Publications by authors named "Weisberg A"

Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to identify why patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) in Russia have a poor prognosis, using data from various population samples and medical records over several years.
  • It established the prevalence of CHF in the Russian population, finding that 8.2% of individuals meet soft criteria for CHF, while 3.1% met strict criteria, with significant influences from conditions like hypertension and ischemic heart disease.
  • The prognosis for these patients is grim, with over half dying within four years after acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF), and most patients with severe CHF not surviving beyond ten years, primarily due to inadequate medication use and poor patient follow-up.
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Plants possess cell surface-localized immune receptors that detect microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) and initiate defenses that provide effective resistance against microbial pathogens. Many MAMP-induced signaling pathways and cellular responses are known, yet how pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) limits pathogen growth in plants is poorly understood. Through a combined metabolomics and genetics approach, we discovered that plant-exuded proline is a virulence-inducing signal and nutrient for the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae, and that MAMP-induced depletion of proline from the extracellular spaces of Arabidopsis leaves directly contributes to PTI against P.

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Unlabelled: Comprehensive and accurate genome annotation is crucial for inferring the predicted functions of an organism. Numerous tools exist to annotate genes, gene clusters, mobile genetic elements, and other diverse features. However, these tools and pipelines can be difficult to install and run, be specialized for a particular element or feature, or lack annotations for larger elements that provide important genomic context.

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The soil bacterium DP1B was isolated from a marine sediment collected off the coast of Randayan Island, Kalimantan Barat, Indonesia and identified based on 16S rDNA as Nocardiopsis alba. The bacterium was cultivated in seven different media (A1, ISP1, ISP2, ISP4, PDB, PC-1, and SCB) with three different solvents [distilled water, 5 % NaCl solution, artificial seawater (ASW)] combinations, shaken at 200 rpm, 30 °C, for 7 days. The culture broths were extracted with ethyl acetate and each extract was tested for its antimicrobial activity and brine shrimp lethality, and the chemical diversity was assessed using thin-layer chromatography (TLC), gas chromatography (GC), and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).

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Plants and animals detect biomolecules termed microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) and induce immunity. Agricultural production is severely impacted by pathogens which can be controlled by transferring immune receptors. However, most studies use a single MAMP epitope and the impact of diverse multicopy MAMPs on immune induction is unknown.

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is a foodborne pathogen of concern in dairy processing facilities, with the potential to cause human illness and trigger regulatory actions if found in the product. Monitoring for spp. through environmental sampling is recommended to prevent establishment of these microorganisms in dairy processing environments, thereby reducing the risk of product contamination.

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Article Synopsis
  • Mobile genetic elements in bacteria can introduce new traits, leading to the emergence of new lineages that produce Thaxtomin, a toxin linked to common scab disease in crops.
  • Researchers analyzed genomes from 166 bacterial strains over six decades, finding that virulence genes relate to various genetic element subtypes that have distinct transmission mechanisms and evolutionary histories.
  • The study revealed that pathogenic strains of these bacteria are mostly found in potato fields, suggesting that their spread is due to historical events and a few recent transmissions, which impacts our understanding of bacterial evolution in agricultural contexts.
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Plants and animals detect biomolecules termed Microbe-Associated Molecular Patterns (MAMPs) and induce immunity. Agricultural production is severely impacted by pathogens which can be controlled by transferring immune receptors. However, most studies use a single MAMP epitope and the impact of diverse multi-copy MAMPs on immune induction is unknown.

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The capacity of beneficial microbes to compete for host infection-and the ability of hosts to discriminate among them-introduces evolutionary conflict that is predicted to destabilize mutualism. We investigated fitness outcomes in associations between legumes and their symbiotic rhizobia to characterize fitness impacts of microbial competition. Diverse Bradyrhizobium strains varying in their capacity to fix nitrogen symbiotically with a common host plant, Acmispon strigosus, were tested in full-factorial coinoculation experiments involving 28 pairwise strain combinations.

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Agrobacteria are a diverse, polyphyletic group of prokaryotes with multipartite genomes capable of transferring DNA into the genomes of host plants, making them an essential tool in plant biotechnology. Despite their utility in plant transformation, genome-wide transcriptional regulation is not well understood across the three main lineages of agrobacteria. Transcription start sites (TSSs) are a necessary component of gene expression and regulation.

