Biology Commons^™

An Interdisciplinary Research Course In Theoretical Ecology For Young Undergraduates, Glenn Ledder, Brigitte Tenhumberg, G. Travis Adams

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

As part of an interdepartmental effort to attract promising young students to research at the interface between mathematics and biology, we created a course in which groups of recent high school graduates and first-year college students conducted a research project in insect population dynamics. The students set up experiments, collected data, used the data to develop mathematical models, tested their models against further experiments, and prepared their results for dissemination. The course was self-contained in that the lecture portion developed the mathematical, statistical, and biological background needed for the research. A special writing component helped students learn the principles of …

Prevalence And Correlates Of Kaposi’S Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Infection In A Sample Of Men Who Have Sex With Men In Eastern China, T. Zhang, H. Lin, V. Minhas, W. Zhu, Charles Wood, N. He

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

This study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) and related factors in men who have sex with men (MSM) in China. A total of 208 subjects were recruited from eastern China from 2008 to 2009. Plasma samples were collected and screened for KSHV, HIV and syphilis. Overall, KSHV seroprevalence was 32.7% in the subjects. About 92.7% of subjects reported having ever had anal sex with a man, of whom 67.8% had receptive anal sex and 77.9% had insertive anal sex. About 93.1% of the study participants reported having had oral sex with a man, of whom …

Large-Scale Spatial Synchrony And Cross-Synchrony In Acorn Production By Two California Oaks, Walter D. Koenig, Johannes M.H. Knops

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Seed production that varies greatly from year to year, known as ‘‘masting’’ or ‘‘mast-fruiting’’ behavior, is a population-level phenomenon known to exhibit geographic synchrony extending, at least in some cases, hundreds of kilometers. The two main nonexclusive hypotheses for the driver of such geographically extensive synchrony are (1) environmental factors (the Moran effect), and (2) the mutual dependence of trees on outcrossed pollen (pollen coupling). We tested 10 predictions relevant to these two hypotheses using 18 years of acorn production data on two species of California oaks. Data were obtained across the entire ranges of the two species at 12 …

Candida Albicans Czf1 And Efg1 Coordinate The Response To Farnesol During Quorum Sensing, White-Opaque Thermal Dimorphism, And Cell Death, Melanie L. Langford, Jessica C. Hargarten, Krista D. Patefield, Elizabeth Marta, Jill R. Blankenship, Saranna Fanning, Kenneth W. Nickerson, Audrey L. Atkin

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Quorum sensing by farnesol in Candida albicans inhibits filamentation and may be directly related to its ability to cause both mucosal and systemic diseases. The Ras1-cyclic AMP signaling pathway is a target for farnesol inhibition. However, a clear understanding of the downstream effectors of the morphological farnesol response has yet to be unraveled. To address this issue, we screened a library for mutants that fail to respond to farnesol. Six mutants were identified, and the czf1Δ/czf1Δ mutant was selected for further characterization. Czf1 is a transcription factor that regulates filamentation in embedded agar and also whiteto- opaque switching. We found …

Four Distinct Types Of Dehydration Stress Memory Genes In Arabidopsis Thaliana, Yong Ding, Ning Liu, Laetitia Virlouvet, Jean-Jack Riethoven, Michael E. Fromm, Zoya Avramova

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Background: How plants respond to dehydration stress has been extensively researched. However, how plants respond to multiple consecutive stresses is virtually unknown. Pre-exposure to various abiotic stresses (including dehydration) may alter plants’ subsequent responses by improving resistance to future exposures. These observations have led to the concept of ‘stress memory’ implying that during subsequent exposures plants provide responses that are different from those during their first encounter with the stress. Genes that provide altered responses in a subsequent stress define the ‘memory genes’ category; genes responding similarly to each stress form the ‘non-memory’ category.

