Digital Commons Network^™

Treescaper: Visualizing And Extracting Phylogenetic Signal From Sets Of Trees, Wen Huang, Guifang Zhou, Melissa Marchand, Jeremy R. Ash, David Morris, Paul Van Dooren, Jeremy M. Brown, Kyle A. Gallivan, Jim C. Wilgenbusch

Faculty Publications

© The Author 2016. Modern phylogenomic analyses often result in large collections of phylogenetic trees representing uncertainty in individual gene trees, variation across genes, or both. Extracting phylogenetic signal from these tree sets can be challenging, as they are difficult to visualize, explore, and quantify. To overcome some of these challenges, we have developed TreeScaper, an application for tree set visualization as well as the identification of distinct phylogenetic signals. GUI and command-line versions of TreeScaper and a manual with tutorials can be downloaded from https://github.com/ whuang08/TreeScaper/releases. TreeScaper is distributed under the GNU General Public License.

The Target Of Β-Expansin Expb1 In Maize Cell Walls From Binding And Solid-State Nmr Studies, Tuo Wang, Yuning Chen, Akira Tabuchi, Daniel J. Cosgrove, Mei Hong

Faculty Publications

© 2016 American Society of Plant Biologists. All rights reserved. The wall-loosening actions of β-expansins are known primarily from studies of EXPB1 extracted from maize (Zea mays) pollen. EXPB1 selectively loosens cell walls (CWs) of grasses, but its specific binding target is unknown. We characterized EXPB1 binding to sequentially extracted maize CWs, finding that the protein primarily binds glucuronoarabinoxylan (GAX), the major matrix polysaccharide in grass CWs. This binding is strongly reduced by salts, indicating that it is predominantly electrostatic in nature. For direct molecular evidence of EXPB1 binding, we conducted solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance experiments using paramagnetic relaxation enhancement …

Evolutionary Innovation And Diversification Of Carotenoid-Based Pigmentation In Finches, Russell A. Ligon, Richard K. Simpson, Nicholas A. Mason, Geoffrey E. Hill, Kevin J. Mcgraw

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Author(s). Evolution © 2016 The Society for the Study of Evolution. The ornaments used by animals to mediate social interactions are diverse, and by reconstructing their evolutionary pathways we can gain new insights into the mechanisms underlying ornamental innovation and variability. Here, we examine variation in plumage carotenoids among the true finches (Aves: Fringillidae) using biochemical and comparative phylogenetic analyses to reconstruct the evolutionary history of carotenoid states and evaluate competing models of carotenoid evolution. Our comparative analyses reveal that the most likely ancestor of finches used dietary carotenoids as yellow plumage colorants, and that the ability …

Isolation And Characterization Of Acidobacterium Ailaaui Sp. Nov., A Novel Member Of Acidobacteria Subdivision 1, From A Geothermally Heated Hawaiian Microbial Mat, Marisa R. Myers, G. M. King

Faculty Publications

© 2016 IUMS. A novel member of Acidobacteria was isolated from a microbial mat growing on a geothermally heated dead tree trunk in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park (HI, USA). The rod-shaped, Gramnegative capsulated cells of strain PMMR2T were non-motile and catalase and oxidase negative. Growth occurred aerobically from 15 to 55 °C (optimum, 40 °C) and at pH values from 4.5 to 7.0 (optimum, 6.5). A limited range of sugars and organic acids supported growth. However, results of a genomic analysis suggested that various polysaccharides might be hydrolysed as carbon sources, and evidence for pectin degradation was observed in liquid …

Capsular Polysaccharide Production And Serum Survival Of Vibrio Vulnificus Are Dependent On Antitermination Control By Rfah, Shana B. Garrett, Katherine L. Garrison-Schilling, Jeffrey T. Cooke, Gregg S. Pettis

Faculty Publications

© 2016 Federation of European Biochemical Societies The human pathogen Vibrio vulnificus undergoes phase variation among colonial morphotypes, including a virulent opaque form which produces capsular polysaccharide (CPS) and a translucent phenotype that produces little or no CPS and is attenuated. Here, we found that a V. vulnificus mutant defective for RfaH antitermination control showed a diminished capacity to undergo phase variation and displayed significantly reduced distal gene expression within the Group I CPS operon. Moreover, the rfaH mutant produced negligible CPS and was highly sensitive to killing by normal human serum, results which indicate that RfaH is likely essential …

Entomopathogenic Nematodes Combined With Adjuvants Presents A New Potential Biological Control Method For Managing The Wheat Stem Sawfly, Cephus Cinctus (Hymenoptera: Cephidae), Scott L. Portman, Sindhu M. Krishnankutty, Gadi V.P. Reddy

Faculty Publications

The wheat stem sawfly, (Cephus cinctus Norton) Hymenoptera: Cephidae, has been a major pest of winter wheat and barley in the northern Great Plains for more than 100 years. The insect's cryptic nature and lack of safe chemical control options make the wheat stem sawfly (WSS) difficult to manage; thus, biological control offers the best hope for sustainable management of WSS. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) have been used successfully against other above-ground insect pests, and adding adjuvants to sprays containing EPNs has been shown to improve their effectiveness. We tested the hypothesis that adding chemical adjuvants to sprays containing EPNs will …

Damage Patterns, Monitoring, And Management Of Procontarinia Mangiferae (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) In Pakistan, Hafiz M. Rehman, Riaz Mahmood, Muhammad Razaq, Gadi V.P. Reddy

Faculty Publications

Since 2005, mango has been damaged by a group of new pests, the gall midges, in all mango-growing areas of Pakistan. Little is known about these pests in Pakistan. In this report, we present information on the occurrence, damage patterns,methods for monitoring, and management of Procontariniamangiferae (Felt), amango gallmidge found in the country. At the study site (Rahim Yar Khan, a district of the province Punjab, Pakistan), the pest was active from January/February to April as eggs, larvae, and adults on mango inflorescence buds, branches (axillaries), and immature fruits. Females of P. mangiferae oviposited in inflorescence tissues, and larvae, after …

Sequence Capture And Next-Generation Sequencing Of Ultraconserved Elements In A Large-Genome Salamander, Catherine E. Newman, Christopher C. Austin

Faculty Publications

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Amidst the rapid advancement in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology over the last few years, salamanders have been left behind. Salamanders have enormous genomes—up to 40 times the size of the human genome—and this poses challenges to generating NGS data sets of quality and quantity similar to those of other vertebrates. However, optimization of laboratory protocols is time-consuming and often cost prohibitive, and continued omission of salamanders from novel phylogeographic research is detrimental to species facing decline. Here, we use a salamander endemic to the southeastern United States, Plethodon serratus, to test the utility …

Does Leaf Shedding Protect Stems From Cavitation During Seasonal Droughts? A Test Of The Hydraulic Fuse Hypothesis, Brett T. Wolfe, John S. Sperry, Thomas A. Kursar

Faculty Publications

During droughts, leaves are predicted to act as ‘hydraulic fuses’ by shedding when plants reach critically low water potential (Ψplant), thereby slowing water loss, stabilizing Ψplant and protecting against cavitation-induced loss of stem hydraulic conductivity (Ks). We tested these predictions among trees in seasonally dry tropical forests, where leaf shedding is common, yet variable, among species. We tracked leaf phenology, Ψplant and Ks in saplings of six tree species distributed across two forests. Species differed in their timing and extent of leaf shedding, yet converged in shedding leaves as they approached the Ψplant value associated with a 50% loss of …

Habitat Use By Two Extremophile, Highly Endemic, And Critically Endangered Fish Species (Gambusia Eurystoma And Poecilia Sulphuraria; Poeciliidae), Zachary W. Culumber, Garrett W. Hopper, Nicholas Barts, Courtney N. Passow, Samuel Morgan, Anthony Brown, Lenin Arias-Rodriguez, Michael Tobler

Faculty Publications

Effective conservation measures for endangered species require basic knowledge of habitat use and critical environmental variables influencing the species' occurrence. However, setting priorities may be difficult when multiple endangered species inhabit the same area and differ in habitat use. This study characterized the physical and chemical environment at 30 sites along a 2.5 km stretch of stream associated with the Baños del Azufre hydrogen sulphide spring complex, home to the only population of the widemouth gambusia (Gambusia eurystoma) in existence. Also present in the spring is Poecilia sulphuraria, a narrowly endemic and endangered species known from only a few populations. …

