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Articles 121 - 150 of 635

Full-Text Articles in Microbiology

Identification And Characterization Of Genetic Elements That Regulate A C-Di-Gmp Mediated Multicellular Trait In Pseudomonas Fluorescens, Collin Kessler Aug 2022

Identification And Characterization Of Genetic Elements That Regulate A C-Di-Gmp Mediated Multicellular Trait In Pseudomonas Fluorescens, Collin Kessler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Microbial communities contain densely packed cells where competition for space and resources are fierce. These communities are generally referred to as biofilms and provide advantages to individual cells against immunological and antimicrobial intervention, dehydration, and predation. High intracellular pools of cyclic diguanylate monophosphate (c-di-GMP) cause cells to aggregate during biofilm formation through the production of diverse extracellular polymers. Genes that encode c-di-GMP catalytic enzymes are commonly mutated during chronic infections where opportunists display enhanced resistance to phagocytosis and antibiotics. Our lab uses an emergent multicellular trait in the model organism Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf0-1 to study the emergence of c-di-GMP mutations …

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Qualitative Proteomic And Genomic Analysis Of Klebsiella Pneumoniae Bacteriophage Kaomega, Emilee Carr Aug 2022

Qualitative Proteomic And Genomic Analysis Of Klebsiella Pneumoniae Bacteriophage Kaomega, Emilee Carr

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a Gram-negative Enterobacteriaceae that is a common nosocomial pathogen causing pneumonia, infections in the bloodstream, wound infections, and meningitis. It has developed natural resistance to multiple antibiotics, most notably carbapenems which are often seen as the last line of defense against multi-drug resistant pathogens. Bacteriophages are being investigated as a promising alternative treatment to antibiotics in fighting these resistant pathogens. KaOmega, a Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteriophage, was isolated, sequenced, and annotated to characterize and understand its potential for use in a phage therapy. Characterization included Phyre2 analysis to predict putative protein functions based on structural homology, burst size …

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Characterization Of Genetic Pathways Involved In Resistance To A Novel Antifungal Peptide, Kayla L. Haberman Aug 2022

Characterization Of Genetic Pathways Involved In Resistance To A Novel Antifungal Peptide, Kayla L. Haberman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Antibiotic resistance is increasing prevalence, particularly in Candida glabrata. This opportunistic pathogen is closely phylogenetically related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae; however, its characterization is limited. C. glabrata is only second to Candida albicans as a fungal pathogen in immunocompromised patients. Commonly resistant to azoles, the most common fungal therapy, it has become costly and challenging to treat. A histatin 5 derived antifungal peptide, KM29, has a high degree of efficacy in Candida species and S. cerevisiae. The objective of this work is to advance our understanding of the mechanism of action of KM29 against C. glabrata. Previous work in the lab …

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Chondronecrosis With Osteomyelitis In Broilers: Bacterial Species Involvement And Influence Of Probiotics And Synbiotics, Amer Abdullah Hasan Aug 2022

Chondronecrosis With Osteomyelitis In Broilers: Bacterial Species Involvement And Influence Of Probiotics And Synbiotics, Amer Abdullah Hasan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since 1945, the market for broiler production has evolved from a collection of smallholder poultry farms into an industry worth billions of dollars. Poultry production has not gone without challenges. Lameness in young broilers is presently a serious issue in the poultry industry for reasons of animal health and welfare, as well as significant lost production and revenue. Bacterial chondronecrosis with osteomyelitis (BCO) is a major form of lameness in broilers. This dissertation contains information about (i) the influence of Staphylococcus agnetis, Staphylococcus saprophyticus, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Enterococcus faecalis on inducing BCO lameness, (ii) evaluation of of probiotics for reducing …

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Bacterial Chondronecrosis With Osteomyelitis In Broilers: Genomics, Phylogenomics, And Methods To Detect Specific Pathogens During Outbreaks., Abdulkarim Abdulaziz A. Shwani Aug 2022

Bacterial Chondronecrosis With Osteomyelitis In Broilers: Genomics, Phylogenomics, And Methods To Detect Specific Pathogens During Outbreaks., Abdulkarim Abdulaziz A. Shwani

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lameness is a major issue in animal welfare and the broiler industry. Bacterial chondronecrosis with osteomyelitis (BCO) is one of the main causes of lameness. Many staphylococcal species, including Staphylococcus agnetis isolate 908, have been isolated from the bones and blood of lame broilers at the University of Arkansas. Staphylococcus agnetis is a coagulase-variable, Gram-positive bacterial species that has been previously associated with subclinical or mild clinical cases of mastitis in dairy cattle. The annotated complete genome of hypervirulent strain 908 was published at NCBI. In this study, it has been compared to nine genomes we assembled for hypervirulent isolates …

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A Conserved Mechanism For Hormesis In Molecular Systems, Sharon N. Greenwood, Regina G. Belz, Brian P. Weiser Jul 2022

A Conserved Mechanism For Hormesis In Molecular Systems, Sharon N. Greenwood, Regina G. Belz, Brian P. Weiser

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

Hormesis refers to dose-response phenomena where low dose treatments elicit a response that is opposite the response observed at higher doses. Hormetic dose-response relationships have been observed throughout all of biology, but the underlying determinants of many reported hormetic dose-responses have not been identified. In this report, we describe a conserved mechanism for hormesis on the molecular level where low dose treatments enhance a response that becomes reduced at higher doses. The hormetic mechanism relies on the ability of protein homo-multimers to simultaneously interact with a substrate and a competitor on different subunits at low doses of competitor. In this …

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Increasing The Resilience Of Plant Immunity To A Warming Climate, Jong Hum Kim, Christian Castroverde, Shuai Huang, Chao Li, Richard Hilleary, Adam Seroka, Reza Sohrabi, Diana Medina-Yerena, Bethany Huot, Jie Wang, Sharon Marr, Mary Wildermuth, Tao Chen, John Macmicking, Sheng Yang He Jun 2022

Increasing The Resilience Of Plant Immunity To A Warming Climate, Jong Hum Kim, Christian Castroverde, Shuai Huang, Chao Li, Richard Hilleary, Adam Seroka, Reza Sohrabi, Diana Medina-Yerena, Bethany Huot, Jie Wang, Sharon Marr, Mary Wildermuth, Tao Chen, John Macmicking, Sheng Yang He

Biology Faculty Publications

Extreme weather conditions associated with climate change affect many aspects of plant and animal life, including the response to infectious diseases. Production of salicylic acid (SA), a central plant defence hormone, is particularly vulnerable to suppression by short periods of hot weather above the normal plant growth temperature range via an unknown mechanism. Here we show that suppression of SA production in Arabidopsis thaliana at 28 °C is independent of PHYTOCHROME B (phyB) and EARLY FLOWERING 3 (ELF3), which regulate thermo-responsive plant growth and development. Instead, we found that formation of GUANYLATE BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE 3 (GBPL3) defence-activated biomolecular condensates (GDACs) …

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Exploring Melatonin As A Treatment For Oral Ulcers, William H. Sutherland Jun 2022

Exploring Melatonin As A Treatment For Oral Ulcers, William H. Sutherland

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The hormone melatonin is best known for its role in the sleep-wake cycle, but its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects have significant implications that have not been fully explored in oral health. Some studies use melatonin to treat gastrointestinal ulcers, including duodenal ulcers and oral mucositis, but we found no study reporting its effects on more common oral ulcers, like aphthous stomatitis. We hypothesize that the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant characteristics of melatonin could effectively prevent and heal oral ulcers. In this paper, we review the literature on melatonin to propose its use as a treatment for oral ulcers. We also include …

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Analysis Of Soxs In S. Typhimurium By Transposon Mutagenesis, Joel Hanns, Brenda Pratte, Lon Chubiz Phd, Lauren Daugherty Jun 2022

