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The struggle for metal at the host‐pathogen interface
Author(s) -
Skaar Eric
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2018.32.1_supplement.477.3
Subject(s) - biology , microbial metabolism , microbiology and biotechnology , bacteria , organism , host (biology) , computational biology , ecology , genetics
Hospital and community‐acquired infections caused by bacterial pathogens represent an increasing threat to global public health. This threat is compounded by the fact that bacterial pathogens are rapidly becoming resistant to all existing antimicrobial. Research in my laboratory is focused on identifying novel targets for therapeutic intervention against bacterial pathogens with a particular emphasis on systems involved in metal trafficking and metabolism. Metals are essential for all life because approximately 40% of all proteins in nature require metals to carry out their biological function. Bacterial pathogens must acquire metals inside their hosts in order to successfully mediate infection. However, vertebrates have evolved strategies to sequester nutrient metal from invading bacteria in a process known as “nutritional immunity”. Based on the strict requirement of bacteria for metal, and the fact that the bacterial and eukaryotic machinery involved in metal acquisition and homeostasis are remarkably different, targeting bacterial machinery involved in metal metabolism has excellent therapeutic potential. This presentation will describe research in my laboratory that is focused on identifying factors and processes involved in the battle for metal between bacterial pathogens and their hosts. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .