Jerrold P. Weiss, Ph.D.
Ph.D., New York University, 1981 |
Professor of Internal Medicine and Microbiology Campus address: D158 MTF Mailing address: 2501 Crosspark Rd. D158 Multi-Tenant Facility Coralville, IA 52241 Phone: 319-335-4268 Email: |
Innate host defenses to invading Bacteria
In all multicellular organisms, resistance to invading bacteria is dependent on the mobilization of host defenses that is triggered when the host is exposed to specific bacterial products. The inflammatory response is essential for protection from bacterial invasion but can also be responsible, when inadequately controlled, for much of the pathology that accompanies invasive bacterial disease. Hence, the inflammatory response must be tightly regulated, initiated by specific signals and include molecular and cellular mechanisms to constrain and ultimately eliminate infection and inflammation.
Work in our laboratory is focused in 2 main areas: 1) the structural and biochemical mechanisms of host recognition of Gram-negative bacterial endotoxins and the coupling of endotoxin recognition to the induction of inflammation, bacterial killing and clearance and detoxification of endotoxin and other bacterial remnants; and 2) cellular and extracellular mechanisms of host defense against Gram-positive bacteria and the role and regulation of D-alanylation of bacterial envelope teichoic acids in bacterial resistance to innate host defenses and in bacterial persistence.
Recent publications
Schultz, H., Hume, J., Zhang, D.S., Gioannini, T.L., and Weiss, J. A novel role for the bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI) in interactions of Gram-negative bacteria outer membrane blebs with dendritic cells. J. Immunol. (in press), 2007.
Gioannini, T.L., Teghanemt, A., Zhang, D.S., Prohinar, P., Levis, E.N., Munford, R.S., and Weiss, J.P. Endotoxin binding proteins modulate the susceptibility of bacterial endotoxin to deacylation by acyloxyacyl hydrolase. J. Biol. Chem. 282:7877-7884, 2007.
Prohinar, P., Re, F., Widstrom, R., Zhang, D.S., Teghanemt, A., Weiss, J.P., and Gioannini, T.L. Specific high affinity interactions of monomeric endotoxin-protein complexes with Toll-like receptor 4 ectodomain. J. Biol. Chem. 282:1010-1017, 2007.
Koprivnjak, T., Mlakar, V., Swanson, L., Fournier, B., Peschel, A., and Weiss, J.P. Cation induced transcriptional regulation of the dlt operon of Staphylococcus aureus. J. Bacteriol. 188:3622-3630, 2006.