PhD, Medical Sciences, Texas A&M University College of Medicine
Postdoctoral Study, Microbiology and Immunology, East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine
Selected Publications
Hill N, Matulina LM, MacIntyre C, Hassani MA, Thomas S, Luban M, Ward I, Abdalla A, Leong JM, Garcia BL, Lemieux JE. Heterologous Surface Display Reveals Conserved Complement Inhibition and Functional Diversification of Borrelia burgdorferi Elp Proteins. Mol Microbiol. 2025 Jul;124(1):77-90. doi: 10.1111/mmi.15369. Epub 2025 May 16. PMID: 40376887; PMCID: PMC12242104.
Gomez AA, Kjerfve C, Choi M, Liu W, Churion K, Thomas S, Rohde H, Shelburne S, Skare JT, Hook M, Arora S. Staphylococcus epidermidis ST2 strains associated with bloodstream infections contain a unique mobile genetic element encoding a plasmin inhibitor. mBio. 2024 Dec 11;15(12):e0190724. doi: 10.1128/mbio.01907-24. Epub 2024 Nov 19. PMID: 39560391; PMCID: PMC11633098.
Thomas S, Schulz AM, Leong JM, Zeczycki TN, Garcia BL. The molecular determinants of classical pathway complement inhibition by OspEF-related proteins of Borrelia burgdorferi. J Biol Chem. 2024 May;300(5):107236. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2024.107236. Epub 2024 Mar 27. PMID: 38552741; PMCID: PMC11066524.
Bertoglio F, Ko YP, Thomas S, Giordano L, Scommegna FR, Meier D, Polten S, Becker M, Arora S, Hust M, Höök M, Visai L. Antibodies to coagulase of Staphylococcus aureus crossreact to Efb and reveal different binding of shared fibrinogen binding repeats. Front Immunol. 2023 Sep 27;14:1221108. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1221108. PMID: 37828992; PMCID: PMC10565355.
Garrigues RJ, Thomas S, Leong JM, Garcia BL. Outer surface lipoproteins from the Lyme disease spirochete exploit the molecular switch mechanism of the complement protease C1s. J Biol Chem. 2022 Nov;298(11):102557. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2022.102557. Epub 2022 Sep 29. PMID: 36183830; PMCID: PMC9637899.
Thomas S, Arora S, Liu W, Churion K, Wu Y, Höök M. vhp Is a Fibrinogen-Binding Protein Related to vWbp in Staphylococcus aureus. mBio. 2021 Aug 31;12(4):e0116721. doi: 10.1128/mBio.01167-21. Epub 2021 Aug 3. PMID: 34340548; PMCID: PMC8406236.
Thomas S, Liu W, Arora S, Ganesh V, Ko YP, Höök M. The Complex Fibrinogen Interactions of the Staphylococcus aureus Coagulases. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2019 Apr 16;9:106. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2019.00106. PMID: 31041195; PMCID: PMC6476931.
den Reijer PM, Tavakol M, Lemmens-den Toom N, Allouch D, Thomas S, Ganesh VK, Ko YP, Verbrugh HA, van Wamel WJB. Human Immunoglobulin G Cannot Inhibit Fibrinogen Binding by the Genetically Diverse A Domain of Staphylococcus aureus Fibronectin-Binding Protein A. mSphere. 2018 Mar 7;3(2):e00590-17. doi: 10.1128/mSphere.00590-17. PMID: 29564394; PMCID: PMC5853482.
Professional Involvement
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