Analysis Of Soxs In S. Typhimurium By Transposon Mutagenesis, Joel Hanns, Brenda Pratte, Lon Chubiz Phd, Lauren Daugherty

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The mar-sox-rob regulon has been implicated in transcriptional regulation of several stress responses, such efflux of antibiotics, enzymes that break down reactive oxygen species, repression of biofilm formation, or repression of motility through downregulation of flagellar expression. This system is conserved among enteric bacteria and has been studied in species, such as E. coli and S. typhimurium. Some of these mechanisms can be costly and slow cell growth while increasing the probability of survival through tolerance of toxic environments. SoxS works in coordination with SoxR to respond to redox stress encountered by the cell. Interestingly, the overexpression of SoxS …

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Assembly Of The Peripheral Arm Subunits Of Escherichia Coli Complex I And Analysis Of Clinical Mutations, Hind Alkhaldi May 2022

Assembly Of The Peripheral Arm Subunits Of Escherichia Coli Complex I And Analysis Of Clinical Mutations, Hind Alkhaldi

Biological Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Respiratory Complex I from E. coli is a proto-type of the mitochondrial enzyme, consisting of a 6-subunit peripheral arm (B-CD-E-F-G-I) and a 7-subunit membrane arm. When subunits E-F-G (N-module), were expressed alone they formed an active complex as determined by co-immunoprecipitation and native gel electrophoresis. When co-expressed with subunits B and CD, only a complex of E-F-G was found. When these five subunits were co-expressed with subunit I and two membrane subunits, A and H, a complex of B-CD-E-F-G-I was membrane-bound, constituting the N- and Q-modules. Assembly of Complex I was also followed by splitting the genes between two plasmids, …

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Eskape Pathogens: The Clinical Prevalence And Molecular Mechanisms Of Antibiotic Resistance, Anusha Attre May 2022

Eskape Pathogens: The Clinical Prevalence And Molecular Mechanisms Of Antibiotic Resistance, Anusha Attre

Honors Scholar Theses

The ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species) are the leading cause of all nosocomial, or healthcare-associated (HAI), infections (Navidinia, 2016). The purpose of this research study is to determine the burden of ESKAPE infections on healthcare and study the antibiotic resistance in these high-risk pathogens to provide direction for researchers to develop new antimicrobial innovations to reduce ESKAPE infectivity and improve patient outcomes. To study the burden of ESKAPE infections, this review analyzes the current statistics explaining the clinical prevalence of each pathogen in causing HAIs. Additionally, each pathogen is …

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Describing The Effect Of Thin Layer Sediment Placement On Coastal Microbial Communities Using Foraminifera Diversity, Elizabeth B. Billings May 2022

Describing The Effect Of Thin Layer Sediment Placement On Coastal Microbial Communities Using Foraminifera Diversity, Elizabeth B. Billings

Senior Honors Projects

Salt marshes are rich ecosystems that play an important role in aquatic food systems and prevent erosion while also providing essential habitats for wildlife. Climate change has resulted in rising sea levels and erosion of these coastal wetlands. Thin Layer Sediment Placement (TLP) is a restoration effort being implemented to mitigate the effects of climate change on coastal ecosystems. The TLP process raises elevation of the marsh and provides substrates for vegetative growth by spraying dredged sediment over existing marsh. The impacts of TLP on microbial populations is not widely understood, therefore metrics are required to study the effects of …

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Time Course Investigation Of The Dermal Leukocyte Response To Lipoteichoic Acid In Chickens, Ian Gilbert May 2022

Time Course Investigation Of The Dermal Leukocyte Response To Lipoteichoic Acid In Chickens, Ian Gilbert

Animal Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is component of the cell wall of Gram-positive bacteria that stimulates inflammation during bacterial infection. However, few studies have investigated the in vivo immune response to LTA, and none of the in vivo studies done have been performed in birds. For this project, the pulp (a skin-derivative) of growing feathers (GFs) of chickens were used as a test site to investigate the in vivo effects of intradermally injected LTA. In Study 1, the pulp of 12 GFs of 11-week-old Light-brown Leghorn (LBL) males were injected with 10 μL of differing concentrations of LTA (0.1, 1.0, 10, 100 …

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Annual Faculty Research Symposium 2022, Oakwood University Apr 2022

Annual Faculty Research Symposium 2022, Oakwood University

Proceedings

No abstract provided.

