The levels of exoamylase and other exoenzymes of Bacillus subtilis are pleiotropically decreased by the ecs-26 (prs-26) and ecs-13 (prs-13) mutations. These mutations also cause a competence- and sporulation-deficient phenotype. In the present work, the ecs locus, which has been defined by the ecs-26 and ecs-13 mutations, was cloned and sequenced. Sequence analysis revealed a putative operon of...

Parasitic flatworms of the genus Schistosoma cause schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease that affects hundreds of millions. Treatment of schistosomiasis depends almost entirely on the drug praziquantel (PZQ). Though essential to treating and controlling schistosomiasis, a major limitation of PZQ is that it is not active against immature mammalian-stage schistosomes. Furthermore, there a...

Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are becoming a novel and promising class of antineoplastic agents that have been used for cancer therapy in the clinic. Two HDAC inhibitors, vorinostat and romidepsin, have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat T-cell lymphoma. Nevertheless, similar to common anticancer drugs, HDAC inhibitors have been found to induce multidrug resistan...

The genes encoding ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters occupy 2.5% of the genome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However, none of these putative ABC transporters has been characterized so far. We describe the development of expression systems for simultaneous expression of the ATP-binding protein DrrA and the membrane integral protein DrrB which together behave as a functional doxorubicin ef...

We compared growth rate, cell glucose turnover and expression of ATP-binding-cassette (ABC) transporters in Leishmania amazonensis (LTB0016; LTB) versus LTB(160) selected for resistance against the ABC transporter blocker glibenclamide. Additionally, we evaluated the influence of drug-resistance on Leishmania sensitivity against 2-mercaptoacetate and 2-deoxyglucose. Our data demonstrate that (1...

Manual annotation of the Phytophthora ramorum and P. sojae genomes has identified 136, and 132 members, respectively, indicating that the ABC superfamily is comparable in size to the Arabidopsis and rice genomes. The high level of synteny that was observed between these oomycete genomes extends to the ABC superfamily where 107 orthologous pairs were identified by phylogenetic analysis. The larg...

ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters are highly expressed by brain endothelial cells that form the blood-brain barrier (BBB). These efflux pumps play an important role in maintaining brain homeostasis as they actively hinder the entry of unwanted blood-derived compounds into the central nervous system (CNS). Consequently, their high activity at the BBB has been a major hurdle for the treatme...

Isavuconazole is a novel, broad-spectrum, antifungal azole. In order to evaluate its interactions with known azole resistance mechanisms, isavuconazole susceptibility among different yeast models and clinical isolates expressing characterized azole resistance mechanisms was tested and compared to those of fluconazole, itraconazole, posaconazole, and voriconazole. Saccharomyces cerevisiae expres...

The ABC (ATP-binding cassette) transporter family in higher plants is highly expanded compared with those of mammalians. Moreover, some members of the plant ABC subfamily B (ABCB) display very high substrate specificity compared with their mammalian counterparts that are often associated with multi-drug resistance phenomena. In this review, we highlight prominent functions of plant and mammalia...

Changes in metabolism require the efflux and influx of a diverse variety of metabolites. The ABC superfamily of transporters regulates the exchange of hundreds of substrates through the impermeable cell membrane. We show here that a metabolic switch to oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), either by treating cells with dichloroacetate (DCA) or by changing the available substrates, reduced express...