Quorum Sensing and Host-Pathogen Communication in Salmonella Typhi

伤寒仍然是一个主要的全球性健康问题，由食源性细菌伤寒沙门氏菌引起。我们正在试图了解这些细菌如何相互交流以引起疾病。此外，我们希望研究沙门氏菌如何窃听宿主细胞的通信，以使其受益。一旦沙门氏菌达到临界种群规模，这些通信系统使它们能够协调调节其生物活动和适应性。这使得细菌入侵者能够在人类宿主的恶劣环境中生存下来，并以极其显著的战斗数量入侵，导致伤寒。细菌和宿主细胞使用化学语言进行交流。我们正试图确定所用细菌的化学特性。这一知识可以提供洞察沙门氏菌和宿主之间的串扰的性质。一旦细菌感受到这些化学词，它们就会产生同步反应，最终改变它们的生活方式和武器，以便在人类宿主中成功生存和复制。我们希望确定细菌的监听机制，并阐明它们响应和协调这些活动的机制。使用最先进的技术，我们将确定哪些沙门氏菌基因和蛋白质受到细菌和宿主产生的化学词的调节，然后确定这些对感染过程的重要性。从这项研究中获得的知识将使我们能够开发新的疫苗和抗感染药物来控制疾病。

Typhoid fever remains a major global health problem and is caused by the foodborne bacterium Salmonella Typhi. We are trying to understand how these bacteria communicate with each other to cause disease. Furthermore, we wish to investigate how Salmonella can eavesdrop on host cell communication for its benefit. Once Salmonella reach a critical population size, these communication systems enable them to co-ordinately regulate their biological activities and fitness. This allows the bacterial invaders to survive the hostile environment of the human host and invade in critically significant combat numbers to cause Typhoid fever. The bacterial and host cells communicate using chemical languages. We are trying to determine the chemical identity of the bacterial words used. This knowledge may provide insights into the nature of the cross-talk between Salmonella and the host. Once bacteria sense these chemical words they produce a synchronised response, ultimately altering their life-style and weaponry to successfully survive and replicate in the human host. We wish to identify the bacterial listening machinery and elucidate the mechanisms by which they respond and orchestrate these activities. Using state-of-the-art technologies we will determine which Salmonella genes and proteins are regulated by the bacterial and host-produced chemical words, and then determine how important these are for the process of infection. The knowledge gained from this research will allow us to develop new vaccines and anti-infective drugs to control disease.