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Mobile genetic elements are key to the evolution of bacteria and traits that affect host and ecosystem health. Here, we use a framework of a hierarchical and modular system that scales from genes to populations to synthesize recent findings on mobile genetic elements (MGEs) of bacteria. Doing so highlights the role that emergent properties of flexibility, robustness, and genetic capacitance of MGEs have on the evolution of bacteria.

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We investigated the effects of an exergames-based exercise program for older adults, and its benefits on their physical literacy (PL) domains, such as physical (mobility skills), affective (motivation and confidence), cognitive (knowledge about physical activity [PA]), and behavioral (daily exertion) when compared with a conventional exercise program and no training (NT) (control). Forty older adults (mean age 72 years) volunteered and were randomized within three groups-exergame training (ET;  = 15), conventional training (CT;  = 14), and NT ( = 11). ET group performed training sessions based on a commercially available exergame console, while the CT group enrolled in a convention exercise program (aerobic, strength, balance, and flexibility exercises).

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Streptomyces sp. RS2 was isolated from an unidentified sponge collected around Randayan Island, Indonesia. The genome of Streptomyces sp.

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Among plant-associated bacteria, agrobacteria occupy a special place. These bacteria are feared in the field as agricultural pathogens. They cause abnormal growth deformations and significant economic damage to a broad range of plant species.

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Globalization has made agricultural commodities more accessible, available, and affordable. However, their global movement increases the potential for invasion by pathogens and necessitates development and implementation of sensitive, rapid, and scalable surveillance methods. Here, we used 35 strains, isolated by multiple diagnostic laboratories, as a case study for using whole genome sequence data in a plant disease diagnostic setting.

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Coronary artery disease requiring surgical revascularization is prevalent in United States Veterans. We aimed to investigate preoperative predictors of 30-day mortality following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in the Veteran population. The Veterans Affairs Surgical Quality Improvement (VASQIP) national database was queried for isolated CABG cases between 2008 and 2018.

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Acquisition of mobile genetic elements can confer novel traits to bacteria. Some integrative and conjugative elements confer upon members of Bradyrhizobium the capacity to fix nitrogen in symbiosis with legumes. These so-called symbiosis integrative conjugative elements (symICEs) can be extremely large and vary as monopartite and polypartite configurations within chromosomes of related strains.

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Root nodulating rhizobia are nearly ubiquitous in soils and provide the critical service of nitrogen fixation to thousands of legume species, including staple crops. However, the magnitude of fixed nitrogen provided to hosts varies markedly among rhizobia strains, despite host legumes having mechanisms to selectively reward beneficial strains and to punish ones that do not fix sufficient nitrogen. Variation in the services of microbial mutualists is considered paradoxical given host mechanisms to select beneficial genotypes.

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Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a member of the Alphaproteobacteria that pathogenises plants and associates with biotic and abiotic surfaces via a single cellular pole. A. tumefaciens produces the unipolar polysaccharide (UPP) at the site of surface contact.

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Fourteen strains of isolated from scab lesions on potato are described as members of a novel species based on genetic distance, morphological observation and biochemical analyses. Morphological and biochemical characteristics of these strains are distinct from other described phytopathogenic species. Strain NE06-02D has white aerial mycelium and grey, cylindrical, smooth spores on rectus-flexibilis spore chains.

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The effective elimination of through cleaning and sanitation is of great importance to the food processing industry. Specifically in fresh produce operations, the lack of a kill step requires effective cleaning and sanitation to mitigate the risk of cross-contamination from the environment. As facilities rely on sanitizers to control , reports of the development of tolerance to sanitizers and other antimicrobials through cross-resistance is of particular concern.

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Background: Many named species as defined in current bacterial taxonomy correspond to species complexes. Uncertainties regarding the organization of their genetic diversity challenge research efforts. We utilized the Agrobacterium tumefaciens species complex (a.

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Members of the agrobacteria-rhizobia complex (ARC) have multiple and diverse plasmids. The extent to which these plasmids are shared and the consequences of their interactions are not well understood. We extracted over 4000 plasmid sequences from 1251 genome sequences and constructed a network to reveal interactions that have shaped the evolutionary histories of oncogenic virulence plasmids.

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Recent listeriosis outbreaks linked to fresh produce suggest the need to better understand and mitigate contamination in packing and processing environments. Using whole genome sequencing (WGS) and phenotype screening assays for sanitizer tolerance, we characterized 48   isolates previously recovered from environmental samples in five produce handling facilities. Within the studied population there were 10 sequence types (STs) and 16 cgMLST types (CTs).

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