Publications by authors named "Joseph Kingston"

Background: In the United States, osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT), is a popular complementary physical health approach for the treatment of neuromusculoskeletal disorders. However, post-OMT adverse events (AEs) are poorly defined in terms of frequency, severity, and temporal evolution. To date, no benchmark for patient safety exists.

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S. Typhimurium is the most common food-borne pathogen frequently encountered in contaminated food and poses a major threat to public health, animals, and the food industry worldwide. Early and sensitive detection is the prime step to ensuring the microbiological quality of fresh and processed food.

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Background And Aim: The present serodiagnosis of brucellosis in livestock is based on the whole cell or smooth lipopolysaccharide of the organism in which specificity is hampered by the cross-reactivity, especially with the antibodies against O:9 organism. The problem can be addressed by screening for better immunodominant antigens. Hence, the present study was undertaken to screen protein antigens of for their diagnostic potential in cattle brucellosis.

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The increase in international food trade and travel has dramatically increased the global incidences of Salmonellosis. In the light of widespread resistance to frontline antibiotics, oral vaccines remain the most reliable alternative. In this study, the fusion protein, r-BL was rationally constructed by splicing the Salmonella Typhimurium sseB and ompL genes through G4S linker by over-lap extension PCR.

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Background: Anthrax, a zoonotic disease is caused by the Gram positive bacterium Bacillus anthracis. During January 2013, an anthrax outbreak among cattle was reported in Gundlupet Taluk, neighboring Bandipur National Park and tiger reserve, India. The present study aims at the molecular identification and characterization of 12 B.

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The most promising means of controlling anthrax, a lethal zoonotic disease during the early infection stages, entail restricting the resilient infectious form, i.e., the spores from proliferating to replicating bacilli in the host.

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Burkholderia lethal factor 1 (BLF1), a glutamine deamidase, is a key virulence factor that plays significant role in B. pseudomallei pathogenesis. To elucidate the BLF1 immunological responses, two truncated BLF1 structural units, BLF1-C (90-211 amino acids) with structural similarity to T.

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Anthrax vaccines primarily relying only on protective antigen (PA), the cell binding component in anthrax toxins provide incomplete protection when challenged with spores of virulent encapsulated strains. Alternatively, formaldehyde inactivated spores (FIS) or recombinant spore components generate anti-spore immune responses that inhibit the early stages of infection and augment the PA protective efficacy. In the present study domain IV of PA was spliced with exosporium antigen BxpB via a flexible G4S linker to generate a single functional antigen r-PAbxpB that was further assessed for its protective efficacy against anthrax toxins and spore infection.

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The prevalence and lethality associated with C. perfringens alpha (CPA) and enterotoxin (CPE) toxaemia necessitate the need for rapid and definitive detection systems to initiate management measures. In the present study, a sandwich duplex immuno-capture PCR (SD-IPCR) was developed by employing IgY antibodies against a bivalent protein r-Cpae derived from CPA and CPE for antigen capture and reporter antibodies against truncated CPA or CPE conjugated to oligomers of distinguishable size for antigen revealing and signal amplification.

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Anthrax infection is primarily initiated by B. anthracis endospores that on entry into the host germinate to vegetative cells and cause severe bacteremia and toxaemia employing an array of host colonisation factors and the lethal tripartite toxin. The protective efficacy of conventional protective antigen (PA) based anthrax vaccines is improved by co-administration with inactivated spores or its components.

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Development of a safe and efficacious vaccine for brucellosis is a long standing challenge for scientists. Recognizing potential antigens towards developing vaccine candidate is crucial. Omp25c, a porin protein of Brucella, is a paralog of two previously identified promising vaccine candidates namely, Omp25 and Omp31, with notable sequence identity.

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A simple, sensitive and selective colorimetric biosensor for the detection of Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) was developed using SEB-binding aptamer (SEB2) as recognition element and unmodified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as colorimetric probes. The assay is based on color change from red to purple due to conformational change of aptamer in the presence of SEB, and the phenomenon of salt-induced AuNPs aggregation which could be monitored by naked eye or UV-vis spectrometer. Results showed that the AuNPs can effectively differentiate the SEB induced conformational change of the aptamer in the presence of a given high salt concentration.

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In the present study, a colorimetric DNAzymes biosensor strategy was devised in combination with immunomagnetic separation for rapid and easy detection of enterotoxin B harboring Staphylococcus aureus from food and clinical samples. The method employs immunocapture of S. aureus and amplification of seb gene by DNAzyme complementary sequence integrated forward primer and with specific reverse primer.

