Organisms Commons^™

Synergistic Effects Of Non Contact Induction Heating & Antibiotics On Staphylococcus Aureus Biofilm, Rajeshwar Singh Sidhu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Staphylococcus aureus is a major cause of prosthetic joint infection (PJI) in which it forms adherent biofilms, thick aggregates of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) produced by the bacteria. Biofilm associated infections are difficult to treat as they have increased resistance to various antimicrobial agents, which means infected implants often require multiple procedures and prolonged antibiotic therapy. However, a new and emerging method of treatment of PJI is non-contact induction heating (NCIH) of metal implants. We sought to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of NCIH along with synergistic effects of antibiotics (Vancomycin) in reducing bacterial load within surface associated biofilms in …

Phylogenetic Estimates Of Hiv-1 Gp120 Indel Rates Across The Group M Subtypes, John Palmer, Art Poon

Western Research Forum

Insertions and deletions (indels) in the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein gp120 play a significant role in the evolution of HIV pathogenesis and transmission fitness. While substitution rates in HIV-1 are well characterized by phylogenetic models, there is a lack of quantitative measures of indel rates in HIV-1. Here we use a dated-tip phylogenetic analysis of gp120 sequences to estimate indel rates for 7 subtypes and CRFs of HIV-1 group M.

We obtained and processed 26,359 HIV-1 gp120 sequences from the Los Alamos National Laboratory HIV Sequence database. After filtering these sequences, we extracted the conserved and variable regions from the remaining …