Robert Smith , Ph.D., assistant professor at NSU’s Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences, co-authored two research articles on immune systems that appear in the academic journals GENETICS and BMC Microbiology. GENETICS editors selected Smith’s article as an April 2013 Issue Highlight, while readers accessed the article in BMC Microbiology more than 400 times in just two weeks.
About the GENETICS Article
Title: “Nonself Recognition Through Intermolecular Disulfide Bond Formation of Ribonucleotide Reductase in Neurospora”
Authors: Robert Smith, Kenji Wellman, Leila Haidari, Hirohisa Masuda, and Myron Smith
While people most often associate immune systems with humans, such systems exist in nearly every organism, from bacteria to animals. Smith and colleagues studied a primitive immune system involved in “nonself” recognition in the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa, in order to determine how the system functions. They discovered that this nonself recognition system relies on the tight interaction between two proteins. When the system encounters a protein it deems foreign (nonself), the system tightly complexes with the protein, causing the infected cell to die. Cell death is thought to prevent the entire fungal colony from becoming infected by sacrificing only those cells that are infected. The results in this manuscript have served to increase understanding of how nonself recognition systems operate and may have identified a novel protein inhibitor, which might have applications as an antimicrobial.
About the BMC Microbiology Article
Title: “Trans-Species Activity of a Nonself Recognition Domain”
Authors: Robert Smith, Kenji Wellman, and Myron Smith
In this follow-up study, Smith and his colleagues transferred the nonself recognition system into the closely related fungus Saccharomyces cerevisiae, more commonly known as brewer’s yeast. Here, they observed that the system could readily function in nonself recognition. Using these engineered yeast, they uncovered a novel mechanism by which the nonself recognition system may be turned off. Results from this study may point to a novel mechanism by which foreign entities such as viruses may turn off immune systems and invade cells.
Read More Online
View Smith’s article in GENETICS | April 2013 Issue
View Smith’s article in BMC Microbiology | Published Mar. 22, 2013
In October 2012, Smith’s collaborative research on the effectiveness of antibiotics published in the journal Molecular Systems Biology. Learn more about Smith’s work in this college announcement.