Phagocytic cells inhibit the growth of intracellular pathogens by producing nitric oxide (NO). NO causes cell filamentation, induction of the SOS response, and DNA replication arrest in the Gram-negative bacterium Salmonella enterica. NO also induces double-stranded chromosomal breaks in replication-arrested Salmonella lacking a functional RecBCD exonuclease. This DNA damage depends on actions ...

Typhoid fever is a systemic disease caused by the human specific Gram-negative pathogen Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi). The extra-intestinal infections caused by Salmonella are very fatal. The incidence of typhoid fever remains very high in impoverished areas and the emergence of multidrug resistance has made the situation worse. To combat and to reduce the morbidity and mortality...

Taenia solium is a cestode that has a two-hosts life cycle. The adult tapeworm causes an asymptomatic disease known as taeniasis whereas the larval stage causes a disease called cysticercosis. In humans, the most common localization for the larvae is the central nervous system where it produces the neurological disorder neurocysticercosis. Previous works by several research groups around the wo...

Ribonuclease P complexed with external guide sequence (EGS) bound to mRNA represents a unique nucleic acid-based gene interference approach for modulation of gene expression. Compared with other strategies, such as RNA interference, the EGS-based technology is unique because a custom-designed EGS molecule can hybridize with any mRNA and recruit intracellular ribonuclease P for specific degradat...

Salmonella is one of the most prominent causes of food poisoning and growing evidence indicates that contaminated fruits and vegetables are an increasing concern for human health. Successful infection demands the suppression of the host immune system, which is often achieved via injection of bacterial effector proteins into host cells. In this report we present the function of Salmonella effect...

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is a flagellated bacterium and one of the leading causes of gastroenteritis in humans. Bacterial flagellin is required for motility and also a prime target of the innate immune system. Innate immune recognition of flagellin is mediated by at least two independent pathways, TLR5 and Naip5-Naip6/NlrC4/Caspase-1. The functional significance of each of the tw...

Most bacterial pathogens require iron to grow and colonize host tissues. The Gram-negative bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium causes a natural systemic infection of mice that models acute and chronic human typhoid fever. S. Typhimurium resides in tissues within cells of the monocyte lineage, which limit pathogen access to iron, a mechanism of nutritional immunity. The primary fer...

Flagella are cell surface appendages involved in a number of bacterial behaviors, such as motility, biofilm formation, and chemotaxis. Despite these important functions, flagella can pose a liability to a bacterium when serving as potent immunogens resulting in the stimulation of the innate and adaptive immune systems. Previous work showing appendage overexpression, referred to as attenuating g...

A gene cassette incorporating the crs-rsd site-specific recombination system from the Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Dublin virulence plasmid improved the inheritance in S. enterica serotype Typhi strain CVD908-htrA of a multicopy plasmid expression vector. Use of this recombination cassette may improve expression of heterologous antigens from multicopy plasmid expression vectors i...

A phosphotransacetylase (pta) mutant of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium was attenuated in mice but survived normally in macrophages. Complementation of the pta mutation in trans restored virulence. An isocitrate lyase (aceA) mutant was virulent, so the inability to use acetate as a sole carbon source does not explain the phenotype.