most serious medical conditions in the United States; in fact, in the United States alone, heart failure accounts for 6.5 million days of hospitalization each year. One important goal of heart-failure therapy is to inhibit the progression of congestive heart failure through pharmacologic and device-based therapies. Therefore, there have been efforts to develop device-based therapies aimed at improving cardiac reserve and optimizing pump function to meet metabolic requirements. The course of congestive heart failure is often worsened by other conditions, including new-onset arrhythmias, ischemia and infarction, valvulopathy, decompensation, end-organ damage, and …

Annual Report 2007-2008, Houston Academy Of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

Annual Reports: 1943 - Present

This file contains the Annual Report for the library from 2007-2008.

Ms 123 Guide To The Women Physicians (1855-1996), John P. Mcgovern Historical Collections & Research Center

Manuscript Finding Aids

This collection includes newspaper clippings, medical license update cards, copies of journal articles and book chapters, and other material relating to women in medicine, and female doctors in Texas in the 19th and early 20th centuries. See more at MS 123.

Juvenile Onset Central Nervous System Folate Deficiency And Rheumatoid Arthritis, Mary Kay Koenig, Maria Perez, Sheldon Rothenberg, Ian J Butler

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Isolated cerebral folate deficiency was detected in a 13-year-old girl with cognitive and motor difficulties and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Her serum contains autoantibodies that block membrane-bound folate receptors that are on the choroid plexus and diminish the uptake of folate into the spinal fluid. Whereas her serum folate exceeded 21 ng/mL, her spinal fluid contained 3.2 ng/mL of 5-methyltetrahydrofolate as a consequence of the autoantibodies diminishing the uptake of this folate.

Dominance Of The Proximal Coordinate Frame In Determining The Locations Of Hippocampal Place Cell Activity During Navigation, Jennifer J Siegel, Joshua P Neunuebel, James J Knierim

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The place-specific activity of hippocampal cells provides downstream structures with information regarding an animal's position within an environment and, perhaps, the location of goals within that environment. In rodents, recent research has suggested that distal cues primarily set the orientation of the spatial representation, whereas the boundaries of the behavioral apparatus determine the locations of place activity. The current study was designed to address possible biases in some previous research that may have minimized the likelihood of observing place activity bound to distal cues. Hippocampal single-unit activity was recorded from six freely moving rats as they were trained to perform …

The Role Of Sse1 In The De Novo Formation And Variant Determination Of The [Psi+] Prion, Jaou-Chen Huang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

In several species, a family of nuclear receptors, the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) composed of three isotypes, is expressed in somatic cells and germ cells of the ovary as well as the testis. Invalidation of these receptors in mice or stimulation of these receptors in vivo or in vitro showed that each receptor has physiological roles in the gamete maturation or the embryo development. In addition, synthetic PPAR gamma ligands are recently used to induce ovulation in women with polycystic ovary disease. These results reveal the positive actions of PPAR in reproduction. On the other hand, xenobiotics molecules (in herbicides, …

Searching For The Majority: Algorithms Of Voluntary Control, Jin Fan, Kevin G. Guise, Xun Liu, Hongbin Wang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Voluntary control of information processing is crucial to allocate resources and prioritize the processes that are most important under a given situation; the algorithms underlying such control, however, are often not clear. We investigated possible algorithms of control for the performance of the majority function, in which participants searched for and identified one of two alternative categories (left or right pointing arrows) as composing the majority in each stimulus set. We manipulated the amount (set size of 1, 3, and 5) and content (ratio of left and right pointing arrows within a set) of the inputs to test competing hypotheses …

Halloween Open House, Vol.5 (6) November - December 2007, Houston Academy Of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

The Insider (2003-2008)

No abstract provided.

Fund Raising, Vol.21 (2) October - December 2007, Houston Academy Of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

Library Lines (1998-2009)

No abstract provided.

