72 results match your criteria: "985900 Nebraska Medical Center[Affiliation]"
Cancers (Basel)
October 2024
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 505 S 45 St, Omaha, NE 68198, USA.
: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a poor prognosis. Currently, surgical resection is the only potentially curative treatment. Unfortunately, less than 20% of PDAC patients are eligible for surgical resection at diagnosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProbiotics Antimicrob Proteins
October 2024
Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, 68198-5900, USA.
Host defense antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are recognized candidates to develop a new generation of peptide antibiotics. While high hydrophobicity can be deployed in peptides for eliminating Gram-positive bacteria, high cationicity is usually observed in AMPs against Gram-negative pathogen. This study investigates how the sequence distribution of basic amino acids affects peptide activity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntibiotics (Basel)
August 2024
Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198, USA.
This review describes the discovery, structure, activity, engineered constructs, and applications of KR-12, the smallest antibacterial peptide of human cathelicidin LL-37, the production of which can be induced under sunlight or by vitamin D. It is a moonlighting peptide that shows both antimicrobial and immune-regulatory effects. Compared to LL-37, KR-12 is extremely appealing due to its small size, lack of toxicity, and narrow-spectrum antimicrobial activity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neuroinflammation
July 2024
Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, 68198-5900, USA.
Background: Craniotomy is a common neurosurgery used to treat intracranial pathologies. Nearly 5% of the 14 million craniotomies performed worldwide each year become infected, most often with Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), which forms a biofilm on the surface of the resected bone segment to establish a chronic infection that is recalcitrant to antibiotics and immune-mediated clearance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Cancer Res
December 2023
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, The University of Nebraska Medical Center 985845 UNMC, Omaha, NE 68198-5845, USA.
Pancreatic cancer (PC) remains a challenge to modern-day cancer therapeutics, with a dismal five-year survival rate of 12%. Due to the pancreas's location and desmoplasia surrounding it, patients receive late diagnoses and fail to respond to chemotherapy regimens. Tumor-promoting inflammation, one of the emerging hallmarks of cancer, contributes to tumor cells' survival and proliferation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Leukoc Biol
March 2024
Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-5900, United States.
Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are pathologically activated immature myeloid cells with immunosuppressive activity that expand during chronic inflammation, such as cancer and prosthetic joint infection (PJI). Myeloid-derived suppressor cells can be broadly separated into 2 populations based on surface marker expression and function: monocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells (M-MDSCs) and granulocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells (G-MDSCs). Granulocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells are the most abundant leukocyte infiltrate during PJI; however, how this population is maintained in vivo and cellular heterogeneity is currently unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Infect Dis
November 2023
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska 68198-5900, United States.
Identification of novel antibiotics is of top importance because of the threat of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Antimicrobial screening in Mueller-Hinton broth is frequently the first step in antimicrobial discovery. Although widely utilized, this medium is not ideal as it could mask activity of candidates such as human cathelicidin LL-37 against methicillin-resistant (MRSA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Infect Dis
October 2023
College of Pharmacy, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 986125 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska 68198-6125, United States.
We discovered dibenzannulated medium-ring keto lactams (11,12-dihydro-5-dibenzo[,]azonine-6,13-diones) as a new antimalarial chemotype. Most of these had chromatographic LogD values ranging from <0 to 3 and good kinetic solubilities (12.5 to >100 μg/mL at pH 6.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicroorganisms
April 2023
Department of Orthopaedics, School of Medicine, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA.
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been investigated for their potential use as an alternative to antibiotics due to the increased demand for new antimicrobial agents. AMPs, widely found in nature and obtained from microorganisms, have a broad range of antimicrobial protection, allowing them to be applied in the treatment of infections caused by various pathogenic microorganisms. Since these peptides are primarily cationic, they prefer anionic bacterial membranes due to electrostatic interactions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neuroinflammation
May 2023
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, 68198-5900, USA.
Background: Treatment of brain tumors, epilepsy, or hemodynamic abnormalities requires a craniotomy to access the brain. Nearly 1 million craniotomies are performed in the US annually, which increase to ~ 14 million worldwide and despite prophylaxis, infectious complications after craniotomy range from 1 to 3%. Approximately half are caused by Staphylococcus aureus (S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmall
September 2023
Department of Biology and Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, 5232, Switzerland.
Oligomerization of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) is critical in their effects on pathogens. LL-37 and its truncated fragments are widely investigated regarding their structures, antimicrobial activities, and application, such as developing new antibiotics. Due to the small size and weak intermolecular interactions of LL-37 fragments, it is still elusive to establish the relationship between oligomeric states and antimicrobial activities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Pharm
January 2023
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska 68198-5900, United States.
