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

导致结核病的细菌能够在肺部潜伏数十年，只有当受感染的患者因年龄或疾病而变得虚弱时才开始活跃分裂。我们正在研究的蛋白质是休眠感染重新激活的关键部分。我们最近提出，这些蛋白质通过消化自身细胞壁的某些成分起作用。目前的项目将确切地确定这个成分是什么，并弄清楚它是如何促进细菌生长的。这是潜在的有用之处，因为如果结核病可以在健康个体中被阻止休眠，那么感染可以通过药物和免疫系统完全清除。利用最近基因组测序项目的结果，我们发现在另一组细菌中也发现了类似的蛋白质，其中包括所谓的“超级细菌”。耐多药金黄色葡萄球菌是造成大量严重医院获得性感染的原因。这些细菌的生命周期是不同的，我们想研究这些蛋白质在控制这种严重感染的生长中起什么作用，这可能再次提供一种新的治疗方法。与公众的联系将通过研究人员的网页，伯克贝克杂志和居住在伯克贝克晶体学系的科学作家

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