Tlr8 Couples Socs-1 And Restrains Tlr7-Mediated Antiviral Immunity, Exacerbating West Nile Virus Infection In Mice, Amber M. Paul, Dhiraj Acharya, Linda Le, Penghua Wang, Dobrivoje S. Stokic, A. Arturo Leis, Lena Alexopoulou, Terrence Town, Richard A. Flavell, Erol Fikrig, Fengwei Bai

Faculty Publications

West Nile virus (WNV) is a neurotropic ssRNA flavivirus that can cause encephalitis, meningitis, and death in humans and mice. Human TLR7 and TLR8 and mouse TLR7 recognize viral ssRNA motifs and induce antiviral immunity. However, the role of mouse TLR8 in antiviral immunity is poorly understood. In this article, we report that TLR8-deficient (Tlr8−/−) mice were resistant to WNV infection compared with wild-type controls. Efficient WNV clearance and moderate susceptibility to WNV-mediated neuronal death in Tlr8−/− mice were attributed to overexpression of Tlr7and IFN-stimulated gene-56 expression, whereas reduced expression of the proapoptotic gene coding Bcl2-associated X protein was observed. …

Mice Fed A High-Fat Diet Supplemented With Resistant Starch Display Marked Shifts In The Liver Metabolome Concurrent With Altered Gut Bacteria, Dorothy A. Kieffer, Brian D. Piccolo, Maria L. Marco, Eun Bae Kim, Michael L. Goodson, Michael J. Keenan, Tamara N. Dunn, Knud Erik Bach Knudsen, Roy J. Martin, Sean H. Adams

Faculty Publications

Background: High-amylose-maize resistant starch type 2 (HAMRS2) is a fermentable dietary fiber known to alter the gut milieu, including the gut microbiota, which may explain the reported effects of resistant starch to ameliorate obesityassociated metabolic dysfunction. Objective: Our working hypothesis was that HAMRS2-induced microbiome changes alter gut-derived signals (i.e., xenometabolites) reaching the liver via the portal circulation, in turn altering liver metabolism by regulating gene expression and other pathways. Methods: We used a multi-omics systems biology approach to characterize HAMRS2-driven shifts to the cecal microbiome, liver metabolome, and transcriptome, identifying correlates between microbial changes and liver metabolites under obesogenic conditions …

From Warning To Wallpaper: Why The Brain Habituates To Security Warnings, Bonnie Anderson, Anthony Vance, C. Brock Kirwan, Jeffrey L. Jenkins, David Eargle

Faculty Publications

Warning messages are fundamental to users' security interactions. Unfortunately, research has shown that they are largely ineffective. A key contributor to this failure is habituation: decreased response to a repeated warning. Previous research has inferred the occurrence of habituation to warnings or measured it indirectly, such as through the proxy of a related behavior. Therefore, there is a gap in our understanding of how habituation to security warnings develops in the brain. Without direct measures of habituation, we are limited in designing warnings that can mitigate its effects. In this study, we use neurophysiological measures to directly observe habituation as …

Running Decreases Knee Intra-Articular Cytokine And Cartilage Oligomeric Matrix Concentrations: A Pilot Study, Robert D. Hyldahl, Alyssa Evans, Sunku Kwon, Sarah T. Ridge, Eric Robinson, J. Ty Hopkins, Matthew K. Seeley

Faculty Publications

Introduction Regular exercise protects against degenerative joint disorders, yet the mechanisms that underlie these benefits are poorly understood. Chronic, low-grade inflammation is widely implicated in the onset and progression of degenerative joint disease.

Purpose To examine the effect of running on knee intra-articular and circulating markers of inflammation and cartilage turnover in healthy men and women.

