Legislative incentives enacted in Europe through the Regulation (EC) No. 141/2000 to incentivize orphan drug development have over the last 12 years constituted a powerful impetus toward R&D directed at the rare diseases population. However, despite therapeutic promises contained in these projects and significant economic impact linked to burgeoning R&D expenditures, the affordability and value...

*Corresponding author. E-mail addr Abbreviations used: BSA, bovine hVDAC1, voltage-dependent aniondomain of the autotransporter NalP OmpA, outer membrane protein A o isomerases; SurA, the survival factor WT-OmpA, wild type OmpA; YaeT The interactions of outer membrane proteins (OMPs) with the periplasmic chaperone Skp from Escherichia coli are not well understood. We have examined the binding o...

BACKGROUND The emerging nanotechnologies have greatly facilitated the development of label-free biosensors. The atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been used to study the molecular mechanism of the reactions for protein and aptamers. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) have been used in fast detections of various pathogens such as bacteria. This study used both AFM and SPR to investigate the comp...

BACKGROUND Peptidoglycan-associated lipoprotein (Pal), murein lipoprotein (LppA), and outer membrane protein A (OmpA) are dominant outer membrane proteins (OMPs) that are released by gram-negative bacteria during sepsis. OMPs are implicated in the maintenance of cell envelope integrity. Here, we characterize the roles of these OMPs in pathogenesis during bacteremia caused by Klebsiella pneumoni...

Edwardsiella tarda and Flavobacterium columnare are two important intracellular pathogenic bacteria that cause the infectious diseases edwardsiellosis and columnaris in wild and cultured fish. Prediction of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) binding is an important issue in T-cell epitope prediction. In a healthy immune system, the T-cells must recognize epitopes and induce the immune respo...

Gram-negative bacteria are equipped with quality-control systems for the outer membrane (OM) that sense and cope with defective biogenesis of its components. Accumulation of misfolded outer membrane proteins (OMPs) in Escherichia coli leads to activation of σ(E), an essential alternative σ factor that up-regulates transcription of multiple genes required to preserve OM structure and function. D...

Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B infections are a serious health threat to the world that cannot be prevented by vaccination. Here, we report an analysis of the MC58 Neisseria meningitidis genome aimed at the identification of new potential vaccine candidates. ‘Hypothetical’ and ‘conserved hypothetical’ annotated genes, together with those with putative functions related to the cell envelope,...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Leptospirosis is a severe and complex zoonotic disease prevalent in many countries including India. Current leptospiral research is focussed on the identification of the outer membrane proteins (OMPs) of the organism that could be used in developing diagnostic assays for leptospirosis. METHODS The Leptospira interrogans serovar Canicola was grown in EMJH medium and the...

To survive in the presence of a wide range of toxic compounds, gram-negative bacteria expel such compounds via tripartite efflux pumps that span both the inner and outer membranes. The Salmonella-specific MdsAB pump consists of MdsB, a resistance-nodulation-division (RND)-type inner membrane transporter (IMT) that requires the membrane fusion protein (MFP) MdsA, and an outer membrane protein (O...

Glässer's disease is an economically important infectious disease of pigs caused by Haemophilus parasuis. Few vaccines are currently available that could provide effective cross-protection against various serovars of H. parasuis. In this study, five OMPs (OppA, TolC, HxuC, LppC, and HAPS_0926) identified by bioinformatic approaches, were cloned and expressed as recombinant proteins. Antigenicit...