Structure-based Functional Studies of Resuscitation Promoting Factors (Rpfs) of Pathogenic Bacteria

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The bacteria that cause tuberculosis are able to lie dormant in the lungs for decades and only start to actively divide again when an infected patient is weakened by age or disease. We are studying proteins that are a crucial part of the reactivation of the dormant infection. We have recently proposed that these proteins work through digestion of some component of its own cell wall. The current project will identify exactly what this component is and work out how it turns on the growth of the bacteria. This is potentially useful as if tuberculosis can be prevented from going dormant in a healthy individual the infection can be totally cleared by drugs and the immune system. Using the results of recent genomic sequencing projects we have identified that similar proteins are found in another group of bacteria that include the so called ?superbug?, multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which is responsible for a large number of serious hospital acquired infections. The life cycle of these bacteria are different and we want to study what role these proteins have in controlling the growth of this serious infection, which again may provide a novel means of treatment.Contact with the public will be made through the researchers web pages, the Birkbeck magazine and the Science Writers in residence in the crystallography department at Birkbeck