College of Agriculture & Natural Resources

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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.

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    Proteomic analysis of Staphylococcus aureus biofilm cells grown under physiologically relevant fluid shear stress conditions
    (Springer Nature, 2014-04-30) Islam, Nazrul; Kim, Yonghyun; Ross, Julia M; Marten, Mark R
    The biofilm forming bacterium Staphylococcus aureus is responsible for maladies ranging from severe skin infection to major diseases such as bacteremia, endocarditis and osteomyelitis. A flow displacement system was used to grow S. aureus biofilms in four physiologically relevant fluid shear rates (50, 100, 500 and 1000 s-1) to identify proteins that are associated with biofilm. Global protein expressions from the membrane and cytosolic fractions of S. aureus biofilm cells grown under the above shear rate conditions are reported. Sixteen proteins in the membrane-enriched fraction and eight proteins in the cytosolic fraction showed significantly altered expression (p < 0.05) under increasing fluid shear. These 24 proteins were identified using nano-LC-ESI-MS/MS. They were found to be associated with various metabolic functions such as glycolysis / TCA pathways, protein synthesis and stress tolerance. Increased fluid shear stress did not influence the expression of two important surface binding proteins: fibronectin-binding and collagen-binding proteins. The reported data suggest that while the general metabolic function of the sessile bacteria is minimal under high fluid shear stress conditions, they seem to retain the binding capacity to initiate new infections.
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    In Vitro Study of an Orange Oil Derived Alternative to Antibiotics in the Treatment of Bovine Mastitis
    (2015) Federman, Cassandra Skye; Biswas, Debabrata; Animal Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Bovine mastitis is a costly disease in the U.S. dairy industry. Its major causative agent Staphylococcus aureus is often unresponsive to antibiotic therapy. Our first study examined terpeneless, cold-pressed Valencia (CPV) orange oil as a possible alternative to antibiotic therapy in the treatment of S. aureus associated bovine mastitis. Orange oil showed significant inhibition of S. aureus growth and invasion of bovine epithelial mammary cells, but only modest reductions in pre-formed biofilms, which contribute to persistence of S. aureus infections. Our second study examined major components of terpeneless, CPV orange oil. Of four major compounds tested, only citral and linalool had significant inhibitory effects on S. aureus growth. In addition, they were capable of reducing pre-formed biofilms as well as association and invasion to bovine epithelial mammary cells. Part of this inhibition was due to downregulation of virulence and biofilm genes.
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    Isolation and characterization of antimicrobial resistant Staphylococcus aureus in retail ground meats
    (2010) Li, Yi; Meng, Jianghong; Food Science; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Staphylococcus aureus is commonly present in humans and animals. It can cause a variety of suppurative infections, food intoxication and toxic shock syndrome. Antimicrobial resistant S. aureus, especially methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), have emerged and are a major public health concern. There is an increasing risk of food production animals serving as a reservoir and transmitting S. aureus and MRSA in community environments. Due to the increased food safety risk posed by MRSA in addition to its multidrug resistance, we were interested in determining the prevalence of S. aureus and MRSA in retail meat and investing the multidrug resistance of the S. aureus isolates. A survey study was conducted, involving 480 retail ground meat samples (231 ground pork and 249 ground beef) collected in the Washington DC area from March 2009 to March 2010. Approximately 42.08% (n = 202) of the samples were identified as S. aureus positive and one MRSA isolate was recovered from a ground beef sample. Antimicrobial resistance testing showed 53.34% of recovered S. aureus isolates exhibited different levels of antimicrobial resistance to CLI, CHL, GEN, LEVO, CIP, SYN and TGC. The MRSA isolate was resistant to 8 of 22 antimicrobials tested. PFGE fingerprinting identified the MRSA isolate as USA300 subtype, which also carried genes of virulence factors PVL and protein A. Our findings indicated that antimicrobial resistant S. aureus strains were common in retail ground beef and port, and that MRSA could also be present in such products that could potentially serve as a reservoir.