Publicação
The recU-pbp2 operon in Staphilococcus aureus
| Resumo: | World wide spread of multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus pathogen and the ability to infect healthy individuals in the community calls for development of new chemotherapies against this pathogen, as well for deeper knowledge of its antibiotic resistance mechanisms. PBP2 is a protein that catalyzes the last stages of cell wall synthesis at the bacterial septum and is involved in β-lactam resistance. The pbp2 gene is encoded within an operon where it is transcribed either alone or together with recU, which encodes for a non biosynthetically related protein, a Holliday junction resolvase. In Bacillus subtilis RecU is a key enzyme in homologous recombination and is fundamental to chromosome segregation and DNA repair. In this work we aimed to investigate the function of recU in S. aureus and to determine if it needed to be co-regulated with pbp2 to ensure coordination between septum synthesis and chromosome segregation. We therefore characterized RecU function in S. aureus and showed that it is indeed involved in DNA damage repair and chromosome segregation. As PBP2 and RecU are two proteins fundamental for cell division, a process which requires tight coordination between chromosome replication/segregation and septum synthesis, we asked if co-expression of pbp2 and recU would constitute a possible checkpoint for the cell division process. Through uncoupling the regulation of these two proteins we concluded that the recUpbp2 operon does not constitute a checkpoint in cell division in S. aureus, neither during normal growth, nor during exposure to DNA damaging compounds and β-lactams. |
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| Autores principais: | Pereira, Ana Raquel Ramos, 1988- |
| Assunto: | Biologia molecular Staphylococcus aureos Resistência aos antibióticos Expressão génica Teses de mestrado - 2011 |
| Ano: | 2011 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | dissertação de mestrado |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa |
| Resumo: | World wide spread of multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus pathogen and the ability to infect healthy individuals in the community calls for development of new chemotherapies against this pathogen, as well for deeper knowledge of its antibiotic resistance mechanisms. PBP2 is a protein that catalyzes the last stages of cell wall synthesis at the bacterial septum and is involved in β-lactam resistance. The pbp2 gene is encoded within an operon where it is transcribed either alone or together with recU, which encodes for a non biosynthetically related protein, a Holliday junction resolvase. In Bacillus subtilis RecU is a key enzyme in homologous recombination and is fundamental to chromosome segregation and DNA repair. In this work we aimed to investigate the function of recU in S. aureus and to determine if it needed to be co-regulated with pbp2 to ensure coordination between septum synthesis and chromosome segregation. We therefore characterized RecU function in S. aureus and showed that it is indeed involved in DNA damage repair and chromosome segregation. As PBP2 and RecU are two proteins fundamental for cell division, a process which requires tight coordination between chromosome replication/segregation and septum synthesis, we asked if co-expression of pbp2 and recU would constitute a possible checkpoint for the cell division process. Through uncoupling the regulation of these two proteins we concluded that the recUpbp2 operon does not constitute a checkpoint in cell division in S. aureus, neither during normal growth, nor during exposure to DNA damaging compounds and β-lactams. |
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