Results: Using a genome-wide …

Heritability And Inter-Population Differences In Lipid Profiles Of Drosophila Melanogaster, Cornelia J. F. Scheitz, Yu Guo, Angela M. Early, Lawrence G. Harshman, Andrew G. Clark

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Characterizing and understanding the complex spectrum of lipids in higher organisms lags far behind our analysis of genome and transcriptome sequences. Here we generate and evaluate comprehensive lipid profiles (>200 lipids) of 92 inbred lines from five different Drosophila melanogaster populations. We find that the majority of lipid species are highly heritable, and even lipids with odd-chain fatty acids, which cannot be generated by the fly itself, also have high heritabilities. Abundance of the endosymbiont Wolbachia, a potential provider of odd-chained lipids, was positively correlated with this group of lipids. Additionally, we show that despite years of laboratory …

Regional Contingencies In The Relationship Between Aboveground Biomass And Litter In The World’S Grasslands, Lydia R. O’Halloran, Elizabeth T. Borer, Eric W. Seabloom, Andrew S. Macdougall, Elsa E. Cleland, Rebecca L. Mcculley, Sarah Hobbie, W. Stanley Harpole, Nicole M. Decrappeo, Chengjin Chu, Jonathan D. Bakker, Kendi F. Davies, Guozhen Du, Jennifer Firn, Nicole Hagenah, Kirsten S. Hofmockel, Johannes Knops, Wei Li, Brett A. Melbourne, John W. Morgan, John L. Orrock, Suzanne M. Prober, Carly J. Stevens

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Based on regional-scale studies, aboveground production and litter decomposition are thought to positively covary, because they are driven by shared biotic and climatic factors. Until now we have been unable to test whether production and decomposition are generally coupled across climatically dissimilar regions, because we lacked replicated data collected within a single vegetation type across multiple regions, obfuscating the drivers and generality of the association between production and decomposition. Furthermore, our understanding of the relationships between production and decomposition rests heavily on separate meta-analyses of each response, because no studies have simultaneously measured production and the accumulation or decomposition of …

Conformational B-Cell Epitope Prediction On Antigen Protein Structures: A Review Of Current Algorithms And Comparison With Common Binding Site Prediction Methods, Bo Yao, Dandan Zheng, Shide Liang, Chi Zhang

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Accurate prediction of B-cell antigenic epitopes is important for immunologic research and medical applications, but compared with other bioinformatic problems, antigenic epitope prediction is more challenging because of the extreme variability of antigenic epitopes, where the paratope on the antibody binds specifically to a given epitope with high precision. In spite of the continuing efforts in the past decade, the problem remains unsolved and therefore still attracts a lot of attention from bioinformaticists. Recently, several discontinuous epitope prediction servers became available, and it is intriguing to review all existing methods and evaluate their performances on the same benchmark. In addition, …

Widespread Selection Across Coding And Noncoding Dna In The Pea Aphid Genome, Ryan D. Bickel, Joseph P. Dunham, Jennifer A. Brisson

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Genome-wide patterns of diversity and selection are critical measures for understanding how evolution has shaped the genome. Yet, these population genomic estimates are available for only a limited number of model organisms. Here we focus on the population genomics of the pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum). The pea aphid is an emerging model system that exhibits a range of intriguing biological traits not present in classic model systems. We performed low-coverage genome resequencing of 21 clonal pea aphid lines collected from alfalfa host plants in North America to characterize genome-wide patterns of diversity and selection. We observed an excess …

Predicting Invasion In Grassland Ecosystems: Is Exotic Dominance The Real Embarrassment Of Richness?, Eric W. Seabloom, Elizabeth T. Borer, Yvonne Buckley, Elsa E. Cleland, Kendi Davies, Jennifer Firn, W. Stanley Harpole, Yann Hautier, Eric Lind, Andrew Macdougall, John L. Orrock, Suzanne M. Prober, Peter Andler, Juan Alberti, T. Michael Anderson, Jonathan D. Bakker, Lori A. Biederman, Dana Blumenthal, Cynthia S. Brown, Lars A. Brudvig, Maria Caldeira, Chengjin Chu, Michael J. Crawley, Pedro Daleo, Ellen I. Damschen, Carla M. D'Antonio, Nicole M. Decrappeo, Chris R. Dickman, Guozhen Du, Philip A. Fay, Paul Frater, Daniel S. Gruner, Nicole Hagenah, Andrew Hector, Aveliina Helm, Helmut Hillebrand, Kirsten S. Hofmockel, Hope C. Humphries, Oscar Iribarne, Virginia L. Jin, Adam Kay, Kevin P. Kirkman, Julia A. Klein, Johannes M. H. Knops, Kimberly J. La Pierre, Laura M. Ladwig, John G. Lambrinos, Andrew D. B. Leakey, Qi Li, Wei Li, Rebecca Mcculley, Brett Melbourne, Charles E. Mitchell, Joslin L. Moore, John Morgan, Brent Mortensen, Lydia R. O'Halloran, Meelis Partel, Jesus Pascual, David A. Pyke, Anita C. Risch, Roberto Salguero-Gomez, Mahesh Sankaran, Martin Schuetz, Anna Simonsen, Melinda Smith, Carly Stevens, Lauren L. Sullivan, Glenda M. Wardle, Elizabeth M. Wolkovich, Peter D. Wragg, Justin Wright, Louie Yang

