Study of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PrlC and PA14_00800 proteins

• Grant number: 17/25911-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2018
• End date: April 01, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biochemistry - Molecular Biology
• Principal Investigator: Roberto Kopke Salinas
• Grantee: Caio Gomes Tavares Rosa
• Host Institution: Instituto de Química (IQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a gammaproteobacterium able to thrive in a wide range of settings, acting as a free-living organism but also as an opportunistic pathogen. Given its importance for world health care, the understanding of its physiology is extremely necessary when it comes to novel strategies for treatment of infections, because P. aeruginosa is intrinsically resistant to antibiotics. With that in mind, a previous work in our group unveiled proteins differentially expressed due to changes in c-di-GMP levels, with the oligopeptidase PrlC among them. The gene coding for PrlC is in an operon with a hypothetical gene, PA14_00800. Mutants in these genes presented altered phenotypes, such as impaired fluorescence of the colonies, motility defects and they are also attenuated in virulence. To obtain more information about the roles of PrlC and PA14_00800, a BACTH (Bacterial Adenylate Cyclase Two-Hybrid) assay was carried out to screen for interaction partners. The results obtained were clearly linked with the phenotypes observed in the mutant strains. This work intends to validate the interactions between the putative interaction partners and to obtain structural information about PA14_00800 and PrlC to completely understand the function of those proteins in the physiology and virulence of P. aeruginosa. (AU)