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Microbial Diversity And Community Structure In Sediments Associated With The Seagrass (Thallassia Testudinum) In Apalachicola Bay, Florida, Rahma Ahmed, Thomas Mcelroy, Troy Mutchler Apr 2022

Microbial Diversity And Community Structure In Sediments Associated With The Seagrass (Thallassia Testudinum) In Apalachicola Bay, Florida, Rahma Ahmed, Thomas Mcelroy, Troy Mutchler

Symposium of Student Scholars

Seagrass is an angiosperm which provides many ecosystem services in coastal areas, such as providing food, shelter and nurseries for many species, and decreasing the impact of waves on shorelines. A global assessment reported that 29% of known seagrass meadows are in a state of decline due to the effects of human activity. Seagrass is commonly found in shallow marine waters where they form meadows containing a microbiome that plays an important role in providing nutrients for seagrass growth, though little is known about the microorganisms within the seagrass meadow sediments. Our project collected sediments from seagrass meadows and adjacent …

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Exploring The Functionality Of Putative Bop3 Post-Translational Modifications, Liliya Tkachuk Apr 2022

Exploring The Functionality Of Putative Bop3 Post-Translational Modifications, Liliya Tkachuk

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

All eukaryotic cells require that transcribed mRNAs undergo export form the nucleus to the cytoplasm where they can be translated into proteins. This process requires a host of proteins which are conserved between the unicellular budding yeast, S. cerevisiae, and humans. During this process, Mex67 and other associated proteins facilitate the mRNA to travel across the nuclear pore complex (NPC), doorways embedded in the nuclear envelope. Upon the exit of mRNA, Mex67 is released and recycled back into the nucleus to facilitate the export of more mRNA. This occurs through the action of Dbp5, whose activity is regulated through …

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The Role Of Cd5 In Cd4+ T Cell Metabolism, Joshua Bennett, Kiara Whitley, Claudia Freitas Phd, Christopher Haynie, Carlos Moreno, Scott Weber Mar 2022

The Role Of Cd5 In Cd4+ T Cell Metabolism, Joshua Bennett, Kiara Whitley, Claudia Freitas Phd, Christopher Haynie, Carlos Moreno, Scott Weber

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

T cells serve a key role in the immunological response in the adaptive system. Different receptors present on the T cell have certain roles and are able to either inhibit or stimulate signaling which consequently regulates the function and metabolism of the cell. CD5 is an inhibitory co receptor expressed on the surface of T cells known to regulate thymocyte selection and TCR signaling . Our goal is to better understand the effects of CD5 regulation in metabolism. Using metabolic flux assays, we found that CD5KO naïve T cells have increased glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration in comparison to wild type …

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Potential Regulation Of Breast Cancer Invasion By Thymidine Kinase 1, Eliza E. Bitter, Rachel M. Morris, Toni O. Mortimer, Kai Barlow, Abigail Schekall, Michelle H. Townsend, Jonathan Skidmore, Brett E. Pickett, Kim L. O'Neill Mar 2022

Potential Regulation Of Breast Cancer Invasion By Thymidine Kinase 1, Eliza E. Bitter, Rachel M. Morris, Toni O. Mortimer, Kai Barlow, Abigail Schekall, Michelle H. Townsend, Jonathan Skidmore, Brett E. Pickett, Kim L. O'Neill