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Invasions have increased the size of regional species pools, but are typically assumed to reduce native diversity. However, global-scale tests of this assumption have been elusive because of the focus on exotic species richness, rather than relative abundance. This is problematic because low invader richness can indicate invasion resistance by the native community or, alternatively, dominance by a single exotic species. Here, we used a globally replicated study to quantify relationships between exotic richness and abundance in grass-dominated ecosystems in 13 countries on six continents, ranging from salt marshes to alpine tundra. We tested effects of human land use, native …

Delayed Amyloid Plaque Deposition And Behavioral Deficits In Outcrossed Aβpp/Ps1 Mice, Brian A. Couch, Meghan E. Kerrisk, Adam C. Kaufman, Haakon B. Nygaard, Stephen M. Strittmatter, Anthony J. Koleske

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative dementia characterized by amyloid plaque accumulation, synapse/dendrite loss, and cognitive impairment. Transgenic mice expressing mutant forms of amyloid-β precursor protein (AβPP) and presenilin-1 (PS1) recapitulate several aspects of this disease and provide a useful model system for studying elements of AD progression. AβPP/PS1 mice have been previously shown to exhibit behavioral deficits and amyloid plaque deposition between 4–9 months of age. We crossed AβPP/PS1 animals with mice of a mixed genetic background (C57BL/6 × 129/SvJ) and investigated the development of AD-like features in the resulting outcrossed mice. The onset of memory-based behavioral impairment …

Deer Mouse Hemoglobin Exhibits A Lowered Oxygen Affinity Owing To Mobility Of The E Helix. Corrigendum, Noriko Inoguchi, Jake R. Oshlo, Chandrasekhar Natarajan, Roy E. Weber, Angela Fago, Jay F. Storz, Hideaki Moriyama

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

In the article by Inoguchi et al. (2013) the affiliation for two of the authors, Angela Fago and Roy E. Weber, was given incorrectly. The correct affiliation is Zoophysiology, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.

Plant Mitochondrial Genome Evolution Can Be Explained By Dna Repair Mechanisms, Alan C. Christensen

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Plant mitochondrial genomes are notorious for their large and variable size, nonconserved open reading frames of unknown function, and high rates of rearrangement. Paradoxically, the mutation rates are very low. However, mutation rates can only be measured in sequences that can be aligned—a very small part of plant mitochondrial genomes. Comparison of the complete mitochondrial genome sequences of two ecotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana allows the alignment of noncoding as well as coding DNA and estimation of the mutation rates in both. A recent chimeric duplication is also analyzed. A hypothesis is proposed that the mechanisms of plant mitochondrial DNA repair …

Indirect Consequences Of Hypolimnetic Hypoxia On Zooplankton Growth In A Large Eutrophic Lake, Daisuke Goto, Kara Lindelof, David L. Fanslow, Stuart A. Ludsin, Steven A. Pothoven, James J. Roberts, Henry A. Vanderploeg, Alan E. Wilson, Tomas O. Höök

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Diel vertical migration (DVM) of some zooplankters in eutrophic lakes is often compressed during peak hypoxia. To better understand the indirect consequences of seasonal hypolimnetic hypoxia, we integrated laboratory-based experimental and field-based observational approaches to quantify how compressed DVM can affect growth of a cladoceran, Daphnia mendotae, in central Lake Erie, North America. To evaluate hypoxia tolerance of D. mendotae, we conducted a survivorship experiment with varying dissolved oxygen concentrations, which demonstrated high sensitivity of D. mendotae to hypoxia (≤2 mg O2 l−1), supporting the field observations of their behavioral avoidance of the hypoxic hypolimnion. To investigate the …

