Therapeutics and Prevention
Research Article | Therapeutics and PreventionSystematically Altering Bacterial SOS Activity under Stress Reveals Therapeutic Strategies for Potentiating AntibioticsOur antibiotic arsenal is becoming depleted, in part, because bacteria have the ability to rapidly adapt and acquire resistance to our best agents. The SOS pathway, a widely conserved DNA damage stress response in bacteria, is activated by many antibiotics and has been shown to play central role in promoting survival and the evolution of resistance under antibiotic stress. As a result, targeting the SOS response has been proposed as an...
Opinion/Hypothesis | Therapeutics and PreventionReplacement of Glycoprotein B in Alcelaphine Herpesvirus 1 by Its Ovine Herpesvirus 2 Homolog : Implications in Vaccine Development for Sheep-Associated Malignant Catarrhal FeverVaccine development is a top priority in malignant catarrhal fever (MCF) research. In the case of sheep-associated MCF (SA-MCF) caused by ovine herpesvirus 2 (OvHV-2), progress toward this objective has been hindered by the absence of methods to attenuate or modify the virus, since it cannot be propagated in vitro. As an alternative for vaccine development, in this study, we tested the hypothesis that one of the SA-MCF vaccine...
Research Article | Therapeutics and PreventionTranscriptomic Analysis of the Activity of a Novel Polymyxin against Staphylococcus aureusS. aureus is currently one of the most pervasive multidrug-resistant pathogens and commonly causes nosocomial infections. Clinicians are faced with a dwindling armamentarium to treat infections caused by S. aureus, as resistance develops to current antibiotics. This accentuates the urgent need for...
Research Article | Therapeutics and PreventionEngineering Recombinant Reoviruses To Display gp41 Membrane-Proximal External-Region Epitopes from HIV-1Vaccines to protect against HIV-1, the causative agent of AIDS, are not approved for use. Antibodies that neutralize genetically diverse strains of HIV-1 bind to discrete regions of the envelope glycoproteins, including the gp41 MPER. We engineered recombinant reoviruses that displayed MPER epitopes in attachment protein σ1 (REO-MPER vectors). The REO-MPER vectors replicated with wild-type efficiency, were genetically stable, and...
Research Article | Therapeutics and PreventionThe Response Regulator BfmR Is a Potential Drug Target for Acinetobacter baumanniiIncreasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria, particularly Gram-negative bacilli, has significantly affected the ability of physicians to treat infections, with resultant increased morbidity, mortality, and health care costs. In fact, some strains of bacteria are resistant to all available antibiotics, such as Acinetobacter baumannii, which is the focus of this report...
Research Article | Therapeutics and PreventionTargeting Drug-Sensitive and -Resistant Strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by Inhibition of Src Family Kinases Lowers Disease Burden and PathologyThe existing treatment regimen for tuberculosis (TB) suffers from deficiencies like high doses of antibiotics, long treatment duration, and inability to kill persistent populations in an efficient manner. Together, these contribute to the emergence of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Recently, several host factors were identified which help intracellular survival of ...
Research Article | Therapeutics and PreventionDrug Repurposing Screening Identifies Novel Compounds That Effectively Inhibit Toxoplasma gondii GrowthThere is an urgent need to develop new therapies to treat microbial infections, and the repurposing of well-characterized compounds is emerging as one approach to achieving this goal. Using the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii, we screened a library of 1,120 compounds and identified several compounds with significant antiparasitic activities. Among these were...
Research Article | Therapeutics and PreventionEfficacy of T-705 (Favipiravir) in the Treatment of Infections with Lethal Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome VirusSevere fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), caused by SFTS virus (SFTSV), is a recently identified emerging viral infectious disease. Despite the medical importance of this disease, there are currently neither vaccines nor effective therapeutics for SFTS. T-705, which is a pyrazine derivative, has shown broad antiviral activity against various RNA viruses. The present study demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge, the...
Research Article | Therapeutics and PreventionProteomic Analyses of Chlorhexidine Tolerance Mechanisms in Delftia acidovorans BiofilmsDelftia acidovorans has been associated with a number of serious infections, including bacteremia, empyema, bacterial endocarditis, and ocular and urinary tract infections. It has also been linked with a variety of surface-associated nosocomial infections. Biofilm-forming antimicrobial-resistant D. acidovorans strains have also been isolated, including ones...