Characterization of the Staphylococcus aureus Immunodominant Surface Antigen B, IsaB

Staphylococcus aureus is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality world-wide. This opportunistic pathogen is capable of causing several severe diseases that are exacerbated by its diverse and widespread antibiotic resistance profile. Therefore it is necessary to identify novel therapeutic targets to effectively treat S. aureus disease. Lorenz et al first described the Immunodominant Surface Antigen B, IsaB, because it was 1 of 4 unique proteins immunogenic during septicemia and not colonization, suggesting that IsaB may be a virulence factor and a possible novel therapeutic target. Interestingly, IsaB has no homology to proteins of known function and appears to be found only in Staphylococci. We sought to characterize the function of IsaB in S. aureus. We began our studies by determining how isaB was regulated by known S. aureus regulators and environmental stimuli. It was observed that the transcriptional regulator SarA represses expression of isaB, while serum and acidic pH induce expression. We found that IsaB is an extracellular nucleic acid binding protein, able to bind to dsDNA, ssDNA, and RNA and leads significant accumulation of eDNA on the cell surface. We employed multiple virulence models to ascertain the role of IsaB in virulence. Excitingly, we found that IsaB significantly protects S. aureus from antimicrobial peptides and Neutrophil Extracellular Traps, both components of the innate immune system. Another virulence mechanism of S. aureus is the ability to form biofilms. While recent studies show a significant role for eDNA in S. aureus biofilms, we found that IsaB actually had a negative affect on biofilms under certain growth conditions. Finally, to group IsaB into a known functional class, we successfully expressed and purified mature IsaB for structural determination by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, which is currently underway. Our studies show that IsaB is a novel virulence factor of S. aureus, able to bind eDNA and significantly protect from AMPs and NETs, and could therefore play a key role in immune evasion

Introduction

Welcome to the second issue of Critical Humanities. The goal when Founding Editor Puspa Damai created Critical Humanities was to broaden the conversation around the Global South, and to invite into that conversation diverse voices which could complicate and enrich this concept. In the first issue, this effort was organized around the theme of pandemic

Deadly Snow: Meditations on Muriel Rukeyser, Andrei Tarkovsky, and the Pandemic Era

The following personal essay meditates on Appalachian fatalism and its relationship to vaccine and mask hesitancy. The analogous relationship between ecological destruction and uncertainty with the exploitation and abuse of the body serves as a waypoint to explore Appalachia’s larger dismissal towards “protection” during the pandemic. Included are original art pieces that serve to intertextually converse with Rukeyser’s activism, West Virginia’s aesthetic schism between industrial catastrophe and symbols of prosperity, and Tarkovsky’s imagery of desolation and hope

A Review of Anthony J. Viola\u27s All Lies begin with Truth

The Appalachian and Pennyroyal Plateau localities that Anthony J. Viola’s ecofiction inhabits are spaces that I have grown up in and have lived in my entire life. All Lies Begin With Truth, Viola’s second novel, takes place in the fictional town of West York, Kentucky

Feeding the South: An Assessment of Food Availability in Rural Mississippi

The overall goal of this project is to investigate Mississippi’s rural food environment by assessing the food resources available to rural Mississippians. The primary objectives were to identify sample locations in each of the four cultural regions of Mississippi and determine the food resources available to residents of those counties. The intellectual merit of this research lies in its in-depth exploration of food accessibility in rural areas. Though there is a wealth of literature on the topics of urban food access and food deserts, very little research has been done in rural areas. Most studies focus on urban environments which are ultimately plagued with severely different access restrictions in terms of fresh, healthy foods. Additionally, the level of detail afforded by this study allows for common models of food access such as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Research Atlas to be evaluated for accuracy. A fundamental piece of this research is the proposition of a method of research that can be performed at any point in time with limited resources, and is not predicated on proprietary datasets or data that may be routinely compiled for all regions and states. This will make it possible for the method to be repeated in other rural regions of the United States and for intra-study comparisons to be made; a component currently missing in contemporary research

Plant the Kinds of Seeds That Destroy Foundations: An Interview with Jasmine Sawers by CH Assistant Editor Nicole Lawrence

Jasmine Sawers is the author of The Anchored World (Rose Metal Press, 2022). Their work appears in such journals as Ploughshares, NANO Fiction, [PANK], SmokeLong Quarterly, Sycamore Review, and many more. Sawers won the Ploughshares Emerging Writers Contest and the NANO Prize

Temptations

The study considers the impact of consumerism and the consequences that the demands for food have had on the farm operations in rural Iowa. Human temptation to over consume has caused the industrialization of farming, resulting in the collapse of many small farms. The consumer demands created the need to preserve foods for longer periods of time. Food has become genetically modified to assist in the preservation to fulfill the needs of consumers. This farm’s heritage has left a desire to study spatial phenomenon to represent the understanding of the farm through the act of making

Mississippi Digital Library

The Mississippi Digital Library (MDL) is dedicated to increasing the awareness of and access to the diverse and valuable resources found within Mississippi. As the collaborative digital library program for the state, the MDL partners with a range of institutions to bring together the vast amount of primary sources found in Mississippi and provide worldwide digital access to those resources. Ultimately, the MDL aims to provide a digital portal for the wealth of diversity found in and about Mississippi, and enhance collaboration between cultural heritage institutions within our great state. Working with over twenty institutions, each with a distinct focus, the MDL is as diverse as the participating institutions. Academic archives, museums, research centers, public libraries and historical societies bring unique contributions with various formats and context to the collections. From blues collections in the Delta to Hurricane Katrina collections on the Gulf, the content found in the MDL spans Mississippi history temporally as well as spatially. Furthering the research value and diversity of the collections, significant scholarly resources such as the de Grummond Children\u27s Literature Collection and the Ulysses S. Grant Digital Collections may also be found through this distinctive discovery tool. Together, the MDL forms a veritable melting pot of cultural and historical resources for use by researchers worldwide