Methods Six recreational runners completed a running (30 min) and control (unloaded for 30 min) session in a counterbalanced order. Synovial fluid (SF) and serum samples were taken before and after each session. Cytokine concentration was measured in SF and serum using a multiplexed …

Multilayered Structure Of Tension Wood Cell Walls In Salicaceae Sensu Lato And Its Taxonomic Significance, Barbara Ghislain, Eric-André Nicolini, Raïssa Romain, Julien Ruelle, Arata Yoshinaga, Mac H. Alford, Bruno Clair

Faculty Publications

Salicaceae have been enlarged to include a majority of the species formerly placed in the polyphyletic tropical Flacourtiaceae. Several studies have reported a peculiar and infrequently formed multilayered structure of tension wood in four of the tropical genera. Tension wood is a tissue produced by trees to restore their vertical orientation and most studies have focused on trees developing tension wood by means of cellulose-rich, gelatinous fibres, as in Populus and Salix (Salicaceae s.s.). This study aims to determine if the multilayered structure of tension wood is an anatomical characteristic common in other Salicaceae and, if so, how its …

Marine Microalgae: Climate, Energy, And Food Security From The Sea, Charles H. Greene, Mark E. Huntley, Ian Archibald, Léda N. Gerber, Deborah L. Sills, Joe Granados, Jefferson W. Tester, Colin M. Beal, Michael J. Walsh, Robert R. Bidigare, Susan L. Brown, William P. Cochlan, Zackary I. Johnson, Xin Gen Lei, Stephen C. Machesky, Donald Redalje, Ruth E. Richardson, Viswanath Kiron, Virginia Corless

Faculty Publications

Climate, energy, and food security are three of the greatest challenges society faces this century. Solutions for mitigating the effects of climate change often conflict with solutions for ensuring society’s future energy and food requirements. For example, BioEnergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) has been proposed as an important method for achieving negative CO2 emissions later this century while simultaneously producing renewable energy on a global scale. However, BECCS has many negative environmental consequences for land, nutrient, and water use as well as biodiversity and food production. In contrast, large-scale industrial cultivation of marine microalgae can provide society with …

Parental And Sexual Conflicts Over The Peg3 Imprinted Domain, Hongzhi He, Bambarendage P.U. Perera, An Ye, Joomyeong Kim

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Author(s). In the current study, the imprinting control region of the mouse Peg3 domain was deleted to test its functional impact on animal growth and survival. The paternal transmission of the deletion resulted in complete abolition of the transcription of two paternally expressed genes, Peg3 and Usp29, causing the reduced body weight of the pups. In contrast, the maternal transmission resulted in the unexpected transcriptional up-regulation of the remaining paternal allele of both Peg3 and Usp29, causing the increased body weight and survival rates. Thus, the imprinted maternal allele of the ICR may be a suppressor antagonistic …

Rnaseq Analysis Of Endornavirus-Infected Vs. Endornavirus-Free Common Bean (Phaseolus Vulgaris) Cultivar Black Turtle Soup, Surasak Khankhum, Noa Sela, Juan M. Osorno, Rodrigo A. Valverde

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Using Proxy Records To Document Gulf Of Mexico Tropical Cyclones From 1820-1915, Jordan V. Pino, Robert V. Rohli, Kristine L. Delong, Grant L. Harley, Jill C. Trepanier

Faculty Publications

Observations of pre-1950 tropical cyclones are sparse due to observational limitations; therefore, the hurricane database HURDAT2 (1851–present) maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may be incomplete. Here we provide additional documentation for HURDAT2 from historical United States Army fort records (1820–1915) and other archived documents for 28 landfalling tropical cyclones, 20 of which are included in HURDAT2, along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast. One event that occurred in May 1863 is not currently documented in the HURDAT2 database but has been noted in other studies. We identify seven tropical cyclones that occurred before 1851, three of which …

Using Caenorhabditis Elegans As A Model For Obesity Pharmacology Development, Jolene Zheng, Joseph R. Vasselli, Jason F. King, Michael L. King, Wenqian We, Zachary Fitzpatrick, William D. Johnson, John W. Finley, Roy J. Martin, Michael J. Keenan, Frederic M. Enright, Frank L. Greenway

