Plasmid-Chromosome Crosstalk in Staphylococcus aureus: A Horizontally Acquired Transcription Regulator Controls Polysaccharide Intercellular Adhesin-Mediated Biofilm Formation

Livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA) of clonal complex CC398 typically carry various antimicrobial resistance genes, many of them located on plasmids. In the bovine LA-MRSA isolate Rd11, we previously identified plasmid pAFS11 in which resistance genes are co-localized with a novel ica-like gene cluster, harboring genes required for polysaccharide intercellular adhesin (PIA)-mediated biofilm formation. The ica genes on pAFS11 were acquired in addition to a pre-existing ica locus on the S. aureus Rd11 chromosomal DNA. Both loci consist of an icaADBC operon and icaR, encoding a corresponding icaADBC repressor. Despite carrying two biofilm gene copies, strain Rd11 did not produce PIA and transformation of pAFS11 into another S. aureus strain even slightly diminished PIA-mediated biofilm formation. By focusing on the molecular background of the biofilm-negative phenotype of pAFS11-carrying S. aureus, we identified the pAFS11-borne ica locus copy as functionally fully active. However, transcription of both plasmid- and core genome-derived icaADBC operons were efficiently suppressed involving IcaR. Surprisingly, although being different on the amino acid sequence level, the two IcaR repressor proteins are mutually replaceable and are able to interact with the icaA promoter region of the other copy. We speculate that this regulatory crosstalk causes the biofilm-negative phenotype in S. aureus Rd11. The data shed light on an unexpected regulatory interplay between pre-existing and newly acquired DNA traits in S. aureus. This also raises interesting general questions regarding functional consequences of gene transfer events and their putative implications for the adaptation and evolution of bacterial pathogens

Equal Graph Partitioning on Estimated Infection Network as an Effective Epidemic Mitigation Measure

Controlling severe outbreaks remains the most important problem in infectious disease area. With time, this problem will only become more severe as population density in urban centers grows. Social interactions play a very important role in determining how infectious diseases spread, and organization of people along social lines gives rise to non-spatial networks in which the infections spread. Infection networks are different for diseases with different transmission modes, but are likely to be identical or highly similar for diseases that spread the same way. Hence, infection networks estimated from common infections can be useful to contain epidemics of a more severe disease with the same transmission mode. Here we present a proof-of-concept study demonstrating the effectiveness of epidemic mitigation based on such estimated infection networks. We first generate artificial social networks of different sizes and average degrees, but with roughly the same clustering characteristic. We then start SIR epidemics on these networks, censor the simulated incidences, and use them to reconstruct the infection network. We then efficiently fragment the estimated network by removing the smallest number of nodes identified by a graph partitioning algorithm. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of this targeted strategy, by comparing it against traditional untargeted strategies, in slowing down and reducing the size of advancing epidemics

Impact of early disease factors on metabolic syndrome in systemic lupus erythematosus: data from an international inception cohort.

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked Files. This article is open access.The metabolic syndrome (MetS) may contribute to the increased cardiovascular risk in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We examined the association between MetS and disease activity, disease phenotype and corticosteroid exposure over time in patients with SLE.Recently diagnosed (1, higher disease activity, increasing age and Hispanic or Black African race/ethnicity were independently associated with MetS over the first 2 years of follow-up in the cohort.MetS is a persistent phenotype in a significant proportion of patients with SLE. Renal lupus, active inflammatory disease and damage are SLE-related factors that drive MetS development while antimalarial agents appear to be protective from early in the disease course.Canadian Institutes of Health Research 93695 86526 Arthritis Research UK (Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Unit Core Support Programme Grant) National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Unit Funding Scheme NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre Arthritis Research UK Manchester Academic Health Science Centre NIHR Biomedical Research Unit Funding Scheme NIHR Manchester Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility Arthritis Research Clinical Research Fellowship 18845 Ministry for Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea A120404 Lupus UK NIHR/Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility at University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and City Hospital Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, UK NIH UL1 RR025741 P60AR 30692 K24 AR 002138 RR00046 Hopkins Lupus Cohort NIH RD-1 43727 Department of Education, Universities and Research, Basque Government Singer Family Fund for Lupus Research tier 1 Canada Research Chair on Systemic Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases, Universite Lava

