Erythropoietin-producing human hepatocellular (Eph) receptors and their corresponding ephrin ligands are asymmetrically expressed at cell-cell contacts allowing for bidirectional signaling with forward signaling through the receptor expressing cell and reverse signaling through the ligand expressing cell. Eph receptors are the largest family of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) in mammals, which...
Over the past decade significant advancements have been made across the field of cancer biology resulting in transformative new therapies. Despite these advancements, treatments for metastatic cancer remain relatively ineffective. Metastasis is coordinated by various types of “healthy†stromal cells in addition to the tumor cells themselves. This requires a...
Ubiquitous in the environment are bacteria that have evolved to adapt to the environmental niches they colonize. To this end, bacteria sensory and signaling molecules are required for processing these extracellular changes within their environment into changes in gene expression. The plague-causing pathogen, Yersinia pestis, contains a repertoire of two-component...
In 2015, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that 1 in 6 Americans fall ill with a foodborne infection annually, resulting in more than 3000 fatalities and an estimated $15 billion in economic burden due to combined medical costs, productivity loss, and death. On a per-case basis, infections...
Herpesvirus virions consist of three layers: nucleocapsid, tegument, and envelope. The innermost layer, the nucleocapsid, initially assembles as an immature procapsid precursor built around viral scaffold proteins. The event that initiates procapsid maturation is unknown but it is dependent upon activation of the internal protease. Scaffold cleavage triggers angularization, or...
Platyrrhines are an enigmatic and intriguing radiation of New World monkeys that currently inhabit the western hemisphere from Argentina to Mexico. Platyrrhini, a taxonomic parvorder within Primates, is their formal taxonomic designation, as they represent the sister group of the Catarrhini or all of the Old World monkeys and apes....
Immune checkpoint inhibitors have not been effective for immunologically “cold” tumors, such as prostate cancer, which contain scarce tumor infiltrating lymphocytes. We hypothesized that select tissue-specific and immunostimulatory bacteria can potentiate these immunotherapies. Here we show that a patient-derived prostate-specific microbe, CP1, in combination with anti-PD-1 immunotherapy, increased survival and...
There is a shortage of research models that adequately represent the unique mucosal environment of human ectocervical tissue, which has limited the development of new therapies for treating infection or cancer. I hypothesized that engineering the microenvironment of ectocervical tissue with in vivo-like endocrine and paracrine support, would enable squamous...
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common endocrine disorder affecting approximately 1 in 10 reproductive-age women and remains the leading cause of female factor infertility among women of childbearing age. PCOS presents with features of hyperandrogenism, irregular menses and polycystic ovaries. Twin and family studies have demonstrated high heritability estimates...
Post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) and, more specifically, RNA interference (RNAi) include the processes by which a small double-stranded RNA, 19 to 22 nucleotides (nts) long, negatively regulates the expression and/or translatability of a target RNA, which harbors reverse complementarity to that small RNA, by recruiting the so-called RNA-Induced Silencing Complex...