Peptide stability to proteases has been a major requirement for developing peptide therapeutics. This study investigates the effects of peptide stability on antimicrobial and antibiofilm activity under various conditions. For this purpose, two human cathelicidin-derived peptides differing in stability to proteases were utilized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Biol Chem
January 2023
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 986125 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, USA. Electronic address:
Chlamydia trachomatis (ct) is the most reported bacterial sexually transmitted infection worldwide and the leading cause of preventable blindness. Caseinolytic proteases (ClpP) from pathogenic bacteria are attractive antibiotic targets, particularly for bacterial species that form persister colonies with phenotypic resistance against common antibiotics. ClpP functions as a multisubunit proteolytic complex, and bacteria are eradicated when ClpP is disrupted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrends Microbiol
May 2023
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-5900, USA. Electronic address:
Int J Mol Sci
October 2022
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-5900, USA.
Unlike the α-helical and β-sheet antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), our knowledge on amino acid-rich AMPs is limited. This article conducts a systematic study of rich AMPs (>25%) from different life kingdoms based on the Antimicrobial Peptide Database (APD) using the program R. Of 3425 peptides, 724 rich AMPs were identified.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPept Sci (Hoboken)
September 2022
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-5900, USA.
is a highly adaptable pathogen that can rapidly develop resistance to conventional antibiotics such as penicillin. Recently, teixobactin was discovered from uncultivated soil bacteria by using the i-chip technology. This depsipeptide forms an ester bond between the backbone C-terminal isoleucine carboxylic acid and the hydroxyl group of threonine at position 8.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeptides
December 2022
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-5900, USA. Electronic address:
The fact that some antimicrobial peptides have been utilized clinically and as food preservatives stimulated the efforts in search of new candidates. In our previous studies, we succeeded in designing potent peptides against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2), and Ebola viruses based on the database filtering technology. The designed peptides were proved highly potent.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCase Rep Rheumatol
July 2022
University of Nebraska Medical Center, Division of Rheumatology, 986270 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha 68198, NE, USA.
Background: Hydroxychloroquine is an effective and widely used treatment in multiple autoimmune connective tissue diseases that gained a lot of publicity in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Our case reports are unique in that they explore the rare and sometimes overlooked effects of this drug on multiple organ systems, specifically the kidney, cardiac muscle, and skeletal muscle. We include key histologic features in images which aid in identifying and distinguishing hydroxychloroquine toxicity from mimickers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmaceuticals (Basel)
April 2022
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-5900, USA.
The rapid mutations of viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 require vaccine updates and the development of novel antiviral drugs. This article presents an improved database filtering technology for a more effective design of novel antiviral agents. Different from the previous approach, where the most probable parameters were obtained stepwise from the antimicrobial peptide database, we found it possible to accelerate the design process by deriving multiple parameters in a single step during the peptide amino acid analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFADMET DMPK
January 2022
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-5900, USA.
Antimicrobial peptide research remains active not only because of the growing antibiotic resistance problem but also our desire to understand the role of innate immune peptides in host defense. While numerous peptides are currently under active development for topical use, this article highlights peptides with systemic efficacy. The scaffolds of these peptides range from linear to cyclic forms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMethods Mol Biol
March 2022
School of Systems Biology, George Mason University, Manassas, VA, USA.
Antibiotic resistance constitutes a global threat and could lead to a future pandemic. One strategy is to develop a new generation of antimicrobials. Naturally occurring antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are recognized templates and some are already in clinical use.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMethods Enzymol
March 2022
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States. Electronic address:
Natural products offer an important avenue to novel therapeutics against drug-resistant bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, and cancer. However, there are numerous hurdles and challenges in discovering such molecules, including antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). While a thorough characterization of AMPs is limited by the amount of material, existing technology, and researcher's expertise, peptide classification is complicated by incomplete information as well as different methods proposed for AMPs from bacteria, plants, and animals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntiviral Res
February 2022
Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Cagliari, 09042, Monserrato, Italy.
Ebola virus (EBOV) is one of the deadliest infective agents whose lethality is linked to the ability to efficiently bypass the host's innate antiviral response. EBOV multifunctional protein VP35 plays a major role in viral replication both as polymerase cofactor and interferon (IFN) antagonist. By hiding the non-self 5'-ppp dsRNA from the cellular receptor RIG-I, VP35 prevents its activation and inhibits IFN-β production.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmaceuticals (Basel)
November 2021
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-5900, USA.
The deployment of the innate immune system in humans is essential to protect us from infection. Human cathelicidin LL-37 is a linear host defense peptide with both antimicrobial and immune modulatory properties. Despite years of studies of numerous peptides, SK-24, corresponding to the long hydrophobic domain (residues 9-32) in the anionic lipid-bound NMR structure of LL-37, has not been investigated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Gen Virol
September 2021
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985900 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-5900, USA.
Current antiviral drugs are limited because of their adverse side effects and increased rate of resistance. In recent decades, much scientific effort has been invested in the discovery of new synthetic and natural compounds with promising antiviral properties. Among this new generation of compounds, antimicrobial peptides with antiviral activity have been described and are attracting attention due to their mechanism of action and biological properties.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF