Publications by authors named "Jonathan W Shepardson"
Background: Very few closed genomes of the cyanobacteria that commonly produce toxic blooms in lakes and reservoirs are available, limiting our understanding of the properties of these organisms. A new anatoxin-a-producing member of the Nostocaceae, Anabaena sp. WA102, was isolated from a freshwater lake in Washington State, USA, in 2013 and maintained in non-axenic culture.
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- Mycobacteriophages are a type of virus that specifically infect mycobacterial hosts, such as Mycobacterium smegmatis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and are characterized by their diverse genetic makeup.
- Recent research isolated and sequenced 18 new mycobacteriophages from different locations in the U.S., adding to the understanding of phage diversity and mobile elements in viral evolution.
- The study also emphasizes the educational aspect, showing how freshman college students can engage in real research by isolating and analyzing these bacteriophages.
Surface samples of the 2007 Microcystis bloom occurring in Copco Reservoir on the Klamath River in Northern California were analyzed genetically by sequencing clone libraries made with amplicons at three loci: the internal transcribed spacer of the rRNA operon (ITS), cpcBA, and mcyA. Samples were taken between June and October, during which time two cell count peaks occurred, in mid-July and early September. The ITS and cpcBA loci could be classified into four or five allele groups, which provided a convenient means for describing the Microcystis population and its changes over time.
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