Photorhabdus Virulence Cassette as a causative agent in Photorhabdus asymbiotica
2021-07-13
(Press-News.org) Contractile injection systems (CISs) are widely distributed in bacteria and archaea that can form a nanomachine resembling the contractile tails of bacteriophage (T4, P2, etc.) to translocate proteins and nucleic acids . The P. asymbiotica was shown to be involved in the human infection with severe skin lesions. The PVC loci within P. asymbiotica genome produce molecular needle complexes and encode several putative effector genes. It would be a candidate P. asymbiotica weapon that participates in the attack of mammalian cells, but substantial evidences will be needed to verify this hypothesis.
In this study, researchers have characterized the PAU_RS16575 as a potent PVC effector, which is widely present in bacteria. This toxin (designated as Pdp1, Photorhabdus dNTP pyrophosphatase 1) is responsible for the cytotoxicity towards the eukaryotic cells on the basis of its dNTP pyrophosphatase activity.Meanwhile, researchers have shown that the PVC effector Pdp1, together with Pnf that has been investigated before, could be loaded and translocated directly into the mammalian macrophage through PVC complex to induce cell death.
Besides, the loading scenario of PVC effectors Pdp1 and Pnf are demonstrated by cryo-EM detection and the targeting cells of PVC are determined. The direct translocation of the effectors by PVC is also validated by in vitro experiments.
These molecular nanosyringes show potential for biotechnology application in delivering drugs or proteins into eukaryotic hosts and this work sets the foundation for further investigations of the PVC-related eCISs and their effectors.
INFORMATION:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31870108, 32070081, 32000080, 31725007, 31630087, and 31922036), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (5192019), the CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (2016-I2M-1-013), the Non-profit Central Institute Fund of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (2017PT31049, 2018PT51009, and 2018PT31012), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFA0508904).
See the article:
Wang, X., Cheng, J., Shen, J, et al. (2021). Characterization of Photorhabdus Virulence Cassette as a causative agent in the emerging pathogen Photorhabdus asymbiotica. Sci China Life Sci, in press, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-021-1955-4
http://engine.scichina.com/doi/10.1007/s11427-021-1955-4
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-07-13
To extract the polarization information of incident light, polarization-sensitive photodetectors (PSPDs) exhibit significant practical application in both military and civil areas, like bio-imaging, remote sensing, night vision, and helmet-mounted sight for fighter plane. Optical filters combined with polarizers are usually needed for traditional photodetectors to realize polarized light detection. But it will increase the size and complexity of devices. To obtain a small-size PSPD, one-dimensional (1D) nanomaterials with geometrical anisotropy, such as nanowires, nanoribbons, and nanotubes, have been used as the sensitive materials for PSPDs, which can directly identify the polarization information of incident light without any optical filters and polarizers. However, it is not ...
2021-07-13
Google searches related to infertility and coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines increased by 34,900% after a pair of physicians submitted a petition questioning the safety and efficacy data of the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine. Referencing the petition, anti-vaccine activists circulated claims that misconstrued the information regarding the possibility that the vaccine could impact fertility in women.
The inaccurately represented information spread rapidly on social media channels, potentially influencing public perception and decision-making among pregnant patients or those ...
2021-07-13
The human brain has extreme ability in thinking and computation, but it only requires a very low energy power of about 20W, which is much lower than that of electronic computers. The neuronal connections in the brain network have a globally sparse but locally compact modular topological characteristics, which greatly reduces the total resource consumption for establishing the connections. The spikes of each neuron in the brain are sparse and irregular, and the clustered firing of the neuronal populations has a certain degree of synchronization, forming neural avalanches with scale-free characteristics, and the network can sensitively respond to external stimuli. However, it is still not clear how the ...
2021-07-13
While attending a conference at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City several years ago, Sharon Borja was struck by the story of a young man who, as a child, joined his parents repatriating to their native country of Mexico. Like millions of Mexican immigrants, the family had called the United States home for years, and having been born in the U.S., he was an American citizen. Walking one day in his newfound urban Mexican neighborhood, a couple carrying a wooden stick approached him on the street and encouraged him to ...
2021-07-13
A new study from researchers at the University of Liverpool shows that decreasing local government funding over recent years probably contributed to declines in life expectancy in some areas of England, which was stalling even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Local government funding and life expectancy in England, a longitudinal ecological study published in The Lancet Public Health, linked annual local government funding data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government with life expectancy and mortality data from Public Health England between 2013 and 2017.
Corresponding author Dr Alexandros ...
2021-07-13
A USC analysis of deaths among individuals in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody found that ICE violated its own internal medical care standards in 78% of cases, potentially contributing to deaths in relatively young and healthy men.
The study appears in END ...
2021-07-13
New research from the University of Georgia finds that older Mexican Americans who live in low English-speaking neighborhoods are at greater risk for poor health and even an early death.
Language barriers can be a significant deterrent to health. People who don't speak English well are less likely to seek health care or receive health information. This can lead to delay of care and missed health screenings for chronic disease and cancers. Language isolation is also linked to poor mental health.
These issues only compound as non-English speakers age, said study co-author Kerstin Emerson, a clinical ...
2021-07-13
A single dose of the Sputnik V vaccine may elicit significant antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2, finds a study published July 13 in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.
"Due to limited vaccine supply and uneven vaccine distribution in many regions of the world, health authorities urgently need data on the immune response to vaccines to optimize vaccination strategies," says senior author Andrea Gamarnik (@GamarnikLab) of the Fundación Instituto Leloir-CONICET in Buenos Aires, Argentina. "The peer-reviewed data we present provide information for guiding public health decisions in light of the current global health emergency."
Past research has shown that two doses of Sputnik V results in 92% efficacy against ...
2021-07-13
Feeling extra sweaty from a summer heat wave? Don't worry--not all your perspiration has to go to waste. In a paper publishing July 13 in the journal Joule, researchers have developed a new device that harvests energy from the sweat on--of all places--your fingertips. To date, the device is the most efficient on-body energy harvester ever invented, producing 300 millijoules (mJ) of energy per square centimeter without any mechanical energy input during a 10-hour sleep and an additional 30 mJ of energy with a single press of a finger. The authors say the device represents a significant ...
2021-07-13
WASHINGTON, July 13, 2021 -- The rhythm in a working heart is regulated by electrical impulses. Disturbances of this bioelectrical process can result in cardiac arrhythmias, or irregularities in heartbeat -- a common ailment that can lead to illness and death.
In Biophysics Reviews, by AIP Publishing, researchers from Harvard Medical School provide a state-of-the-art update on how electrical impulses in the heart travel from cell to cell.
A functioning heart contracts to pump blood to the body and the lungs. Within the heart, a pacemaker acts as an electrical clock, sending out a signal that tells the heart when to contract. The whole muscle moves together, because ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Photorhabdus Virulence Cassette as a causative agent in Photorhabdus asymbiotica
