The immune system’s role as defense from opportunistic microbes also necessitated the ability to distinguish between ‘‘self’’ and ‘‘non-self’’ to ensure that an immune response is not mounted against the organism’s own tissues. This discrimination is partially achieved by the recognition of an invader’s chemical motifs by host surface receptors. Consequently, potential pathogens have adapted nu...

Acinetobacter baumannii, a gram negative bacteria, has emerged as critical pathogen responsible for nosocomial and other infections. A. baumannii exhibits resistance to variety of antibiotic classes, emphasizing that new therapeutic targets are urgently needed. In ATCC 179778, 458 genes have been identified essential genes, indispensable growth survival the pathogen. The functions 47 proteins e...

Current pathogen detection systems lack the stability, sensitivity, and time-independent functionality required for real-time biosensing in the field. Antibodies exhibit specificity for pathogenic bacteria but lack the sensitivity to detect reduced pathogen levels and the stability needed for detection in harsh environments. We are investigating naturally occurring antimicrobial peptides (AMPs)...

BACKGROUND Species diversity is proposed to greatly impact the prevalence of pathogens. Two predominant hypotheses, the "Dilution Effect" and the "Amplification Effect", predict divergent outcomes with respect to the impact of species diversity. The Dilution Effect predicts that pathogen prevalence will be negatively correlated with increased species diversity, while the Amplification Effect pr...

Two members of the eight-member CALMODULIN-BINDING PROTEIN60 (CBP60) gene family, CBP60g and SYSTEMIC ACQUIRED RESISTANCE DEFICIENT1 (SARD1), encode positive regulators of plant immunity that promote the production of salicylic acid (SA) and affect the expression of SA-dependent and SA-independent defense genes. Here, we investigated the other six family members in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thal...