Research Publications (Food Safety)

by Melissa C. Steele-Ogus, Ava M. Obenaus, Nathan J. Sniadecki, Alexander R. Paredez The deep-branching eukaryote Giardia lamblia is an extracellular parasite that attaches to the host intestine via a microtubule-based structure called the ventral disc. Control of attachment is mediated in part by the movement of two regions of the ventral disc that either permit or exclude the passage of fluid under the disc.

by Hugo Bisio, Aarti Krishnan, Jean-Baptiste Marq, Dominique Soldati-Favre Regulated microneme secretion governs motility, host cell invasion and egress in the obligate intracellular apicomplexans. Intracellular calcium oscillations and phospholipid dynamics critically regulate microneme exocytosis. Despite its importance for the lytic cycle of these parasites, molecular mechanistic details about exocytosis are still missing.

by Sabrina Wamp, Patricia Rothe, Daniel Stern, Gudrun Holland, Janina Döhling, Sven Halbedel Gram-positive bacteria are protected by a thick mesh of peptidoglycan (PG) completely engulfing their cells. This PG network is the main component of the bacterial cell wall, it provides rigidity and acts as foundation for the attachment of other surface molecules.

by Duarte N. Guerreiro, M. Graciela Pucciarelli, Teresa Tiensuu, Diana Gudynaite, Aoife Boyd, Jörgen Johansson, Francisco García-del Portillo, Conor P. O’Byrne The general stress response (GSR) in Listeria monocytogenes plays a critical role in the survival of this pathogen in the host gastrointestinal tract. The GSR is regulated by the alternative sigma factor B (σB), whose role in protection against acid stress is well established.

by Volkan K. Köseoğlu, Marieke K. Jones, Hervé Agaisse The bacterial pathogen Shigella flexneri causes 270 million cases of bacillary dysentery worldwide every year, resulting in more than 200,000 deaths. S. flexneri pathogenic properties rely on its ability to invade epithelial cells and spread from cell to cell within the colonic epithelium.

by Xuke Yang, Xiaoyan Yin, Jiaojiao Liu, Zhipeng Niu, Jichao Yang, Bang Shen Many biosynthetic pathways produce pyrophosphate (PPi) as a by-product, which is cytotoxic if accumulated at high levels. Pyrophosphatases play pivotal roles in PPi detoxification by converting PPi to inorganic phosphate.

by Rosario Sabariegos, Ana María Ortega-Prieto, Luis Díaz-Martínez, Ana Grande-Pérez, Carlos García Crespo, Isabel Gallego, Ana I. de Ávila, Laura Albentosa-González, María Eugenia Soria, Pablo Gastaminza, Esteban Domingo, Celia Perales, Antonio Mas In the course of experiments aimed at deciphering the inhibition mechanism of mycophenolic acid and ribavirin in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, we observed an inhibitory effect of the nucleoside guanosine (Gua).

by Nawar Naseer, Marisa S. Egan, Valeria M. Reyes Ruiz, William P. Scott, Emma N. Hunter, Tabitha Demissie, Isabella Rauch, Igor E. Brodsky, Sunny Shin Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is a Gram-negative pathogen that uses two distinct type III secretion systems (T3SSs), termed Salmonella pathogenicity island (SPI)-1 and SPI-2, to deliver virulence factors into the host cell.

by Bao-Rui Zhao, Xin-Xin Wang, Xian-Wei Wang Flagellin is a key bacterial virulence factor that can stimulate molecular immune signaling in both animals and plants. The detailed mechanisms of recognizing flagellin and mounting an efficient immune response have been uncovered in vertebrates; however, whether invertebrates can discriminate flagellin remains largely unknown.

by Kwok-ho Lam, Jacqueline M. Tremblay, Kay Perry, Konstantin Ichtchenko, Charles B. Shoemaker, Rongsheng Jin Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs) are among the deadliest of bacterial toxins. BoNT serotype A and B in particular pose the most serious threat to humans because of their high potency and persistence. To date, there is no effective treatment for late post-exposure therapy of botulism patients.

by Thao Thanh Tran, Carmen D. Mathmann, Marcela Gatica-Andrades, Rachel F. Rollo, Melanie Oelker, Johanna K. Ljungberg, Tam T. K. Nguyen, Alina Zamoshnikova, Lalith K. Kummari, Orry J. K. Wyer, Katharine M. Irvine, Javier Melo-Bolívar, Annette Gross, Darren Brown, Jeffrey Y. W. Mak, David P. Fairlie, Karl A. Hansford, Matthew A. Cooper, Rabina Giri, Veronika Schreiber, Shannon R. Joseph, Fiona Simpson, Timothy C. Barnett, Jörgen Johansson, Wendy Dankers, James Harris, Timothy J.

by Kwok-ho Lam, Jacqueline M. Tremblay, Kay Perry, Konstantin Ichtchenko, Charles B. Shoemaker, Rongsheng Jin

by Matthew J. G. Eldridge, Mélanie A. Hamon

by Timothy H. Chu, Camille Khairallah, Jason Shieh, Rhea Cho, Zhijuan Qiu, Yue Zhang, Onur Eskiocak, David G. Thanassi, Mark H. Kaplan, Semir Beyaz, Vincent W. Yang, James B. Bliska, Brian S. Sheridan

by Fangtao Li, Jiyu Liu, Jizhe Yang, Haoran Sun, Zhimin Jiang, Chenxi Wang, Xin Zhang, Yinghui Yu, Chuankuo Zhao, Juan Pu, Yipeng Sun, Kin-Chow Chang, Jinhua Liu, Honglei Sun

Protozoan parasites continue to cause a significant health and economic burden worldwide. As infectious organisms, they pose unique and difficult challenges due to a level of conservation of critical eukaryotic cellular pathways with their hosts. Gene regulation has been pinpointed as an essential pathway with enough divergence to warrant investigation into therapeutically targeting.

by Xiaoye Liang, Tong-Tong Pei, Hao Li, Hao-Yu Zheng, Han Luo, Yang Cui, Ming-Xuan Tang, Ya-Jie Zhao, Ping Xu, Tao Dong The type VI secretion system (T6SS) is a spear-like nanomachine found in gram-negative pathogens for delivery of toxic effectors to neighboring bacterial and host cells. Its assembly requires a tip spike complex consisting of a VgrG-trimer, a PAAR protein, and the interacting effectors. However, how the spike controls T6SS assembly remains elusive.

by Indra Bekere, Jiabin Huang, Marie Schnapp, Maren Rudolph, Laura Berneking, Klaus Ruckdeschel, Adam Grundhoff, Thomas Günther, Nicole Fischer, Martin Aepfelbacher

by Chu Wang, Christian Nehls, Dirk Baabe, Olaf Burghaus, Robert Hurwitz, Thomas Gutsmann, Martin Bröring, Michael Kolbe The methyltransferase FliB posttranslationally modifies surface-exposed ɛ-N-lysine residues of flagellin, the protomer of the flagellar filament in Salmonella enterica (S. enterica). Flagellin methylation, reported originally in 1959, was recently shown to enhance host cell adhesion and invasion by increasing the flagellar hydrophobicity.

by Stephan Pienkoß, Soheila Javadi, Paweena Chaoprasid, Thomas Nolte, Christian Twittenhoff, Petra Dersch, Franz Narberhaus

by Paulo Vieira, Roxana Y. Myers, Clement Pellegrin, Catherine Wram, Cedar Hesse, Thomas R. Maier, Jonathan Shao, Georgios D. Koutsovoulos, Inga Zasada, Tracie Matsumoto, Etienne G. J. Danchin, Thomas J. Baum, Sebastian Eves-van den Akker, Lev G. Nemchinov

by Newton G. Peres, Nancy Wang, Paul Whitney, Sven Engel, Meghanashree M. Shreenivas, Ian Comerford, Dianna M. Hocking, Anna B. Erazo, Irmgard Förster, Andreas Kupz, Thomas Gebhardt, Shaun R. McColl, Stephen J. McSorley, Sammy Bedoui, Richard A. Strugnell

by Basel H. Abuaita, Anna-Lisa E. Lawrence, Ryan P. Berger, David R. Hill, Sha Huang, Veda K. Yadagiri, Brooke Bons, Courtney Fields, Christiane E. Wobus, Jason R. Spence, Vincent B. Young, Mary X. O’Riordan Salmonella enterica represents over 2500 serovars associated with a wide-ranging spectrum of disease; from self-limiting gastroenteritis to invasive infections caused by non-typhoidal serovars (NTS) and typhoidal serovars, respectively.

by Hatim Thaker, Jie Zhang, Shin-Ichiro Miyashita, Vivian Cristofaro, SunHyun Park, Ali Hashemi-Gheinani, Maryrose P. Sullivan, Rosalyn M. Adam, Min Dong

by David M. Bland, Adélaïde Miarinjara, Christopher F. Bosio, Jeanette Calarco, B. Joseph Hinnebusch