Bacteriology
Elucidation of Regulatory and signalling networks that control
bacterial disease development
Hodgson, C
How host cells and pathogen cells interact is extremely complex and can prove to be very difficult to study as the signalling and regulatory systems have lots of inter-dependent pathways. It is therefore very difficult to predict the combined behaviour by just looking at the individual components alone. Understanding them however, will provide information to help us understand how disease develops and perhaps, suggest potential novel control strategies. It will also help explain how pathogens can defeat or evade host defences.
This project focuses on two host-pathogen interactions: potato- Erwinia carotovora subsp. atroseptica (Eca) (SCRI) and cow lung- Pasteurella multocida (Pm) (MRI). In each system, it has not been possible to develop effective control chemicals/vaccines. The genomes of both of these Gram-negative bacterial pathogens have been fully sequenced, revealing many shared genetic components, and resources have now been developed to look at the genes more closely. Moredun scientists have also established a lot of information about how the host cells responds to these pathogens.
This research will draw on computational and modelling expertise at SCRI, MRI and BioSS to look at gene structure and existing gene expression data and infer hypothetical regulatory pathways and pivotal regulatory genes within these pathosystems. These investigations will suggest key experiments (gene knock-out, protein-protein/DNA interaction, and assessments of transcriptional and proteomic changes) to check and develop these pathways and, ultimately, identify the optimum genes and pathways to target in order to prevent disease development or enhance disease resistance in the host.