Survival Of The Fittest: Overcoming Oxidative Stress At The Extremes Of Acid, Heat And Metal, Yukari Maezato, Paul H. Blum

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The habitat of metal respiring acidothermophilic lithoautotrophs is perhaps the most oxidizing environment yet identified. Geothermal heat, sulfuric acid and transition metals contribute both individually and synergistically under aerobic conditions to create this niche. Sulfuric acid and metals originating from sulfidic ores catalyze oxidative reactions attacking microbial cell surfaces including lipids, proteins and glycosyl groups. Sulfuric acid ����� ��������� ������������ ������������ ������������� ��� ���� ���������� ��� ������ �������� carbon. Oxidative reactions leading to abstraction of electrons is further impacted by heat through an increase in the proportion of reactant molecules with sufficient energy to react. Collectively these factors and particularly …

Metal Resistance And Lithoautotrophy In The Extreme Thermoacidophile Metallosphaera Sedula, Yukari Maezato, Tyler Johnson, Samuel Mccarthy, Karl Dana, Paul H. Blum

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Archaea such as Metallosphaera sedula are thermophilic lithoautotrophs that occupy unusually acidic and metal-rich environments. These traits are thought to underlie their industrial importance for bioleaching of base and precious metals. In this study, a genetic approach was taken to investigate the specific relationship between metal resistance and lithoautotrophy during biotransformation of the primary copper ore, chalcopyrite (CuFeS₂). In this study, a genetic system was developed for M. sedula to investigate parameters that limit bioleaching of chalcopyrite. The functional role of the M. sedula copRTA operon was demonstrated by cross-species complementation of a copper-sensitive Sulfolobus solfataricus copR mutant. …

Carbohydrate Hydrolysis And Transport In The Extreme Thermoacidophile Sulfolobus Solfataricus, Sreedevi Lalithambika, Landon Peterson, Karl Dana, Paul H. Blum

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Extremely thermoacidophilic microbes, such as Sulfolobus solfataricus, are strict chemoheterotrophs despite their geologic niche. To clarify their ecophysiology, the overlapping roles of endoglucanases and carbohydrate transporters were examined during growth on soluble cellodextrins as the sole carbon and energy source. Strain-specific differences in genome structure implied a unique role for one of three endogenous endoglucanases. Plasmid-based endoglucanase expression promoted the consumption of oligosaccharides, including cellohexaose (G6) through cellonanaose (G9). Protein transporters required for cellodextrin uptake were identified through

mutagenesis and complementation of an ABC transporter cassette, including a putative oligosaccharide binding protein. In addition, ablation of the binding protein …

Multiple Exposures To Drought ‘Train’ Transcriptional Responses In Arabidopsis, Yong Ding, Michael Fromm, Zoya Avramova

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Pre-exposure to stress may alter plants’ subsequent responses by producing faster and/or stronger reactions implying that plants exercise a form of ‘stress memory’. The mechanisms of plants’ stress memory responses are poorly understood leaving this fundamental biological question unanswered. Here we show that during recurring dehydration stresses Arabidopsis plants display transcriptional stress memory demonstrated by an increase in the rate of transcription and elevated transcript levels of a subset of the stress–response genes (trainable genes). During recovery (watered) states, trainable genes produce transcripts at basal (preinduced) levels, but remain associated with atypically high H3K4me3 and Ser5P polymerase II levels, indicating …

Divergent Functions Of The Myotubularin (Mtm) Homologs Atmtm1 And Atmtm2 In Arabidopsis Thaliana: Evolution Of The Plant Mtm Family, Yong Ding, Ivan Ndamukong, Yang Zhao, Yuannan Xia, Jean-Jack Riethoven, David R. Jones, Nullin Divecha, Zoya Avramova

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Myotubularin and myotubularin-related proteins are evolutionarily conserved in eukaryotes. Defects in their function result in muscular dystrophy, neuronal diseases, and leukemia in humans. In contrast to the animal lineage, where genes encoding both active and inactive myotubularins (phosphoinositide 3-phosphatases) have appeared and proliferated in the basal metazoan group, myotubularin genes are not found in the unicellular relatives of green plants. However, they are present in land plants encoding proteins highly similar to the active metazoan enzymes. Despite their remarkable structural conservation, plant and animal myotubularins have significantly diverged in their functions. While loss of myotubularin function causes severe disease phenotypes …

