Levitin A, Yanofsky C. Positions of Trp codons in the leader peptide-coding region of the AT operon influence anti-trap synthesis and trp operon expression in Bacillus licheniformis. J Bacteriol. 2010 Mar;192(6):1518-26.

Levitin A, Whiteway M. Drosophila innate immunity and response to fungal infections. Cell Microbiol. 2008 May;10(5):1021-6. Review.

Levitin A, Whiteway M. The effect of prostaglandin E2 on transcriptional responses of Candida albicans. Microbiol Res. 2007;162(3):201-10

Martchenko M, Levitin A, Whiteway M. Transcriptional activation domains of the Candida albicans Gcn4p and Gal4p homologs. Eukaryot Cell. 2007 Feb;6(2):291-301.

Martchenko M, Levitin A, Hogues H, Nantel A, Whiteway M. Transcriptional rewiring of fungal galactose-metabolism circuitry. Curr Biol. 2007 Jun 19;17(12):1007-13.

Levitin A, Marcil A, Tettweiler G, Laforest MJ, Oberholzer U, Alarco AM, Thomas DY, Lasko P, Whiteway M. Drosophila melanogaster Thor and response to Candida albicans infection. Eukaryot Cell. 2007 Apr;6(4):658-63.

Braun BR, van Het Hoog M, d'Enfert C, Martchenko M, Dungan J, Kuo A, Inglis DO, Uhl MA, Hogues H, Berriman M, Lorenz M, Levitin A, Oberholzer U, Bachewich C, Harcus D, Marcil A, Dignard D, Iouk T, Zito R, Frangeul L, Tekaia F, Rutherford K, Wang E, Munro CA, Bates S, Gow NA, Hoyer LL, Köhler G, Morschhäuser J, Newport G, Znaidi S, Raymond M, Turcotte B, Sherlock G, Costanzo M, Ihmels J, Berman J, Sanglard D, Agabian N, Mitchell AP, Johnson AD, Whiteway M, Nantel A. A human-curated annotation of the Candida albicans genome. PLoS Genet. 2005 Jul;1(1):36-57

Gidda SK, Miersch O, Levitin A, Schmidt J, Wasternack C, Varin L. Biochemical and molecular characterization of a hydroxyjasmonate sulfotransferase from Arabidopsis thaliana. J Biol Chem. 2003 May 16;278(20):17895-900.

RESEARCH SYNOPSIS

Dr. Levitin has previously established the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster macrophage-like cell line as a model to study host innate immune response to fungal pathogens, as well as transcriptional profiling of the pathogen response to host macrophages.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS:

Immune response to bacterial infections using Drosophila as a model organism

Innate immune response is a first defense against pathogens and it is evolutionarily highly conserved. The fruit fly Drosophila is devoid of an adaptive immune system, making this a model organism to study innate immune response to microbial infections. Dr. Levitin identifies components of innate immunity using Drosophila as a surrogate, and subsequently confirms the findings in mammalian systems.  

Her lab also studies host genes differentially expressed in response to microbial infection that encode surface proteins since they are potential candidates for the development of biomarkers. 

Dr. Levitin is also interested in pathogen genes encoding surface proteins that are differentially expressed in response to phagocytes. These genes represent targets for vaccine development.