 Ph.D. |
Wolfgang
Haas
Assistant Professor of Microbiology & Immunology Primary
Appointment: Center Affiliation: GEBS
Cluster Affiliations: |
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| Contact Information: | ||
| University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry 601 Elmwood Ave, Box 611 Rochester, New York 14642 |
KMRB, G-9649 Phone: (585) 275-7722 Fax: (585) 276-0190 E-Mail: wolfgang_haas@urmc.rochester.edu |
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- Research Focus
- Antibiotic-Stress Response and Resistance in Streptococci
- Research Overview
- Streptococci cause various diseases in humans, ranging from tooth decay to infections of the heart valves, lungs, brain, and middle ear. These potentially fatal diseases are commonly treated with antibiotics such as penicillin. The frequent use of antibacterial drugs has sparked the emergence of bacterial strains that are resistant to one or more antibiotics. Infections caused by multidrug resistant strains might become untreatable in the future if no new antibacterial agents are developed in time.
- We are interested in the bacterial response to antibiotic treatment in order to understand this type of stress response and to determine new targets for antibacterial drugs. Microarray analysis of mRNA from Streptococcus pneumoniae that had been treated with the antibiotic vancomycin revealed a number of genes that were differentially regulated. We are currently in the process of determining the role of these gene products in the vancomycin-stress response of S. pneumoniae. These studies give us information about new targets for antibiotics and provide us with important insight into bacterial gene regulation and physiology.
- Recent Publications
- Haas W, Kaushal D, Sublett J, Obert C, Tuomanen EI. "Vancomycin stress response in a sensitive and a tolerant strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae." J Bacteriol. 2005 Dec;187(23):8205-10.
- Gilmore, M. S. and W. Haas. "The selective advantage of microbial fratricide." Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102(24): 8401-2, 2005.
- Coburn, P. S., C. M. Pillar, et al. "Enterococcus faecalis senses target cells and in response expresses cytolysin." Science 306(5705): 2270-2, 2004.
- Shankar N, Coburn P, Pillar C, Haas W, Gilmore M. "Enterococcal cytolysin: activities and association with other virulence traits in a pathogenicity island". Int J Med Microbiol. 293:609-18, 2004. Review.
- Razeto A, Giller K, Haas W, Gilmore MS, Zweckstetter M, Becker S. "Expression, purification, crystallization and preliminary crystallographic studies of the Enterococcus faecalis cytolysin repressor CylR2". Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr. 60:746-8, 2004.
- Haas W, Shepard BD, Gilmore MS. Two-component regulator of Enterococcus faecalis cytolysin responds to quorum-sensing autoinduction. Nature. 415:84-7, 2002.
- Francia MV, Haas W, Wirth R, Samberger E, Muscholl-Silberhorn A, Gilmore MS, Ike Y, Weaver KE, An FY, Clewell DB. Completion of the nucleotide sequence of the Enterococcus faecalis conjugative virulence plasmid pAD1 and identification of a second transfer origin. Plasmid. 46:117-27, 2001.
- Haas W, Banas JA. Ligand-binding properties of the carboxyl-terminal repeat domain of Streptococcus mutans glucan-binding protein A. J. Bacteriol. 182:728-33, 2000.
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