Illusory Predictors: Generalizability Of Findings In Cocaine Treatment Retention Research, Angela L Stotts, Marc E Mooney, Shelly L Sayre, Meredith Novy, Joy M Schmitz, John Grabowski

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Treatment retention is of paramount importance in cocaine treatment research as treatment completion rates are often 50% or less. Failure to retain cocaine patients in treatment has both significant research and clinical implications. In this paper we qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrate the inconsistency found across analyses of retention predictors in order to highlight the problem. First, a qualitative review of the published literature was undertaken to identify the frequency of predictors studied and their relations to treatment retention. Second, an empirical demonstration of predictor stability was conducted by testing a common set of variables across three similar 12-week cocaine clinical …

Neurogranin Controls The Spatiotemporal Pattern Of Postsynaptic Ca2+/Cam Signaling, Yoshihisa Kubota, John A Putkey, M Neal Waxham

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Neurogranin (Ng) is a postsynaptic IQ-motif containing protein that accelerates Ca(2+) dissociation from calmodulin (CaM), a key regulator of long-term potentiation and long-term depression in CA1 pyramidal neurons. The exact physiological role of Ng, however, remains controversial. Two genetic knockout studies of Ng showed opposite outcomes in terms of the induction of synaptic plasticity. To understand its function, we test the hypothesis that Ng could regulate the spatial range of action of Ca(2+)/CaM based on its ability to accelerate the dissociation of Ca(2+) from CaM. Using a mathematical model constructed on the known biochemistry of Ng, we calculate the cycle …

Ms 096 Guide To Ernst Knobil, Phd Papers (1942-2000), Ernst Knobil (1926-2000)

Manuscript Finding Aids

The notebooks from Dr. Knobil's research laboratories comprise the largest series (X). General Files, Series IV, contains material including correspondence, lectures and speeches from the early 1980s to 2000. It was retained in the alphabetical order it was received. Material in Series II was labeled Harvard and deals primarily with Dr. Knobil's tenure at Harvard University in the 1950s. Material about his Deanship of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston can be found in Series III and IV. See more at MS 096.

Ms 112 Guide To The Joseph L. Belsky, Md Papers (1947-1996), Joseph L. Belsky M.D.

Manuscript Finding Aids

Dr. Joseph Lewis Belsky was Chief of Medicine for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), a committee formed to study the long-term effects of radiation exposure on the residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan, from 1969-1972. (The ABCC was subsequently renamed the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF)). See more at MS 112.

Ms 113 Guide To Raymond D. Pruitt Papers (1930-1993), Raymond D. Pruitt (1912-1993)

Manuscript Finding Aids

The bulk of the Raymond D. Pruitt Papers consists of original manuscripts and/or copies of his professional and personal writings. A bibliography compiled from his curriculum vitae, documents in the papers and a PubMed search is provided. The major portion of his published and non-published documents cited in the bibliography are in this collection. Also included are photographs used in some of the printed articles and correspondence about some of his writings. See more at MS 113.

Wingless Activity In The Precursor Cells Specifies Neuronal Migratory Behavior In The Drosophila Nerve Cord, Krishna Moorthi Bhat

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Neurons and their precursor cells are formed in different regions within the developing CNS, but they migrate and occupy very specific sites in the mature CNS. The ultimate position of neurons is crucial for establishing proper synaptic connectivity in the brain. In Drosophila, despite its extensive use as a model system to study neurogenesis, we know almost nothing about neuronal migration or its regulation. In this paper, I show that one of the most studied neuronal pairs in the Drosophila nerve cord, RP2/sib, has a complicated migratory route. Based on my studies on Wingless (Wg) signaling, I report that the …

Insider Express, Houston Academy Of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

Insider Express (2003-2013)

No abstract provided.

Is A 3-Mm Intrafractional Margin Sufficient For Daily Image-Guided Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy Of Prostate Cancer?, Adam D Melancon, Jennifer C O'Daniel, Lifei Zhang, Rajat J Kudchadker, Deborah A Kuban, Andrew K Lee, Rex M Cheung, Renaud De Crevoisier, Susan L Tucker, Wayne D Newhauser, Radhe Mohan, Lei Dong

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: To determine whether a 3-mm isotropic target margin adequately covers the prostate and seminal vesicles (SVs) during administration of an intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatment fraction, assuming that daily image-guided setup is performed just before each fraction.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: In-room computed tomographic (CT) scans were acquired immediately before and after a daily treatment fraction in 46 patients with prostate cancer. An eight-field IMRT plan was designed using the pre-fraction CT with a 3-mm margin and subsequently recalculated on the post-fraction CT. For convenience of comparison, dose plans were scaled to full course of treatment (75.6 Gy). Dose coverage …

Insider Express, Houston Academy Of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

Insider Express (2003-2013)

No abstract provided.