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and is largely treatable within the early stages of the disease. However, patient mortality drastically declines as the tumor begins to invade other tissues and metastasize, making aggressive phenotypes especially problematic to treat. Such treatment typically requires an aggressive and decisive multidisciplinary approach. The recent expansion of immunotherapy as a viable treatment option has greatly improved treatment outcomes, especially with aggressive breast cancer phenotypes. Thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) is a DNA salvage pathway enzyme that is highly expressed during S phase and involved in cell cycle repair. Past studies indicated that …

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Conformational Flexibility And Local Frustration In The Functional States Of The Sars-Cov-2 Spike B.1.1.7 And B.1.351 Variants: Mutation-Induced Allosteric Modulation Mechanism Of Functional Dynamics And Protein Stability, Gennady M. Verkhivker Jan 2022

Conformational Flexibility And Local Frustration In The Functional States Of The Sars-Cov-2 Spike B.1.1.7 And B.1.351 Variants: Mutation-Induced Allosteric Modulation Mechanism Of Functional Dynamics And Protein Stability, Gennady M. Verkhivker

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Structural and functional studies of the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins have recently determined distinct functional states of the B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 spike variants, providing a molecular framework for understanding the mechanisms that link the effect of mutations with the enhanced virus infectivity and transmissibility. A detailed dynamic and energetic analysis of these variants was undertaken in the present work to quantify the effects of different mutations on functional conformational changes and stability of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. We employed the efficient and accurate coarse-grained (CG) simulations of multiple functional states of the D614G mutant, B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 spike variants to characterize …

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Phip Variants Associated With Chung–Jansen Syndrome Disrupt Replication Fork Stability And Genome Integrity, Neysha Tirado-Class, Caitlin Hathaway, Wendy K. Chung, Huzefa Dungrawala Jan 2022

Phip Variants Associated With Chung–Jansen Syndrome Disrupt Replication Fork Stability And Genome Integrity, Neysha Tirado-Class, Caitlin Hathaway, Wendy K. Chung, Huzefa Dungrawala

Molecular Biosciences Faculty Publications

Chung–Jansen syndrome (CJS) is a rare, autosomal dominant disorder characterized by developmental delay, intellectual disability/cognitive impairment, behavioral challenges, obesity, and dysmorphic features. CJS is associated with heterozygous variants in PHIP (Pleckstrin-Homology Interacting Protein), a gene that encodes one of several substrate receptors for Cullin4-RING (CRL4) E3 ubiquitin ligase complex. Full-length PHIP, also called DCAF14, was recently identified to function as a replication stress response protein. Herein, we report the identification of two PHIP missense variants identified by exome sequencing in unrelated individuals with CJS. The variants p.D488V and p.E963G occur in different functional elements of DCAF14-WD40 repeat domain and pleckstrin …

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Sequence Properties Of An Intramolecular Interaction That Inhibits P53 Dna Binding, Emily Gregory, Gary W. Daughdrill Jan 2022

Sequence Properties Of An Intramolecular Interaction That Inhibits P53 Dna Binding, Emily Gregory, Gary W. Daughdrill

Molecular Biosciences Faculty Publications

An intramolecular interaction between the p53 transactivation and DNA binding domains inhibits DNA binding. To study this autoinhibition, we used a fragment of p53, referred to as ND WT, containing the N-terminal transactivation domains (TAD1 and TAD2), a proline rich region (PRR), and the DNA binding domain (DBD). We mutated acidic, nonpolar, and aromatic amino acids in TAD2 to disrupt the interaction with DBD and measured the effects on DNA binding affinity at different ionic strengths using fluorescence anisotropy. We observed a large increase in DNA binding affinity for the mutants consistent with reduced autoinhibition. The ΔΔG between DBD and …

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Evaluation Of Oasl And Herc5’S Role In The Non-Lytic Clearance Of Influenza A Virus From Club Cells, Steve Crisafulli Jan 2022

