Publications

resistance of south american opossums to vwf-binding venom c-type lectins.	opossums in the clade didelphini are well known to be resistant to snake venom due to endogenous circulating inhibitors which target metalloproteinases and phospholipases. however, the mechanisms through which these opossums cope with a variety of other damaging venom proteins are unknown. a protein involved in blood clotting (von willebrand factor) has been found to have undergone rapid adaptive evolution in venom-resistant opossums. this protein is a known target for a subset of snake venom c- ...	2020	32135198
opossum cathelicidins exhibit antimicrobial activity against a broad spectrum of pathogens including west nile virus.	this study aimed to characterize cathelicidins from the gray short-tailed opossum in silico and experimentally validate their antimicrobial effects against various pathogenic bacteria and west nile virus (wnv). genome-wide in silico analysis against the current genome assembly of the gray short-tailed opossum yielded 56 classical antimicrobial peptides (amps) from eight different families, among which 19 cathelicidins, namely modocath1 - 19, were analyzed in silico to predict their antimicrobial ...	2020	32194564
opossum mammary maturation as it relates to immune cell infiltration and nutritional gene transcription.	the mammary gland has evolved to accommodate the developmental needs of offspring in species-specific ways. this is particularly true for marsupials. marsupial milk content changes dramatically throughout lactation in ways appearing timed with neonatal ontogeny and behavior. here we investigate morphological restructuring within the mammaries throughout lactation in the gray short-tailed opossum, monodelphis domestica. substantial remodeling of the mammaries occurs throughout the first half of a ...	2020	32551417
identification of regenerative processes in neonatal spinal cord injury in the opossum (monodelphis domestica): a transcriptomic study.	this study investigates the response to spinal cord injury in the gray short-tailed opossum (monodelphis domestica). in opossums spinal injury early in development results in spontaneous axon growth through the injury, but this regenerative potential diminishes with maturity until it is lost entirely. the mechanisms underlying this regeneration remain unknown. rna sequencing was used to identify differential gene expression in regenerating (sci at postnatal day 7, p7sci) and nonregenerating (sci ...	2020	32710567
a single-cell transcriptome atlas of marsupial embryogenesis and x inactivation.	single-cell rna sequencing of embryos can resolve the transcriptional landscape of development at unprecedented resolution. to date, single-cell rna-sequencing studies of mammalian embryos have focused exclusively on eutherian species. analysis of mammalian outgroups has the potential to identify deeply conserved lineage specification and pluripotency factors, and can extend our understanding of x dosage compensation. metatherian (marsupial) mammals diverged from eutherians around 160 million ye ...	2020	32814901
bone biomarkers in koalas: validation of assays and preliminary analyses.	traumatic injury, including bone fracture, is, to date, one of the leading causes of koala mortality in the south east queensland region of australia. further, the specialist diet of koalas, which is restricted to certain eucalyptus spp., may impact their normal bone physiology. considering the dramatic koala population decline and high incidence of trauma, a greater understanding of koala bone physiology may support conservation. we retrieved from genbank the protein sequences of parathyroid ho ...	2020	32917121
j. p. hill and katherine watson's studies of the neural crest in marsupials.	in the early part of the 20th century, j. p. hill and k. p. watson embarked on a comprehensive study of the development of the brain in australian marsupials. their work included series from three major groups: dasyurids, peramelids, and diprotodonts, covering early primitive streak through brain closure and folding stages. while the major part of the work was on the development of the brain, in the course of this work they documented that cellular proliferations from the neural plate provided m ...	2020	32960453
downregulation of trkc receptors increases dendritic arborization of purkinje cells in the developing cerebellum of the opossum, monodelphis domestica.	in therian mammals, the cerebellum is one of the late developing structures in the brain. specifically, the proliferation of cerebellar granule cells occurs after birth, and even in humans, the generation of these cells continues during the first year of life. the main difference between marsupials and eutherians is that the majority of the brain structures in marsupials develop after birth. herein, we report that in the newborn laboratory opossum (monodelphis domestica), the cerebellar primordi ...	2020	33013328
helicobacter monodelphidis sp. nov. and helicobacter didelphidarum sp. nov., isolated from grey short-tailed opossums (monodelphis domestica) with endemic cloacal prolapses.	in a search for potential causes of increased prolapse incidence in grey short-tailed opossum colonies, samples from the gastrointestinal tracts of 94 clinically normal opossums with rectal prolapses were screened for helicobacter species by culture and pcr. forty strains of two novel helicobacter species which differed from the established helicobacter taxa were isolated from opossums with and without prolapses. one of the helicobacter species was spiral-shaped and urease-negative whereas the o ...	2020	33079029