Dfvf: Database Of Fungal Virulence Factors, Tao Lu, Bo Yao, Chi Zhang

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Fungal pathogens cause various diseases for plant and animal hosts. Despite the extensive impact of fungi on human health and life, the threats posed by emerging fungal pathogens are poorly understood. Specifically, there exist few fungal virulence gene databases, which prevent effective bioinformatics studies on fungal pathogens. Therefore, we constructed a comprehensive online database of known fungal virulence factors, which collected 2058 pathogenic genes produced by 228 fungal strains from 85 genera. This database creates a pivotal platform capable of stimulating and facilitating further bench studies on fungal pathogens.

Sex Allocation In California Oaks: Trade-Offs Or Resource Tracking?, Johannes Knops, Walter D. Koenig

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Trade-offs in sex resource allocation are commonly inferred from a negative correlation between male and female reproduction. We found that for three California oak species, aboveground annual net productivity (ANP) differences among individuals were primarily correlated with water availability and soil fertility. Reproductive biomass increased with ANP, but the relative allocation to reproduction was constant, indicating that reproduction tracked productivity, which in turn tracked site quality. Although there was a negative correlation between male and female reproduction, this was not the result of a resource investment trade-off, but rather a byproduct of the positive correlation between female reproductive biomass and …

Urea Amidolyase (Dur1,2) Contributes To Virulence And Kidney Pathogenesis Of Candida Albicans, Dhammika H. M. L. P Navarathna, Michail S. Lionakis, Martin J. Lizak, Jeeva Munasinghe, Kenneth W. Nickerson, David D. Roberts

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The intracellular enzyme urea amidolyase (Dur1,2p) enables C. albicans to utilize urea as a sole nitrogen source. Because deletion of the DUR1,2 gene reduces survival of C. albicans co-cultured with a murine macrophage cell line, we investigated the role of Dur1,2p in pathogenesis using a mouse model of disseminated candidiasis. A dur1,2Δ/dur1,2Δ strain was significantly less virulent than the wild-type strain, showing significantly higher survival rate, better renal function, and decreased and less sustained fungal colonization in kidney and brain. Complementation of the mutant restored virulence. DUR1,2 deletion resulted in a milder host inflammatory reaction. Immunohistochemistry, flow …

Thoughts On Quorum Sensing And Fungal Dimorphism, Kenneth W. Nickerson, Audrey L. Atkin, Jessica C. Hargarten, Ruvini U. Pathirana, Sahar Hasim

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Farnesol has been best studied for its role in regulating fungal dimorphism. However, farnesol is also a lipid and in this review we analyze data relevant to farnesol’s function and synthesis from the perspective of farnesol and bacterial endotoxins acting as membrane active compounds. This analysis implicates the possible roles of: (1) endotoxins in the regulation of farnesol production by C. albicans; (2) farnesol in the interactions between C. albicans and the host during disseminated infections; and (3) ubiquinones in the mechanisms for unusually high resistance to farnesol by some C. albicans cell types. Finally we discuss the implications …

Atx1-Generated H3k4me3 Is Required For Efficient Elongation Of Transcription, Not Initiation, At Atx1- Regulated Genes, Yong Ding, Ivan Ndamukong, Zaoshi Xu, Hanna Lapko, Michael E. Fromm, Zoya Avramova

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Tri-methylated H3 lysine 4 (H3K4me3) is associated with transcriptionally active genes, but its function in the transcription process is still unclear. Point mutations in the catalytic domain of ATX1 (ARABIDOPSIS TRITHORAX1), a H3K4 methyltransferase, and RNAi knockdowns of subunits of the AtCOMPASS–like (Arabidopsis Complex Proteins Associated with Set) were used to address this question. We demonstrate that both ATX1 and AtCOMPASS–like are required for high level accumulation of TBP (TATA-binding protein) and Pol II at promoters and that this requirement is independent of the catalytic histone modifying activity. However, the catalytic function is critically required for transcription as H3K4me3 levels …

