Publications by authors named "L G Whyte"
Continued efforts to discover new antibacterial molecules are critical to achieve a robust pre-clinical pipeline for new antibiotics. Screening of compound or natural product extract libraries remains a widespread approach and can benefit from the development of whole cell assays that are robust, simple and versatile, and allow for high throughput testing of antibacterial activity. In this study, we created and validated two bioluminescent reporter strains for high-throughput screening, one in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and another in a hyperporinated and efflux-deficient Escherichia coli.
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- Canadian Arctic summer sea ice is declining significantly due to global warming, which is opening up the Northwest Passage as a new shipping route, increasing the risk of oil spills and environmental damage.
- Research focuses on evaluating bioremediation techniques for cleaning hydrocarbon contamination in Arctic beach sediments, involving 32- and 92-day experiments that analyzed the impacts of nutrient additions and a surface washing agent on microbial communities.
- Findings indicate that while nutrients show limited benefits for biodegradation, a surface washing agent emerges as a promising approach, highlighting the potential of unconventional microorganisms in effectively degrading hydrocarbons.
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- Dysfunction in the endolysosomal system is a key characteristic of Alzheimer's disease (AD), particularly due to the hyperactivity of the rab5 protein, impacting neuronal function.
- Researchers created a mouse model that over-expresses APPL1, a protein involved in regulating rab5 activity, leading to enlarged early endosomes and increased synaptic endocytosis.
- The study found that elevated levels of APPL1 resulted in negative effects on memory and synaptic function, emphasizing the role of endosomal dysregulation in the development of AD-related changes in neurons.*
Background: Decreasing sea ice coverage across the Arctic Ocean due to climate change is expected to increase shipping activity through previously inaccessible shipping routes, including the Northwest Passage (NWP). Changing weather conditions typically encountered in the Arctic will still pose a risk for ships which could lead to an accident and the uncontrolled release of hydrocarbons onto NWP shorelines. We performed a metagenomic survey to characterize the microbial communities of various NWP shorelines and to determine whether there is a metabolic potential for hydrocarbon degradation in these microbiomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe accelerated decline in Arctic sea-ice cover and duration is enabling the opening of Arctic marine passages and improving access to natural resources. The increasing accessibility to navigation and resource exploration and production brings risks of accidental hydrocarbon releases into Arctic waters, posing a major threat to Arctic marine ecosystems where oil may persist for many years, especially in beach sediment. The composition and response of the microbial community to oil contamination on Arctic beaches remain poorly understood.
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