Time Required for Nanopore Whole-Genome Sequencing of Neisseria gonorrhoeae for Identification of Phylogenetic Relationships.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Neisseria gonorrhoeae is a global health challenge. Limitations to AMR surveillance reporting, alongside reduction in culture-based susceptibility testing, has resulted in a need for rapid diagnostics and strain detection. We investigated Nanopore sequencing time, and depth, to accurately identify closely related N.

Early Colorectal Responses to HIV-1 and Modulation by Antiretroviral Drugs.

Innate responses during acute HIV infection correlate with disease progression and pathogenesis. However, limited information is available about the events occurring during the first hours of infection in the mucosal sites of transmission. With an ex vivo HIV-1 challenge model of human colorectal tissue we assessed the mucosal responses induced by R5- and X4-tropic HIV-1 isolates in the first 24 h of exposure.

Resistance gene transfer: induction of transducing phage by sub-inhibitory concentrations of antimicrobials is not correlated to induction of lytic phage.

Objectives: Horizontal gene transfer of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes between clinical isolates via transduction is poorly understood. MRSA are opportunistic pathogens resistant to all classes of antimicrobial agents but currently no strains are fully drug resistant. AMR gene transfer between Staphylococcus aureus isolates is predominantly due to generalized transduction via endogenous bacteriophage, and recent studies have suggested transfer is elevated during host colonization.

Accurate detection of Neisseria gonorrhoeae ciprofloxacin susceptibility directly from genital and extragenital clinical samples: towards genotype-guided antimicrobial therapy.

Introduction: Increasing use of nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) as the primary means of diagnosing gonococcal infection has resulted in diminished availability of Neisseria gonorrhoeae antimicrobial susceptibility data. We conducted a prospective diagnostic assessment of a real-time PCR assay (NGSNP) enabling direct detection of gonococcal ciprofloxacin susceptibility from a range of clinical sample types.

Methods: NGSNP, designed to discriminate an SNP associated with ciprofloxacin resistance within the N.

The heat shock response of Mycobacterium tuberculosis: linking gene expression, immunology and pathogenesis.

The regulation of heat shock protein (HSP) expression is critically important to pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and dysregulation of the heat shock response results in increased immune recognition of the bacterium and reduced survival during chronic infection. In this study we use a whole genome spotted microarray to characterize the heat shock response of M. tuberculosis.

Deletion of a previously uncharacterized flagellar-hook-length control gene fliK modulates the sigma54-dependent regulon in Campylobacter jejuni.

A previously unannotated, putative fliK gene was identified in the Campylobacter jejuni genome based on sequence analysis; deletion mutants in this gene had a 'polyhook' phenotype characteristic of fliK mutants in other genera. The mutants greatly overexpressed the sigma(54)-dependent flagellar hook protein FlgE, to form unusual filamentous structures resembling straight flagella in addition to polyhooks. The genome sequence reveals only one gene predicted to encode an orthologue of the NtrC-family activator required for sigma(54)-dependent transcription.

Dissection of the heat-shock response in Mycobacterium tuberculosis using mutants and microarrays.

Regulation of the expression of heat-shock proteins plays an important role in the pathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The heat-shock response of bacteria involves genome-wide changes in gene expression. A combination of targeted mutagenesis and whole-genome expression profiling was used to characterize transcription factors responsible for control of genes encoding the major heat-shock proteins of M.