Factors associated with damage accrual in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: results from the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) Inception Cohort.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: We studied damage accrual and factors determining development and progression of damage in an international cohort of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. METHODS: The Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) Inception Cohort recruited patients within 15 months of developing four or more 1997 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria for SLE; the SLICC/ACR damage index (SDI) was measured annually. We assessed relative rates of transition using maximum likelihood estimation in a multistate model. The Kaplan-Meier method estimated the probabilities for time to first increase in SDI score and Cox regression analysis was used to assess mortality. RESULTS: We recruited 1722 patients; mean (SD) age 35.0 (13.4) years at cohort entry. Patients with damage at enrolment were more likely to have further worsening of SDI (SDI 0 vs ≥1; p<0.001). Age, USA African race/ethnicity, SLEDAI-2K score, steroid use and hypertension were associated with transition from no damage to damage, and increase(s) in pre-existing damage. Male gender (relative transition rates (95% CI) 1.48 (1.06 to 2.08)) and USA Caucasian race/ethnicity (1.63 (1.08 to 2.47)) were associated with SDI 0 to ≥1 transitions; Asian race/ethnicity patients had lower rates of new damage (0.60 (0.39 to 0.93)). Antimalarial use was associated with lower rates of increases in pre-existing damage (0.63 (0.44 to 0.89)). Damage was associated with future mortality (HR (95% CI) 1.46 (1.18 to 1.81) per SDI point). CONCLUSIONS: Damage in SLE predicts future damage accrual and mortality. We identified several potentially modifiable risk factors for damage accrual; an integrated strategy to address these may improve long-term outcomes

Intellectuality and female sexuality in the novels of Charlotte Yonge.

This dissertation uncovers and explores tensions between Victorian conceptions of the Intellectual and the Female in six didactic novels by Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823-1901): The Daisy Chain (1856) and its sequel, The Trial (serialized 1862-64); Hopes and Fears (1860); The Clever Woman of the Family (1865); Magnum Bonum (serialized 1877-79); and Modern Broods (1901). Yonge was an ambitious, prolific scholar as well as one of the best-selling novelists of the mid-Victorian period. Because she proclaimed John Keble, a founder and leader of the high-church Oxford Movement, her "master in every way," twentieth-century critics have generally regarded her novels as mere conduits of Oxford Movement propaganda. The dissertation demonstrates that, as Yonge's career progressed, her willingness to justify the Oxford Movement's belief in the moral correctness of patristic, hierarchical authority and its domestic corollary, the patriarchal family structure, came into increasingly sharp conflict with her enduring respect for women's intellectual capacities and with her growing acceptance of the reforms made in women's education. Thus she advocated domestic patriarchalism less and less fervently in her novels; by the end of her career, she advocated neither domestic patriarchalism nor women's intellectual circumscription. Rather, in her final novel she began to imagine and portray a world in which women could begin to create and control their own intellectual environments. Through a close reading of Magnum Bonum, I show that the medical establishment's vitriolic arguments against the higher education of women, propounded in the mid-1870s, may have prompted Yonge to abandon the Oxford Movement paradigm of domestic organization at last.Ph.D.English Language and LiteratureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/104458/1/9527622.pdfDescription of 9527622.pdf : Restricted to UM users only

Ann Fessler

Installation artist, filmmaker, and author Ann Fessler has spent four decades using her platform as an artist to bring hidden histories and stories to light. She turned to the subject of adoption in 1989 and has produced three documentary films, numerous audio and video installations, and written an award-winning book, The Girls Who Went Away, based on 100 interviews with women who lost children to adoption in the 1950s–early 70s. Fessler has been the recipient of a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard and grants from the NEA, the RI and Maryland State Arts Councils, LEF Foundation, RI Foundation, and RISCA. Her work is in the collection of major museums including the Whitney and MoMA in NY. Fessler, who received her MA in Media from Webster University and MFA in photography from the University of Arizona, is a professor at Rhode Island School of Design where she has taught since 1993. networksrhodeisland.orghttps://digitalcommons.risd.edu/faculty_networksri_risdprofiles/1001/thumbnail.jp

Water Safety

[28] pages : color illus.. True stories series ; bk. 4 True stories ; bk. 4. 2nd copies is a gift of the artist. RISD Faculty.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/specialcollections_artistsbooks/1346/thumbnail.jp

History of Art

Single section cased in cloth over boards. Gold-stamped label on front cover with illustration and text from H.W. Janson's History of art

History of Art

Single section cased in cloth over boards. Gold-stamped label on front cover with illustration and text from H.W. Janson's History of art

Parents - Photography Exhibit

The Parents exhibit was held at the Dayton Art Institute Museum of Contemporary Art at Wright State University in the Spring 1992. Wright State faculty member Ron Geibert curated the works of 21 photographers of regional and national prominence. Each photographer exhibited photos dealing with their own parents. Susan Zurcher of VAN (Visual Arts Network) News interviews five photographers about the exhibit