Biotin is a cofactor required by all three domains of life. It is an enzyme cofactor that acts as a “swinging arm” to transfer carboxyl groups in important metabolic pathways involving carboxylation, decarboxylation and ...

A critical step during Bacillus anthracis infection is the outgrowth of germinated spores into vegetative bacilli that proliferate and disseminate rapidly within the host. An important challenge exists for developing ...

AB toxins are modular proteins that deliver their catalytic cargo into the cytosol of host cells. These toxins are increasingly being exploited for targeted delivery in biomedical and research applications due to their ...

Escherichia coli is one of a few organisms with a well characterized and complete metabolic model for lipoic acid metabolism. In this thesis I make discoveries through analysis of the diversity of lipoic acid metabolic ...

Mutants of Escherichia coli that lack cytoplasmic superoxide dismutase exhibit auxotrophies for sulfur-containing, branched-chain, and aromatic amino acids and cannot catabolize non-fermentable carbon sources. A secondary-site ...

Thus, we conclude that the vulnerability of cells to oxidative DNA damage is strongly determined by their ability to control free iron and cysteine and to scavenge H2O2.

The goal of this study was to understand the mechanism by which manganese protects cells against reactive oxygen species, particularly H2O2. We showed while manganese transport mutants, mntH, have no growth defect, mntH ...

The presence of nitric oxide (NO) greatly accelerates the rate at which hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) kills E. coli. The goal of this study was to determine the mechanism of this synergism. The filamentation of the dead cells, ...

Microorganisms are an invaluable source of natural products. As humans, we have taken advantage of these small molecules to improve overall human health and quality of life. However, the rise in the number of pathogens ...

Bacteroides species are one of the most prevalent groups of bacteria present in the human colon. Many strains carry large, integrated elements including conjugative transposons (CTns) and mobilizable transposons (MTns). ...