My current work involves studying the mechanisms of antibiotic tolerance in N. gonorrhoeae, as well using high-throughput screening methods to discover specific inhibitors of gonococcal growth. As the gonococcus is hypersensitive to several classes of antibiotics, such inhibitors may allow for the detection of novel antibiotic targets in gram-negative bacteria.

The ability of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to grow anaerobically and to reduce nitric oxide has been shown to have immunomodullary effects on the host. My previous research involved examining regulatory circuits and physiological changes in gonococci grown under oxygen-limited conditions.

Publications:

Spence, S. A., Clark, V. L., and V. M. Isabella (2012). The role of catalase in gonococcal resistance to peroxynitrite. Microbiology 158:560-570.

Isabella, V. M., and V. L Clark (2011). Identification of a conserved protein involved in unsaturated fatty acid synthesis in N. gonorrhoeae: implications for facultative and obligate anaerobes that lack FabA. Mol Micro 82:489-501.

Isabella, V. M., and V. L. Clark (2011). Deep-sequencing based analysis of the anaerobic stimulon in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. BMC Genomics, 12: 51.

Clark, V. L., Isabella, V. M., Barth, K., and T. Overton (2010). Regulation and function of the Neisserial denitrification pathway: life with limited oxygen. Caroline Genco and Lee Wetzler, editors. Neisseria: ¬Molecular Mechanisms of Pathogenesis. Horizon Scientific Press, Norwich, UK.

Barth, K., Isabella, V. M., and V. L. Clark (2009). Biochemical and genomic analysis of the denitrification pathway within the Neisseria genus. Microbiology. 155: 4093-4103.

Barth, K., Isabella, V. M., Wright, L., and V. L. Clark (2009). Resistance to reactive nitrogen species in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Microbiology. 155: 2532-2545.

Isabella, V. M., Lapek, J. D., Kennedy, E. M., and V. L. Clark (2009). Functional analysis of NsrR, a nitric oxide-sensing Rrf2 repressor in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Mol. Micro. 71:227-239.

Isabella, V. M., Wright, L., Barth, K., Spence, J. M., Grogan, S., Genco, C. A., and V. L. Clark (2008). cis- and trans-acting elements involved in regulation of norB ( norZ), the gene encoding nitric oxide reductase in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Microbiology. 154: 226-239.

Wagner, V. E., Li, L. L., Isabella, V. M., and B. H. Iglewski (2007). Analysis of the hierarchy of quorum-sensing regulation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 387:469-479.