Evaluation Of Oasl And Herc5’S Role In The Non-Lytic Clearance Of Influenza A Virus From Club Cells, Steve Crisafulli

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Influenza A virus (IAV) is a highly infectious pathogen responsible for causing severe respiratory illness and death in humans and animals worldwide. Due to highly effective strategies to negate host antiviral defenses, IAV leads to the death of nearly all infected cells. Furthermore, IAV induces high levels of genome-damaging oxidative stress within infected cells and suppresses the cellular mismatch repair (MMR) mechanism, thereby inhibiting expression of key antiviral genes, which further contributes to cell death. However, recent studies have demonstrated that a subset of respiratory epithelial cells, called club cells, are able to non-lytically clear IAV and continue to survive …

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Leveraging Queueing Theory To Develop Advanced Synthetic Biological Circuits, Prajakta K. Jadhav Jan 2022

Leveraging Queueing Theory To Develop Advanced Synthetic Biological Circuits, Prajakta K. Jadhav

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The complexity and redundancy in the network topology of the cell hinder our understanding of the natural system, making it challenging to engineer living organisms with the desired functionality. The long-term goal of synthetic biology and bioengineering is to engineer cells to perform specific functions with increased robustness. The robust engineered systems can be easily applied to different species with the same outcome. An effective approach is a bottom-up approach where we tease apart the biological pathways and study them independently. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of biological pathways can be further applied to construct complex biological circuits that function similarly …

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Inhibition Of Lysine Acetyltransferases Kat 3a/3b And Its Effect On Poliovirus Proliferation, Eduards Norkvests Jan 2022

Inhibition Of Lysine Acetyltransferases Kat 3a/3b And Its Effect On Poliovirus Proliferation, Eduards Norkvests

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Ribosomes have been traditionally viewed as invariable machinery, but in recent years more and more evidence for their heterogeneity has emerged. Core ribosomal proteins, ribosomal-associated proteins, and post-translational modifications all contribute to the variations found within these crucial subcellular components.In our research, we focused on lysine acetylation – a post translational modification found on many ribosomal proteins. We used a chemical inhibitor of acetyltransferases KAT 3A and KAT 3B to observe the effect that inhibiting acetylation may have in the context of translation. By using poliovirus to shut off conventional cellular translation, we were able to look at a narrow …

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Function And Expression Of Ribonucleotide Reductase-Encoding Genes In Flavobacterium Johnsoniae, Hunter Scott Doheny Jan 2022

Function And Expression Of Ribonucleotide Reductase-Encoding Genes In Flavobacterium Johnsoniae, Hunter Scott Doheny

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Ribonucleotide reductases (RNRs) are essential enzymes that are involved in DNA synthesis. While this makes them ideal targets for antiproliferative drugs, most known RNR targeting agents are nonspecific. This poses a problem when considering antimicrobials, but several groups of bacteria have RNRs that utilize unique mechanisms that could be exploited if fully understood. One such bacteria, Flavobacterium johnsoniae, has the gene for a class Id RNR with a novel activation mechanism. Class Id RNRs belong to the aerobic class I RNRs and seem to have a unique metallocofactor and activation mechanism involving superoxide and manganese. The goal of this research …

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An Integrative Investigation Of The Synechococcus A/B Clade During Adaptive Radiation At The Upper Thermal Limit Of Phototrophy, Christopher L. Pierpont Jan 2022

An Integrative Investigation Of The Synechococcus A/B Clade During Adaptive Radiation At The Upper Thermal Limit Of Phototrophy, Christopher L. Pierpont

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Thermophilic microorganisms have been scientifically observed since the early nineteenth century and have spurred many questions about the limits of life and the capacity of organisms to survive extreme conditions. Decades of research on thermophile proteins and genomes have yielded several proposed correlates of temperature that may contribute to adaptation of bacteria and archaea to high temperature. However, many of the generalizations reported are drawn from analyses of deeply divergent taxa or from individual case studies in isolation from mesophilic relatives. Members of the Synechococcus A/B (SynAB) group are the only cyanobacteria with members able to grow above 65 °C …

