Structural and functional study of the pair Parálogo LIC_20181 and LIC_20182 of Leptospira interrogans

• Grant number: 18/01361-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2018
• End date: June 30, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: Cristiane Rodrigues Guzzo Carvalho
• Grantee: Alexandre Mazarin Bakanovas
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Leptospirosis is currently one of the most significant zoonosis on the planet. Symptoms include fever, intense headaches, conjunctivitis and myalgia, severe cases of the disease can lead to meningitis, encephalitis and damage to the kidneys, liver and lungs. There is currently no specific therapy against leptospirosis and treatment depends on the use of unspecific antibiotics. Previous studies one of the leptospirosis infectious agents, Leptospira interrogans has revealed two paralogs proteins, LIC_20181 and LIC_20182. These paralogs proteins have a GGDEF domain in the C-terminal and a CACHE domain in the an-terminal part of the protein. These proteins are only present in pathogenic strains. As such they are of interest in the determination of a mechanism of pathogenesis and as possible pharmacological intervention targets. With that in mind our project intends to study the interaction between the two proteins as well as the production of c-di-GMP by the GGDEF domains. For this we intend to clone and perform the the expression of the proteins and subsequent measurement and data analysis. (AU)