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Clostridium perfringens an ubiquitous environmental bacterium causes major food borne illnesses, digestive diseases and several soft tissue infections in humans and animals. In the present study, toxin typing of 91 C. perfringens isolates from animals with enteric diseases and their environments revealed the presence of type A and C strains.

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In the present study, a high throughput whole cell SELEX method has been applied successfully in selecting specific aptamers against whole cells of Staphylococcus aureus, a potent food poisoning bacterium. A total ten rounds of SELEX and three rounds of intermittent counter SELEX, was performed to obtain specific aptamers. Obtained oligonucleotide pool were cloned, sequenced and then grouped into different families based on their primary sequence homology and secondary structure similarity.

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Aflatoxins are naturally occurring mycotoxins that contaminate food and agro commodities, leading to acute and chronic health conditions in human and animals. In the present work, an attempt was made to generate high-affinity single stranded DNA aptamers that specifically bind to Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) by a modified Systemic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX) procedure with the aid of Immunoaffinity columns. Ten rounds of SELEX and alternating three counter SELEX rounds with a cocktail of related and other mycotoxins were performed to enhance the specificity.

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Staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) is a major foodborne illness caused by staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs). It is a well known fact that foodborne outbreak investigations are solely characterized by commercially available immunoassay kits. However, these assays encompass only few enterotoxins such as SEA-SEE which are renowned as "classical" enterotoxins and unable to detect any other novel enterotoxins even though their involvement is predicted.

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Background/purpose: Among DNA-based techniques, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the most widely accepted molecular tool for the detection of pathogens. However, the technique involves several reagents and multiple pipetting steps that often lead to error-prone results. Additionally, the reagents entail a cold-chain facility to maintain their stability during storage and transportation.

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In spite of their involvement in foodborne illness, the epidemiological relevance of staphylococcal enterotoxin C (SEC) subtypes is poorly documented may be due to high sequence similarity. Among subtypes, SEC1, SEC2, and SEC3 exhibit more than 97 % homology because of which specific detection tools are seldom available to identify and differentiate them. In this study, a SYBR Green-based RT-PCR followed by melt curve analysis was developed for differentiation of entC1 from entC2/entC3 using a single primer pair.

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Clostridium perfringens beta (CPB) and iota (CPI) toxaemias result in some of the most lethal forms of haemorrhagic and necrotic enteritis and sudden death syndrome affecting especially neonates. While CPB enterotoxemia is one of the most common forms of clostridial enterotoxemia, CPI enterotoxemia though putatively considered to be rare is an emerging cause of concern. The similarities in clinical manifestation, gross and histopathology findings of both types of toxaemias coupled to the infrequency of CPI toxaemia might lead to symptomatic misidentification with Type C resulting in therapeutic failure due to habitual administration of CPB anti-toxin which is ineffective against CPI.

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Studies investigating the correlates of immune protection against Yersinia infection have established that both humoral and cell mediated immune responses are required for the comprehensive protection. In our previous study, we established that the bivalent fusion protein (rVE) comprising immunologically active regions of Y. pestis LcrV (100-270 aa) and YopE (50-213 aa) proteins conferred complete passive and active protection against lethal Y.

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Similar to other genera and species of bacteria, whole genomic sequencing has revolutionized how we think about and address questions of basic Vibrio biology. In this review we examined 36 completely sequenced and annotated members of the Vibrionaceae family, encompassing 12 different species of the genera Vibrio, Aliivibrio, and Photobacterium. We reconstructed the phylogenetic relationships among representatives of this group of bacteria by using three housekeeping genes and 16S rRNA sequences.

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Vibrio vulnificus hemolysin A (VvhA) is a pore forming toxin and plays an important role in the pathogenesis. The hemolytic and cytotytic property of VvhA toxin is associated with N-terminal leukocidin domain which triggers apoptotic signaling cascade in epithelial cells. The present study was undertaken to assess the protective efficacy of recombinant VvhA leukocidin domain (rL/VvhA) against VvhA toxin challenge using in vitro and in vivo assays.

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Clostridium perfringens type A, an anaerobic pathogen is the most potent cause of soft tissue infections like gas gangrene and enteric diseases like food poisoning and enteritis. The disease manifestations are mediated via two important exotoxins, viz. myonecrotic alpha toxin (αC) and enterotoxin (CPE).

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Heat-shock proteins are molecular chaperones essential for protein folding, degradation and trafficking. The human pathogen Vibrio vulnificus encodes a copy of the groESEL operon in both chromosomes and these genes share <80 % similarity with each other. Comparative genomic analysis was used to determine whether this duplication is prevalent among Vibrionaceae specifically or Gammaproteobacteria in general.

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