Susana Mourino

University of Maryland Baltimore · Pharmaceutical Sciences

The most efficient and widely used system for generating helper-dependent adenoviral vectors (HDAds) is the Cre/loxP system developed by Graham and co-workers (Parks, R.J., Chen, L., Anton, M., Sankar, U., Rudnicki, M.A., and Graham, F.L. [ 1996 ]. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 93, 13565-13570). Alternative systems have been developed for HDAd pr...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa acquires extracellular heme via the Phu (Pseudomonas heme uptake) and Has (heme assimilation system) systems. We have previously shown the catalytic action of heme oxygenase HemO along with the cytoplasmic heme transport protein PhuS control heme flux into the cell. To further investigate the role of the PhuS-HemO couple in m...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that utilizes heme as a primary iron source within the host. Extracellular heme is sensed via a heme assimilation system (has) that encodes an extracytoplasmic function (ECF) σ factor system. Herein, using has deletion mutants, quantitative PCR analyses, and immunoblotting, we show that the activa...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a versatile opportunistic pathogen requiring iron for its survival and virulence within the host. The ability to switch to heme as an iron source and away from siderophore uptake provides an advantage in chronic infection. We have recently shown the extracellular heme metabolites biliverdin IXβ (BVIXβ) and BVIXδ positively...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen requiring iron for its survival and virulence. P. aeruginosa can acquire iron from heme via the non-redundant heme assimilation system (Has) and Pseudomonas heme uptake (Phu) systems. Heme transported by either the Has or Phu system is sequestered by the cytoplasmic protein PhuS. Furthermore, PhuS...

Iron is an essential micronutrient for all bacteria but presents a significant challenge given its limited bioavailability. Furthermore, iron's toxicity combined with the need to maintain iron levels within a narrow physiological range requires integrated systems to sense, regulate and transport a variety of iron complexes. Most bacteria encode sys...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen requiring iron for its survival and virulence. P. aeruginosa can acquire iron from heme via the heme assimilation system (Has) and Pseudomonas heme uptake (Phu) systems. The Has and Phu systems have non-redundant roles in heme sensing and transport, respectively. However, despite their respective...

Vibrio anguillarum can utilize heme and hemoglobin as iron sources. Nine genes, huvA, huvZ, huvX, tonB1, exbB1, exbD1, huvB, huvC, huvD, encoding the proteins involved in heme transport and utilization, are clustered in a 10-kb region of chromosomal DNA. Reverse Transcriptase-PCR analysis demonstrated that the gene cluster is arranged into three tr...

The ability to utilize heme compounds as iron sources was investigated in Vibrio anguillarum strains belonging to serotypes O1 to O10. All strains, regardless of their serotype or isolation origin could utilize hemin and hemoglobin as sole iron sources. Similarly, all of the isolates could bind hemin and Congo red, and this binding was mediated by...

We have identified two functional tonB systems in the marine fish pathogen Vibrio anguillarum, tonB1 and tonB2. Each of the tonB genes is transcribed in an operon with the cognate exbB and exbD genes in response to iron limitation. Only tonB2 is essential for transport of ferric anguibactin and virulence.

Vibrio anguillarum can utilize hemin and hemoglobin as sole iron sources. In previous work we identified HuvA, the V. anguillarum outer membrane heme receptor by complementation of a heme utilization mutant with a cosmid clone (pML1) isolated from a genomic library of V. anguillarum. In the present study, we describe a gene cluster contained in cos...

One of the most exciting challenges in human biology is the understanding of how our genome was constructed during evolution. Here we explore the evolutionary history of the low polymorphic human minisatellite MsH42 and its flanking sequences. We show that the evolutionary birth of MsH42 took place within an intron, early in primate lineage evoluti...

We have previously described a GC-rich human minisatellite, termed MsH42, which exists in two allelic forms, long and short. Here, we have identified a third allele of medium length and localized the MsH42 locus in the chromosome 15q25.1 inside an intron belonging to a gene of unknown function. The recombinogenic potential of the three alleles was...