Milya G. Davlieva, Ph. D.

Research Scientist
Keck Hall, Room 327

BioSciences Department

6100 Main Street

Houston, TX 77005
Email: mgd1@rice.edu
Ph: 713-348-2492
Frequent use of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections in hospital patients has resulted in the evolution of bacteria with antibiotic resistance. These antibiotic resistant microorganisms are an increasingly serious problem in health care facilities.
One such organism is vancomycin resistant Enterococcus (VRE). Daptomycin is one of the most promising lipopeptide antibiotics that can be used to treat VRE infections. However, a major drawback for the successful use of DAP is the development of resistance during therapy. The comparative genome sequencing and genomic manipulations of a clinical pair of DAP susceptible and DAP resistant E.faecalis identified the genetic changes associated with daptomycin resistance, including liaF, liaR, cls and yvlB genes. The goal of my project is to understand the basis for the role of these proteins in daptomycin resistance by means of X-ray crystallography and biochemical assays.

Publications

Hookang Im, Miriam L Sharpe, Ulrich Strych, Milya Davlieva and Kurt L Krause. The crystal structure of alanine racemase from Streptococcus pneumoniae, a target for structure-based drug design. BMC Microbiology 11:116,
2011.

Katarzyna Walkiewicz, Milya Davlieva, Gang Wu and Yousif Shamoo. Crystal structure of Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron TetX2, a tetracycline degrading monooxygenase. Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics, 79(7):2335-40, 2011.

Miller C, Davlieva Milya, Wilson C, White KI, Couñago R, Wu G, Myers JC, Wittung-Stafshede P, and Shamoo Y. Experimental Evolution of Adenylate Kinase Reveals Contrasting Strategies toward Protein Thermostability. Biophysical journal. 99(3):887-96, 2010.

Peña MI, Davlieva Milya, Bennett MR, Olson JS, and Shamoo Y. Evolutionary fates within a microbial Population highlight an essential role for protein folding during natural selection. Molecular systems Biology. 6:387, 2010.

Davlieva Milya, Shamoo Y. Crystal structure of a trimeric archaeal adenylate kinase from the mesophile Methanococcus maripaludis with an unusually broad functional range and thermal stability. Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics. 78(2):357-64, 2010.

Rafael M Couñago, Milya Davlieva, Ulrich Strych, Ryan Hill and Kurt Krause. Biochemical and structural characterization of alanine racemase from Bacillus anthracis. BMC Str. Biol.9:53, 2009

Davlieva Milya, Shamoo Y. Crystal structure and biochemical characterization of the adenylate kinase originating from the psychrophilic organism Marinibacillus marinus. Acta Crystallographica Section F: 751-6, 2009.

Strych U., Davlieva Milya, Longtin JP., Murphy EL., Im H., Benedik MJ., Krause KL. Purification and preliminary crystallization of alanine racemase from Streptococcus pneumoniae. BMC Microbiol. (2007),7(1);40.

Davlieva Milya G., Lindeman S.V., Neretin I.S., Kochi J.K. Isolation, X-ray Structures, and Electronic Spectra of Reactive Intermediates in Friedel-Crafts Acylations. Journal of Organic Chemistry (2005), 70(10), 4013-4021.

Lindeman, S. V.; Neretin, I. S.; Davlieva, Milya G.; Kochi, J. K. Isolation and X-ray Structures of Labile Benzoic-and Acetic-Acidium Carbocations. Journal of Organic Chemistry (2005), 70(8), 3263-3266.

Davlieva Milya G., Sergey V. Lindeman, Ivan S. Neretin and Jay K. Kochi. Structural effects of carbon monoxide coordination to carbon centers. r- and s- bindings in aliphatic acyl versus aromatic aroyl cations. New J. Chem. (2004), 28,1568-1574.

Davlieva, Milya G.; Lue, Jian-Ming; Lindeman, Sergey V.; Kochi, Jay K. Crystallographic Distinction between “Contact” and “Separated” Ion Pairs: Structural Effects on Electronic/ESR Spectra of Alkali-Metal Nitrobenzenides. Journal of the American Chemical Society (2004), 126(14), 4557-4565.

Also: 8 publications in Russian peer-reviewed journals, dozens of International conference presentations.