ENGINEERING POLYMERIC ARTIFICIAL CELLULAR ENVIROMENTS (PACES) FOR ADHESION AND QUORUM SENSING

霍乱弧菌是霍乱的病原体，霍乱是一种影响300万至500万人的疾病，每年导致10万至13万人死亡。霍乱弧菌使用QS来控制致病性和毒力因子的表达。与许多其他病原体不同，霍乱弧菌使用qs来抑制毒力特征，如毒素产生和宿主附着。通过这种方式，病原体在感染后协调宿主非殖民化和环境传播。设计用来刺激QS的小分子会抑制这些毒力因子，损害霍乱弧菌定植宿主并导致急性腹泻疾病的能力。然而，这是以增加霍乱弧菌传播到其他宿主的能力为代价的，从而影响了对疾病的控制。因此，例如，需要开发抑制毒力因子表达的试剂，同时通过聚集和促进从受污染的水中机械去除病原体来抑制毒力因子的表达。但要做到这一点，我们需要了解化学功能和材料属性(例如分子质量)如何影响病原体的微生物学。特别是，我们有兴趣确定这些材料的性质如何调节相关霍乱弧菌表型的表达，包括那些与毒力相关的表型。

V. cholerae is the causative agent of cholera, a disease that affects 3-5 million people and causes 100,000-130,000 deaths/year. V. cholerae uses QS to control pathogenicity and the expression of virulence factors. Unlike many other pathogens, V. cholerae uses QS to repress virulence traits such as toxin production and host attachment. This way the pathogen coordinates host decolonization and environmental dissemination following infection. Small molecules designed to agonize QS result in repression of these virulence factors, compromising the ability of V. cholerae to colonise the host and cause acute diarrheal disease. However, this comes at the expense of increasing the ability of V. cholerae to spread to other hosts, compromising containment of the disease. It is therefore desirable to develop agents that inhibit the expression of the virulence factors while containing the pathogen, through clustering, and facilitating its mechanical removal from contaminated water, for instance. But to do this, we need to develop an understanding of how chemical functionality and material properties (e.g. molecular mass) affect the microbiology of the pathogen. In particular, we are interested in identifying how these materials properties can modulate the expression of relevant V. cholerae phenotypes, including those associated with virulence.