Publications by authors named "Elena Melillo"

Student-athlete well-being is a key objective for individuals working with or for university athletic departments. This paper will describe how a university athletic department used a team approach to enhancing student-athlete health and well-being. The Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) Core Competencies of (1) Values and Ethics; (2) Roles and Responsibilities; (3) Communication; and (4) Teams and Teamwork provide a guiding framework for interprofessional collaboration.

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Sesquiterpene synthases (STSs) catalyze the formation of a large class of plant volatiles called sesquiterpenes. While thousands of putative STS sequences from diverse plant species are available, only a small number of them have been functionally characterized. Sequence identity-based screening for desired enzymes, often used in biotechnological applications, is difficult to apply here as STS sequence similarity is strongly affected by species.

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Article Synopsis
  • Scientists are trying to use special proteins called enzymes to stop bacteria from communicating, which helps them fight infections.
  • They created a new version of an enzyme from a bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa that can break down a communication molecule from another bacteria called Burkholderia.
  • This new enzyme worked really well in tests, even helping to save infected larvae, showing it could be a cool new way to treat infections from specific bacteria without harming others.
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Background: The red yeast Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous is a natural producer of the carotenoid astaxanthin. Because of its high flux, the native terpene pathway leading to the production of the tetraterpene is of particular interest as it can be redirected toward the production of other terpene compounds. The genetic tools for the transformation of the yeast with the concurrent knock-out of genes involved in the astaxanthin biosynthesis are made available and here we show that the production of the sesquiterpene α-cuprenene is possible in mutant strains of X.

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For the first time, the pentalenene synthase (PSS) gene from Streptomyces UC5319 was expressed in Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous, a native producer of astaxanthin. For the expression of the gene and the concurrent knock out of the native crtE or crtYB genes, two new vectors were engineered and used for the transformation of the wild-type strain of X. dendrorhous.

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Terpenoids belong to the largest class of natural compounds and are produced in all living organisms. The isoprenoid skeleton is based on assembling of C5 building blocks, but the biosynthesis of a great variety of terpenoids ranging from monoterpenoids to polyterpenoids is not fully understood today. Terpenoids play a fundamental role in human nutrition, cosmetics, and medicine.

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