Nicholas SkandalisUniversity of Southern California | USC · Keck School of Medicine
Nicholas Skandalis
Professor
About
25
Publications
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Introduction
Plant microbiology, Plant pathology, Antibiotic resistance
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (25)
Novel approaches to combating antibiotic resistance are needed given the ever-continuing rise of antibiotic resistance and the scarce discovery of new antibiotics. Little is known about the colonization dynamics and the role of intrinsic plant-food characteristics in this process. We sought to determine whether plant fiber could alter colonization...
Copper-based bactericides have appeared as a new tool in crop protection and offer an effective solution to combat bacterial resistance. In this work, two copper nanoparticle products that were previously synthesized and evaluated against major bacterial and fungal pathogens were tested on their ability to control the bacterial spot disease of toma...
Bacterial biological control agents (BCAs) have been increasingly used against plant diseases. The traditional approach to manufacturing such commercial products was based on the selection of bacterial species able to produce secondary metabolites that inhibit mainly fungal growth in optimal media. Such species are required to be massively produced...
Siderophores have mostly been studied concerning their contribution to the fitness and virulence of bacterial pathogens. In the present work, we isolated and characterized for the first time the siderophore bacillibactin from a commercial bacterial biocontrol agent.
Antibiotic resistance represents a global health concern. Soil, water, livestock and plant foods are directly or indirectly exposed to antibiotics due to their agricultural use or contamination. This selective pressure has acted synergistically to bacterial competition in nature to breed antibiotic-resistant (AR) bacteria. Research over the past fe...
Copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) can offer an alternative to conventional copper bactericides and possibly slow down the development of bacterial resistance. This will consequently lower the accumulation rate of copper to soil and water and lower the environmental and health burden imposed by copper application. Physical and chemical methods have been...
Industry screens of large chemical libraries have traditionally relied on rich media to ensure rapid bacterial growth in high-throughput testing. We used eukaryotic, nutrient-limited growth media in a compound screen that unmasked a previously unknown hyperactivity of the old antibiotic, rifabutin (RBT), against highly resistant Acinetobacter bauma...
Previous efforts have correlated antibiotic-fed livestock and meat products with respective antibiotic resistance genes, but virtually no research has been conducted on the transmission of antibiotic resistance from plant foods to the mammalian gut (C. S. Hölzel, J. L. Tetens, and K. Schwaiger, Pathog Dis 15:671–688, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1089/f...
The success of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens as a biological control agent relies on its ability to outgrow plant pathogens. It is also thought to interact with its plant host by inducing systemic resistance. In this study, the ability of B. amyloliquefaciens MBI600 to elicit defense (or other) responses in tomato seedlings and plants was assessed upo...
Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria have been proposed as effective biocontrol agents against several fungal and bacterial plant pathogens. However, there is limited knowledge regarding their effect against viruses. In this study, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain MBI600 (MBI600), active ingredient of the biological fungicide Serifel® (BASF SE), w...
Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been demonstrated to restrain bacterial growth, while maintaining minimal risk in development of bacterial resistance and human cell toxicity that conventional silver compounds exhibit. Several physical and chemical methods have been reported to synthesize AgNPs. However, these methods are expensive and involve hea...
Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been demonstrated to restrain bacterial growth while maintaining the minimal risk in development of bacterial resistance and human cell toxicity that conventional silver compounds exhibit. Several physical and chemical methods have been reported to synthesize AgNPs. However, these methods are expensive and involve...
Quinone outside inhibitors (QoI) are powerful fungicides, which have been reported, additionally to their fungicide activity, to increase plant capacity to activate cellular defense responses and to promote plant growth. In this work, the effect of the QoI class fungicide pyraclostrobin was examined against Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), Potato virus...
A multi-targeting protocol for the detection of three of the most important bacterial phyto-pathogens, based on their scientific and economic importance, was developed using an acoustic biosensor (the Quartz Crystal Microbalance) for DNA detection. Acoustic detection was based on a novel approach where DNA amplicons were monitored and discriminated...
The discovery in the mid-80s of contiguous gene clusters that were later shown to code for a novel protein secretion system has been a milestone in plant pathology and the study of plantbacterial interactions. This system, named type III secretion system (T3SS), is dedicated to the translocation of virulence-related proteins, called effectors, from...
Method for producing transgenic plants that are resistant to at least one pathogen and one insect pest are provided. Plants expressing a pathogen-derived effector that are resistant to at least one pathogen, at least one insect pest, at freezing stress are provided. Genes and gene sequences comprising pathogen-derived effectors chosen as to not tri...
Type VI secretion systems (T6SS) of Gram-negative bacteria form injectisomes that have the potential to translocate effector proteins into eukaryotic host cells. In silico analysis of the genomes in six Pseudomonas syringae pathovars revealed that P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000, pv. tabaci ATCC 11528, pv. tomato T1 and pv. oryzae 1-6 each carry two...
With the advent of recombinant DNA techniques, the field of molecular plant pathology witnessed dramatic shifts in the 1970s and 1980s. The new and conventional methodologies of bacterial molecular genetics put bacteria center stage. The discovery in the mid-1980s of the hrp/hrc gene cluster and the subsequent demonstration that it encodes a type I...
Molecular genetic polymorphisms within Pseudoperonospora cubensis isolates of different geographic origins were investigated to establish their phylogenetic relationships and to assess genetic variability between two distant pathogen populations. Thirty isolates originating from Greece (Crete; 15), the Czech Republic (13), the Netherlands (one) and...
Polyamine oxidase (PAO) catalyzes the oxidative catabolism of spermidine and spermine, generating hydrogen peroxide. In wild-type tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum 'Xanthi') plants, infection by the compatible pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv tabaci resulted in increased PAO gene and corresponding PAO enzyme activities; polyamine homeostasis was maintaine...
Chitin is an essential component of fungal cell walls, where it forms a crystalline scaffold, and chitooligosaccharides derived
from it are signaling molecules recognized by the hosts of pathogenic fungi. Oomycetes are cellulosic fungus-like microorganisms
which most often lack chitin in their cell walls. Here we present the first study of the cell...