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Item Design and Potential of Non-Integrating Lentiviral Vectors(MDPI, 2014-03) Shaw, Aaron; Cornetta, Kenneth; Medical and Molecular Genetics, School of MedicineLentiviral vectors have demonstrated promising results in clinical trials that target cells of the hematopoietic system. For these applications, they are the vectors of choice since they provide stable integration into cells that will undergo extensive expansion in vivo. Unfortunately, integration can have unintended consequences including dysregulated cell growth. Therefore, lentiviral vectors that do not integrate are predicted to have a safer profile compared to integrating vectors and should be considered for applications where transient expression is required or for sustained episomal expression such as in quiescent cells. In this review, the system for generating lentiviral vectors will be described and used to illustrate how alterations in the viral integrase or vector Long Terminal Repeats have been used to generate vectors that lack the ability to integrate. In addition to their safety advantages, these non-integrating lentiviral vectors can be used when persistent expression would have adverse consequences. Vectors are currently in development for use in vaccinations, cancer therapy, site-directed gene insertions, gene disruption strategies, and cell reprogramming. Preclinical work will be described that illustrates the potential of this unique vector system in human gene therapy.Item Molecular characterization of β-lactamase genes in clinical isolates of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii(BMC, 2017-11-16) Raible, Kevin M.; Sen, Bhaswati; Law, Nancy; Bias, Tiffany E.; Emery, Christopher L.; Ehrlich, Garth D.; Joshi, Suresh G.; Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of MedicineBackground Acinetobacter baumannii is a nosocomial pathogen which is establishing as a major cause of morbidity and mortality within the healthcare community. The success of this pathogen is largely due to its ability to rapidly gain resistance to antimicrobial therapies and its capability to persist in an abiotic environment through the production of a biofilm. Our tertiary-care hospital has showed high incidence of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) isolates. Methods In this study we explore both genotypic and phenotypic properties of 26 CRAB isolates: 16 isolates were collected from January 2010 to March 2011, and 10 were collected between February and May 2015. Results We determined that all 26 CRAB isolates possessed multiple β-lactamase genes, including genes from Groups A, C, and D. Specifically, 42% of the isolates possesses the potentially plasmid-borne genes of OXA-23-like or OXA-40-like β-lactamase. The presence of mobile gene element integron cassettes and/or integrases in 88% of the isolates suggests a possible mechanism of dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes. Additionally, the location of insertion sequence (IS) ISAba1 in promotor region of of the OXA-51-like, ADC-7, and ampC genes was confirmed. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) demonstrated that all 26 CRAB isolates were either sequence type (ST)-229 or ST-2. Interestingly, ST-2 went from being the minority CRAB strain in the 2010–2011 isolates to the predominant strain in the 2015 isolates (from 32 to 90%). We show that the ST-2 strains have an enhanced ability to produce biofilms in comparison to the ST-229 strains, and this fact has potentially led to more successful colonization of the clinical environment over time. Conclusions This study provides a longitudinal genetic and phenotypic survey of two CRAB sequence types, and suggests how their differing phenotypes may interact with the selective pressures of a hospital setting effecting strain dominance over a 5-year period. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12941-017-0248-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.