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A Multidisciplinary Characterization Of The Enzymology And Biology Of Reversible Glucan Phosphorylation In Toxoplasma Gondii , Robert Murphy Jan 2022

A Multidisciplinary Characterization Of The Enzymology And Biology Of Reversible Glucan Phosphorylation In Toxoplasma Gondii , Robert Murphy

Theses and Dissertations--Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

Toxoplasma gondii is an opportunistic, protozoan parasite of all warm-blooded animals, infecting roughly one-third of humans worldwide. Humans acquire infections by consuming T. gondii tissue cysts in undercooked meat or from oocysts shed in cat feces. Encysted parasites convert into rapidly growing tachyzoites that disseminate throughout the body, defining the acute phase of infection. Under host immune pressure, tachyzoites convert into bradyzoites that populate tissue cysts found in CNS or muscle tissue and persist for the lifetime of the host, defining the chronic phase of infection. Tissue cysts are responsible for transmission via carnivory, but also possess the ability to …

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Alternative Splicing Regulates The Innate Immune Response To Viral Infection, Luke A. White Jan 2022

Alternative Splicing Regulates The Innate Immune Response To Viral Infection, Luke A. White

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is a mosquito-borne RNA virus that infects humans and livestock in sub-Saharan Africa and the Arabian peninsula, causing disease ranging from a mild flu-like illness to liver damage, blindness, hemorrhagic fever, death, and, especially in livestock animals, high rates of abortive pregnancies. There is no approved vaccine for RVFV, and as a disease with a high rate of spread that causes severe illness, it is listed as a Category A pathogen by the USA CDC. A better understanding of RVFV’s molecular virology will be instrumental to combating RVFV as climate change causes its mosquito host …

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Microbial Community Analysis: Biofilm Inhibition & Algae Associated Community Structure, Michelle V. Fong Jan 2022

Microbial Community Analysis: Biofilm Inhibition & Algae Associated Community Structure, Michelle V. Fong

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Natural products chemistry is the pursuit of bioactive small molecules from living organisms. These can be classified as primary metabolites if they are essential to survival, and secondary metabolites if they are accessory, playing a role in communication, defense, recruitment, etc.. Natural products have made a significant contribution to society – of 1,881 FDA-approved drugs from 1981 to 2019, 4% were pure natural products, 19% were natural products derived, and 3% were synthetic drugs with a natural products pharmacophore targeting a wide range of diseases and infections (Newman & Cragg, 2020). Pharmacophores are structural components of drugs that are responsible …

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Vaginal Microbiota Of Recurrent Bacterial Vaginosis Patients Under Oral Metronidazole Therapy: Prognosis Based On Specific Species Of Gardnerella And Other Bacterial Vaginosis Associated Species In Association With The Vaginal Microbiome, Ashomathi Ashok Sudhamathi Mollin Jan 2022

Vaginal Microbiota Of Recurrent Bacterial Vaginosis Patients Under Oral Metronidazole Therapy: Prognosis Based On Specific Species Of Gardnerella And Other Bacterial Vaginosis Associated Species In Association With The Vaginal Microbiome, Ashomathi Ashok Sudhamathi Mollin

Wayne State University Theses

Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) is a state of vaginal dysbiosis in which BV-associated species displace the typically dominant species of Lactobacillus. This urogenital disease elevates the risk for complications such as pre-term birth, STDs and HIV. Currently, there is no consensus on the etiology of BV. Standard of care treatment is oral metronidazole; however, therapy has high rates of recurrence. Our previous qPCR study of recurrent BV patients (3+ episodes/year) found strong associations of Gardnerella_Gsp07, G. swidsinksii, and G. leopoldii with refractory and recurrent responses, and a robust recovery of Lactobacillus in remission patients. However, these findings were not applicable across …

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