Svmtrip: A Method To Predict Antigenic Epitopes Using Support Vector Machine To Integrate Tri-Peptide Similarity And Propensity, Bo Yao, Lin Zhang, Shide Liang, Chi Zhang

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Identifying protein surface regions preferentially recognizable by antibodies (antigenic epitopes) is at the heart of new immuno-diagnostic reagent discovery and vaccine design, and computational methods for antigenic epitope prediction provide crucial means to serve this purpose. Many linear B-cell epitope prediction methods were developed, such as BepiPred, ABCPred, AAP, BCPred, BayesB, BEOracle/BROracle, and BEST, towards this goal. However, effective immunological research demands more robust performance of the prediction method than what the current algorithms could provide. In this work, a new method to predict linear antigenic epitopes is developed; Support Vector Machine has been utilized by combining the Tri-peptide similarity …

Evolution Of A Large, Conserved, And Syntenic Gene Family In Insects, Neethu Shah, Douglas R. Dorer, Etsuko N. Moriyama, Alan C. Christensen

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The Osiris gene family, first described in Drosophila melanogaster, is clustered in the genomes of all Drosophila species sequenced to date. In D. melanogaster, it explains the enigmatic phenomenon of the triplo-lethal and haploinsufficient locus Tpl. The synteny of Osiris genes in flies is well conserved, and it is one of the largest syntenic blocks in the Drosophila group. By examining the genome sequences of other insects in a wide range of taxonomic orders, we show here that the gene family is well-conserved and syntenic not only in the diptera but across the holometabolous and hemimetabolous insects. …

A Peptide Photoaffinity Probe Specific For The Active Conformation Of The Abl Tyrosine Kinase, Yang Deng, Brian A. Couch, Anthony J. Koleske, Benjamin E. Turk

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The design of sensors to monitor the activity state of specific protein kinases is challenging due to the complexity of eukaryotic kinomes. Here we describe a peptide-based photaffinity probe that specifically labels the active conformation of the Abl tyrosine kinase.

The Epigenetics Of Emerging And Nonmodel Organisms, Vett K. Lloyd, Jennifer A. Brisson, Kathleen A. Fitzpatrick, Lori A. Mceachern, Eveline C. Verhulst

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Genetic model organisms have gifted researchers with a breathtakingly detailed understanding of the most intimate aspects of their genomes, cells, and development. And yet there is a problem—model organisms have been selected because they have simple life histories and happily inhabit laboratories. In short, they make a virtue of being boring. But the diversity of the natural world is not fully captured by yeast, flies, or mice. To truly appreciate the variety of biological mechanisms underlying this remarkable diversity, one must study the often inconvenient but fascinating non model organism. Experimental and descriptive approaches in non model organisms have become …

Antimicrobial Metallic Copper Surfaces Kill Staphylococcus Haemolyticus Via Membrane Damage, Christophe Espirito Santo, Davide Quaranta, Gregor Grass

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Recently, copper (Cu) in its metallic form has regained interest for its antimicrobial properties. Use of metallic Cu surfaces in worldwide hospital trials resulted in remarkable reductions in surface contaminations. Yet, our understanding of why microbes are killed upon contact to the metal is still limited and different modes of action have been proposed. This knowledge, however, is crucial for sustained use of such surfaces in hospitals and other hygiene-sensitive areas. Here, we report on the molecular mechanisms by which the Gram-positive Staphylococcus haemolyticus is inactivated by metallic Cu. Staphylococcus haemolyticus was killed within minutes on Cu but not on …

Protection Against Divergent Influenza H1n1 Virus By A Centralized Influenza Hemagglutinin, Eric A. Weaver, Adam M. Rubrum, Richard J. Webby, Michael A. Barry

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Influenza poses a persistent worldwide threat to the human population. As evidenced by the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, current vaccine technologies are unable to respond rapidly to this constantly diverging pathogen. We tested the utility of adenovirus (Ad) vaccines expressing centralized consensus influenza antigens. Ad vaccines were produced within 2 months and protected against influenza in mice within 3 days of vaccination. Ad vaccines were able to protect at doses as low as 107 virus particles/kg indicating that approximately 1,000 human doses could be rapidly generated from standard Ad preparations. To generate broadly cross-reactive immune responses, centralized consensus antigens were constructed …