UMBC Biological Sciences Department
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With more than 30 tenured and tenure-track faculty members and lecturers, UMBC’s Department of Biological Sciences is one of the university’s largest academic departments encompassing a wide breadth of research and teaching. Research faculty in the Biological Sciences focus on:
- Cell Biology
- Computational Biology
- Developmental Biology & Immunology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Molecular Biology & Genetics
- Neuroscience
- Plant Biology
Recent Submissions
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Transposon Mutagenesis of Planctomyces limnophilus and Analysis of a pckA Mutant
(American Society for Microbiology, 2012-10)A Planctomyces limnophilus mutant generated using the EZ-Tn5 transposome was found to possess an insertion within pckA, encoding phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase. Disruption of pckA expression and elimination of enzymatic ... -
The Rising Tide of Antimicrobial Resistance in Aquaculture: Sources, Sinks and Solutions
(MDPI, 2017-06-01)As the human population increases there is an increasing reliance on aquaculture to supply a safe, reliable, and economic supply of food. Although food production is essential for a healthy population, an increasing ... -
Examination of a Culturable Microbial Population from the Gastrointestinal Tract of the Wood-Eating Loricariid Catfish Panaque nigrolineatus
(MDPI, 2013-08-19)Fish play a critical role in nutrient cycling and organic matter flow in aquatic environments. However, little is known about the microbial diversity within the gastrointestinal tracts that may be essential in these ... -
Regulation of nitrogen catabolic enzymes in Bacillus spp
(American Society for Microbiology, 1982-08)The levels of the inducible nitrogen catabolic enzymes arginase (L-arginine amidinohydrolase, EC 3.5.3.1) and alanine dehydrogenase (L-alanine:NAD+ oxidoreductase [deaminating], EC 1.4.1.1) from Bacillus licheniformis and ... -
Regulation of expression from the glnA promoter of Bacillus subtilis requires the glnA gene product
(American Society for Microbiology, 1985-05)Expression of the cloned glnA gene [coding for glutamine synthetase (EC 6.3.1.2)] of Bacillus subtilis was 10-fold higher in an Escherichia coli strain grown under nitrogen-limiting conditions than in the same strain under ... -
Anaerobic Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria and Related Activity in Baltimore Inner Harbor Sediment
(American Society for Microbiology, 2005-04)The discovery of bacteria capable of anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox) has generated interest in understanding the activity, diversity, and distribution of these bacteria in the environment. In this study anammox ... -
Altered regulation of the glnA gene in glutamine synthetase mutants of Bacillus subtilis
(American Society for Microbiology, 1986-07-01)Expression of beta-galactosidase by Bacillus subtilis strains carrying transcriptional fusions of the glnA promoter region to the Escherichia coli lacZ gene was found to be regulated by the nitrogen source in glnA+ strains. ... -
β-Glutamate as a Substrate for Glutamine Synthetase
(American Society for Microbiology, 2001-10)The conversion of β-glutamate to β-glutamine by archaeal and bacterial glutamine synthetase (GS) enzymes has been examined. The GS from Methanohalophilus portucalensis (which was partially purified) is capable of catalyzing ... -
Nitrogenase diversity and activity in the gastrointestinal tract of the wood-eating catfish Panaque nigrolineatus
(International Society for Microbial Ecology, 2015-04-24)The Amazonian catfish, Panaque nigrolineatus, consume large amounts of wood in their diets. The nitrogen-fixing community within the gastrointestinal (GI) tract of these catfish was found to include nifH phylotypes that ... -
Identification and characterization of the pckA gene from Staphylococcus aureus
(American Society for Microbiology, 1996-06)The Staphylococcus aureus pckA gene was identified and characterized. A pckA mutant lacked detectable phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase activity and grew poorly in the absence of glucose. Both enzymatic activity and pckA ... -
Purification and properties of glutamate synthase from Bacillus licheniformis
(American Society for Microbiology, 1984-11)Glutamate synthase [L-glutamate:NADP+ oxidoreductase (transaminating); EC 1.4.1.13] (GItS) was purified to homogeneity from BaciUus licheniformis A5. The native enzyme had a molecular weight of approximately 220,000 and ... -
Altered regulation of the glnRA operon in a Bacillus subtilis mutant that produces methionine sulfoximine-tolerant glutamine synthetase
(American Society for Microbiology, 1993-02)A Bacillus subfilis mutant that produced glutamine synthetase (GS) with altered sensitivity to DL-methionine sulfoximine was isolated. The mutation, designated glnA33, was due to a T- A-to-C- G transition, changing valine ... -
Interaction of the Bacillus subtilis glnRA repressor with operator and promoter sequences in vivo
(American Society for Microbiology (ASM), 1992-02)In vivo dimethyl sulfate footprinting of the Bacillus subtilis ginRA regulatory region under repressing and derepressing conditions demonstrated that the GlnR protein, encoded by glnR, interacts with two sites situated within ... -
Phylogenetic Analysis of Microbial Communities in Different Regions of the Gastrointestinal Tract in Panaque nigrolineatus, a Wood-Eating Fish
(PLOS, 2012-10-25)The Neotropical detritivorous catfish Panaque nigrolineatus imbibes large quantities of wood as part of its diet. Due to the interest in cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin degradation pathways, this organism provides an ... -
Histone Modifications and the Maintenance of Telomere Integrity
(MDPI, 2019-02-25)Telomeres, the nucleoprotein structures at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes, play an integral role in protecting linear DNA from degradation. Dysregulation of telomeres can result in genomic instability and has been ... -
Peptide-based systems analysis of inflammation induced myeloid-derived suppressor cells reveals diverse signaling pathways
(John Wiley & Sons, 2016-05-19)A better understanding of molecular signaling between myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC), tumor cells, T-cells, and inflammatory mediators is expected to contribute to more effective cancer immunotherapies. We focus ... -
Ubiquitin Conjugation Probed by Inflammation in Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cell Extracellular Vesicles
(American Chemical Society, 2017-10-23)Ubiquitinated proteins carried by the extracellular vesicles (EV) released by myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) have been investigated using proteomic strategies to examine the effect of tumor-associated inflammation. ... -
Myeloid-derived suppressor cells: Immune suppressive cells that impair antitumor immunity and are sculpted by their environment
(2018-01-15)Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) are a diverse population of immature myeloid cells that have potent immune suppressive activity. Studies in both mice and humans have demonstrated that MDSC accumulate in most ... -
Understanding the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) for effective therapy
(Springer Nature Publishing AG, 2018-04-23)The clinical successes in immunotherapy have been both astounding and at the same time unsatisfactory. Countless patients with varied tumor types have seen pronounced clinical response with immunotherapeutic intervention; ... -
Novel strategies for inhibiting PD-1 pathway-mediated immune suppression while simultaneously delivering activating signals to tumor-reactive T cells
(Springer Nature Switzerland AG., 2015-03-20)We previously developed cell-based vaccines as therapeutics for metastatic cancers. The vaccines were aimed at activating type I CD4⁺T cells and consisted of tumor cells transfected with genes encoding syngeneic MHC class ...
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