Product Development: Research Products
Developmental Project 1: Dominique Missiakas reported a transposon system based on the mariner transposon, bursa aurealis, and successfully employed the system to generate a library of 3300 mutants in Bacillus anthracis STERNE.Developmental Project 5: Dara Frank and Thomas Zahrt reported successful construction of genetic tools to generate targeted mutations in Francisella tularensis.
Developmental Project 12: Alison Weiss and colleagues developed a sensitive, and quantitative assay to measure the toxicity of anthrax toxin on macrophages (J774A.1 cell line) using the reagent Alamar Blue. This assay, when combined with measurements of anti-PA titer by ELISA allows an assessment of the presence and quantity of neutralizing antibodies to anthrax toxin in response to vaccination with AVA. Data collected so far indicate that the quantity of anti-PA does not always correlate with high titers of neutralizing antibody.
Developmental Project 15: Gary Splitter and colleagues reported construction and use of high density oligonucleotide microarray of Brucella melitensis and used this technology to identify genes involved in disease establishment.
Microbial Informatics Core: Updates of the PathosDB by the Microbial Informatics Core of the GLRCE. This database is exclusively devoted to the bioinformatic analysis of genomes, with a specific focus on the identification and characterization of pathogenic factors of Category A, B and C agents, and the modeling of pathogenic pathways. The Microbial Informatics Core provides access to interactive sequence analysis of more than 1,000 bacterial, eukaryotic and archaeal genomes. The Core also provides automated matabolic reconstructions from the sequence data for pathogenic Bacillus, including 2 strains of B. anthracis, five strains of Staphylococcus aureus, and two strains of Yersinia pestis. The database is available on the Microbial Informatics Core website.