Faculty Publications

Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. The Caenorhabditis elegans model is a rapid and inexpensive method to address pharmacologic questions. We describe the use of C. elegans to explore 2 pharmacologic questions concerning candidate antiobesity drugs and illustrate its potential usefulness in pharmacologic research: (1) to determine a ratio of betahistine-olanzapine that blocks the olanzapine-induced intestinal fat deposition (IFD) as detected by Nile red staining and (2) to identify the mechanism of action of a pharmaceutical candidate AB-101 that reduces IFD. Olanzapine (53 mg/mL) increased the IFD (12.1 6 0.1%, P < 0.02), which was blocked by betahistine (763 mg/mL, 39.3 6 0.01%, P < 0.05) in wild-type C. elegans (N2). AB-101 (1.0%) reduced the IFD in N2 (P < 0.05), increased the pharyngeal pumping rate (P < 0.05), and reversed the elevated IFD induced by protease inhibitors atazanavir and ritonavir (P < 0.05). AB-101 did not affect IFD in a ACS null mutant strain acs-4(ok2872) III/hT2[bli-4(e937) let-?(q782) qIs48](I;III) suggesting an involvement of the lipid oxidation pathway and an upregulation of CPT-1. Our studies suggest that C. elegans may be used as a resource in pharmacologic research. This article is intended to stimulate a greater appreciation of its value in the development of new pharmaceutical interventions.

Direct Evidence For Microbial-Derived Soil Organic Matter Formation And Its Ecophysiological Controls, Cynthia M. Kallenbach, Serita D. Frey, A. Stuart Grandy

Faculty Publications

Soil organic matter (SOM) and the carbon and nutrients therein drive fundamental submicron- to global-scale biogeochemical processes and influence carbon-climate feedbacks. Consensus is emerging that microbial materials are an important constituent of stable SOM, and new conceptual and quantitative SOM models are rapidly incorporating this view. However, direct evidence demonstrating that microbial residues account for the chemistry, stability and abundance of SOM is still lacking. Further, emerging models emphasize the stabilization of microbial-derived SOM by abiotic mechanisms, while the effects of microbial physiology on microbial residue production remain unclear. Here we provide the first direct evidence that soil microbes produce …

Modern Critiques Of Judicial Empathy: A Revised Intellectual History, Brenner M. Fissell

Faculty Publications

The role of “empathy” haunts recent debates about how judges make decisions. Remarkably, however, the intellectual origins of scholarly resistance to empathic judging remain poorly understood. This Article fills that gap. Through historical and theoretical study, it reveals the ways in which the modern anti-emphatic consensus can be seen as a mutated descendent of late-nineteenth century formalism. This Article also marks an irony with significant implications for the empathy debate: Although the anti-empathic view was born of formalism, it has drifted from its source such that it would almost certainly be condemned by the very formalist scholars from whom it …

Reflective Inverse Diffusion, Kenneth W. Burgi, Jessica Ullom, Michael A. Marciniak, Mark E. Oxley

Faculty Publications

Phase front modulation was previously used to refocus light after transmission through scattering media. This process has been adapted here to work in reflection. A liquid crystal spatial light modulator is used to conjugate the phase scattering properties of diffuse reflectors to produce a converging phase front just after reflection. The resultant focused spot had intensity enhancement values between 13 and 122 depending on the type of reflector. The intensity enhancement of more specular materials was greater in the specular region, while diffuse reflector materials achieved a greater enhancement in non-specular regions, facilitating non-mechanical steering of the focused spot. Scalar …

Photography-Based Taxonomy Is Inadequate, Unnecessary, And Potentially Harmful For Biological Sciences, Luis M.P. Ceríaco, Eliécer E. Gutiérrez, Alain Dubois, Cristian Simón Abdala, Abdulaziz S. Alqarni, Kraig Adler, Edson A. Adriano, Erna Aescht, Ishan Agarwal, Sabine Agatha, Donat Agosti, Antonio J.C. Aguiar, Jonas José Mendes Aguiar, Dirk Ahrens, Alexandre Aleixo, Maria Judite Alves, Fabio Raposo Do Amaral, Natalia Ananjeva, Marcelo C. Andrade, Marco Brandalise De Andrade, Franco Andreone, Pedro P.U. Aquino, Paula Beatriz Araujo, Henrard Arnaud, Jairo Arroyave, Wolfgang Arthofer, Tom J. Artois, Diego Astúa, Celso Azevedo, Justin C. Bagley, Diego Baldo, Helen Margaret Barber-James, Eva V. Bärmann

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Genome Sequence Of Mycobacterium Phage Waterfoul, Paige N. Jackson, Ella K. Embry, Christa O. Johnson, Jessica R. Douglas, J. Michael Sellers, William A. D'Angelo, Dmitri V. Mavrodi

Faculty Publications

Waterfoul is a new isolated temperate siphovirus of Mycobacterium smegmatis mc²155. It was identified as a member of the K5 cluster of Mycobacterium phages and has a 61,248-bp genome with 95 predicted genes."

