Characterisation of BldC a novel transcription factor required for development and antibiotic production in Streptomyces

被称为链霉菌的无害土壤细菌对人类福祉至关重要，因为它们是医生用于治疗传染病的绝大多数抗生素的来源，并为我们提供了许多其他药物，例如用于治疗癌症和帮助器官移植患者。我们已经确定了一个关键的调节因子（称为“转录因子”），它可以转换这些有用细菌的遗传机制，使它们能够繁殖并制造抗生素。这项工作的目的是确切地找出这种调节剂在分子水平上是如何工作的，它的活性是如何控制的，了解它在细胞中的作用（它控制哪些基因），以及它如何引起抗生素的产生和细菌的繁殖。我们还知道，类似的调节因子存在于其他细菌中，包括导致结核病和白喉等致命疾病的病原菌。因此，这项工作也将为这些调节剂在对人类健康重要的其他细菌中的功能提供潜在的见解。

The harmless soil bacteria called streptomycetes are vital to human welfare because they are the source of the vast majority of antibiotics used by doctors to cure infectious diseases, as well as providing us with numerous other medicines used, for example, to treat cancer, and to help organ transplant patients. We have identified a key regulator (called a 'transcription factor') that switches the genetic machinery of these useful bacteria to allow them to reproduce themselves and to make antibiotics. The aim of this work is to find out exactly how this regulator works at the molecular level, how its activity is controlled, to understand what it does in the cell (what genes it controls), and how this brings about antibiotic production and bacterial reproduction. We also know that similar regulators are present in other bacteria, including pathogenic bacteria that cause fatal diseases like tuberculosis and diphtheria. Thus, this work will also provide potential insights into the function of these regulators in other bacteria important to human health.