Research in the Akerley lab focuses on the biology and pathogenicity of Haemophilus influenzae, a bacterium that colonizes humans and leads to disease by spreading from the nasopharyngeal mucosal epithelium to other sites in the body. Depending on a complex interplay between the host and the infectious strain, H. influenzae invades the bloodstream, spreads to the middle ear, infects the lungs, or colonizes the nasopharynx persistently without producing symptoms. The transition between asymptomatic colonization and disease involves a change in the balance between bacterial virulence mechanisms and host defenses. Understanding how this balance is maintained and disrupted will require a comprehensive understanding of H. influenzae biology within the host, its only known growth environment in nature. Since the complete DNA sequences of the genomes of H. influenzae and those of many other bacteria have been determined, powerful genome-scale approaches to microbiology have become available. Our work incorporates these current methodologies and we have also devised several new genome-based approaches for our studies of H. influenzae. We are currently applying these approaches to other bacterial pathogens. We expect that insights obtained and technology developed in our studies of H. influenzae will enhance understanding of diverse bacterial pathogens.
Articles
Tracking insertion mutants within libraries by deep sequencing and a genome-wide screen for Haemophilus genes required in the lung (with Jeffrey D. Gawronski, Sandy M. S. Wong, Georgia Giannoukos, and Doyle V. Ward), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2009)
Rapid genome-wide identification of genes required for infection would expedite studies of bacterial pathogens. We...
Resistance of Haemophilus influenzae to reactive nitrogen donors and gamma interferon-stimulated macrophages requires the formate-dependent nitrite reductase regulator-activated ytfE gene (with Jane Colleen Harrington, Sandy M. S. Wong, Charles V. Rosadini, Oleg Garifulin, and Victor L. Boyartchuk), Infection and immunity (2009)
Haemophilus influenzae efficiently colonizes and persists at the human nasopharyngeal mucosa, causing disease when it...
Structure of YraM, a protein essential for growth of Haemophilus influenzae (with J. Vijayalakshmi and Mark A. Saper), Proteins (2008)
Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae is an obligate human parasite that often causes middle ear infections in...
Identification and analysis of essential genes in Haemophilus influenzae (with Sandy M. S. Wong), Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) (2008)
The human respiratory pathogen Haemophilus influenzae, a Gram-negative bacterium, is the first free-living organism to...
The periplasmic disulfide oxidoreductase DsbA contributes to Haemophilus influenzae pathogenesis (with Charles V. Rosadini and Sandy M. S. Wong), Infection and immunity (2008)
Haemophilus influenzae is an obligate human pathogen that persistently colonizes the nasopharynx and causes disease...