Fluctuating Temperatures Alter Environmental Pathogen Transmission In A Daphnia–Pathogen System, Tad Dallas, John M. Drake

Faculty Publications

Environmental conditions are rarely constant, but instead vary spatially and temporally. This variation influences ecological interactions and epidemiological dynamics, yet most experimental studies examine interactions under constant conditions. We examined the effects of variability in temperature on the host–pathogen relationship between an aquatic zooplankton host (Daphnia laevis) and an environmentally transmitted fungal pathogen (Metschnikowia bicuspidata). We manipulated temperature variability by exposing all populations to mean temperatures of 20°C for the length of the experiments, but introducing periods of 1, 2, and 4 hr each day where the populations were exposed to 28°C followed by periods of …

Long-Term Warming Alters Carbohydrate Degradation Potential In Temperate Forest Soils, Grace Pold, Andrew F. Billings, Jeff L. Blanchard, Daniel B. Burkhardt, Serita D. Frey, Jerry M. Melillo, Julia Schnabel, Linda T. A. Van Diepen, Kristen M. Deangelis

Faculty Publications

As Earth's climate warms, soil carbon pools and the microbial communities that process them may change, altering the way in which carbon is recycled in soil. In this study, we used a combination of metagenomics and bacterial cultivation to evaluate the hypothesis that experimentally raising soil temperatures by 5°C for 5, 8, or 20 years increased the potential for temperate forest soil microbial communities to degrade carbohydrates. Warming decreased the proportion of carbohydrate-degrading genes in the organic horizon derived from eukaryotes and increased the fraction of genes in the mineral soil associated with Actinobacteria in all studies. Genes associated with …

Ordination Obscures The Influence Of Environment On Plankton Metacommunity Structure, Tad Dallas, Andrew M. Kramer, Marcus Zokan, John M. Drake

Faculty Publications

The composition of plankton communities in individual habitats is often influenced by environmental conditions like pH or hydroperiod. At larger scales, environmental gradients can influence community structure across interconnected local communities. Detecting the role of environmental and spatial factors on metacommunity structure depends on the ordering of sites and species prior to analysis. We investigated this ordination in two wetland metacommunities; a well-sampled, hyper-diverse zooplankton metacommunity, and a Central American phytoplankton metacommunity. We calculated coherence, turnover, and boundary clumping to classify the structure of the metacommunity, and we propose a statistic that responds to variation in both coherence and turnover. …

Historical Fire In Longleaf Pine (Pinus Palustris) Forests Of South Mississippi And Its Relation To Land Use And Climate, Charles Raymond White, Grant L. Harley

Faculty Publications

We characterized historical fire regimes in Pinus palustris (longleaf pine) forests of southern Mississippi with regard to global and regional coupled climate systems (e.g., El Niño–Southern Oscillation) and past human activity. The composite fire chronology spanned 1756–2013 with 132 individual scars representing 89 separate fire events. The mean fire interval was 2.9 yr, and mean intervals were significantly different between identified time periods (e.g., settlement period vs. management period). Evidence of biannual fire activity (up to three fires occurring within a 12‐ to 15‐month period) was found coeval with a peak in livestock grazing and logging from the 1850s through …

Pyruvate Oxidase Of Streptococcus Pneumoniae Contributes To Penumolysin Release, Joseph C. Bryant, Ridge C. Dabbs, Katie L. Oswalt, Lindsey R. Brown, Jason W. Rosch, Keun S. Seo, Janet R. Donaldson, Larry S. Mcdaniel, Justin A. Thornton

Faculty Publications

Background

Streptococcus pneumoniae is one of the leading causes of community acquired pneumonia and acute otitis media. Certain aspects of S. pneumoniae’s virulence are dependent upon expression and release of the protein toxin pneumolysin (PLY) and upon the activity of the peroxide-producing enzyme, pyruvate oxidase (SpxB). We investigated the possible synergy of these two proteins and identified that release of PLY is enhanced by expression of SpxB prior to stationary phase growth.

Results

Mutants lacking the <>spxB gene were defective in PLY release and complementation of spxB restored PLY release. This was demonstrated by cytotoxic effects of sterile filtered …