Fluorescent proteins, especially green fluorescent protein (GFP), have been instrumental in understanding urinary tract infection pathogenesis by uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC). We have used a recently developed GFP variant, vsfGFP-9, to create new plasmid- and chromosome-based GFP derivatives of the UPEC strain UTI89. The vsfGFP-9 strains are nearly 10× brighter with no in vitro growth ...

Although many proteins have been described involved in Escherichia coli colonization and infection, only few reports have shown lectins as important components in these processes. Because the mechanisms underlying E. coli colonization process involving lectins are not fully understood, we sought to identify the presence of other non-described lectins in E. coli. Here, we isolated a 75-kDa prote...

Escherichia coli is the most common organism associated with asymptomatic bacteriuria (ABU) in humans. In contrast to uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) that cause symptomatic urinary tract infection, very little is known about the mechanisms by which these strains colonize the urinary tract. Here, we have investigated the biofilm-forming capacity on abiotic surfaces of groups of ABU strains and UPEC...

The urinary tract is one of the most common sites of infection in humans, and uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) is the main causative agent of urinary tract infections. Bacteria colonizing the urinary tract face extremely low iron availability. To counteract this, UPEC expresses a wide variety of iron acquisition systems. To exploit iron acquisition in UPEC as a global target for small-mole...

background and objectives: urinary tract infection (uti) is one of the most common infections in the world. the majority of utis are caused by uropathogenic escherichia coli (upec) strains. fimh and flic are the most important virulence factors of upec. to date, any ideal vaccine against uti has not been approved for human use and we need to test new targets to develop an ideal vaccine against ...

Hardware (HW) security issues have been emerging at an alarming rate in recent years. Transient execution attacks, particular, pose a genuine threat to the of modern computing systems. Despite advances, understanding intricate implications microarchitectural design decisions on processor remains great challenge and has caused number update cycles past. This papers addresses need for new approac...

PURPOSE FimH (the adhesion fragment of type 1 fimbriae) is implicated in uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) attachment to epithelial cells through interaction with mannose. Recently, some studies have found that UPEC can thrive intracellularly causing recurrent urinary tract infection (UTI). Almost all vaccines have been designed to induce antibodies against UPEC. Yet, the humoral immune res...

We have found an avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) plasmid, pAPEC-O2-ColV, which contains many of the genes associated with APEC virulence and also shows similarity in content to a plasmid and pathogenicity island of human uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC). To test the possible role of this plasmid in virulence, it was transferred by conjugation along with a large R plasmid, pAPEC-O2-R, into ...

The recruitment of immune cells from the periphery to the site of inflammation is an essential step in the innate immune response at any mucosal surface. During infection of the urinary bladder, polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN; neutrophils) migrate from the bloodstream and traverse the bladder epithelium. Failure to resolve infection in the absence of a neutrophilic response demonstrates the ...

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) cause patient morbidity and have a substantial economic impact. Half of all women will suffer a UTI at least once, and 25% of these women will have recurrent infections. That 75% of previously infected women do not become reinfected strongly suggests a role for an adaptive immune response. The goal of this study was to characterize the adaptive immune responses t...