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My laboratory is interested in characterizing virulence factors that enable the sexually-transmitted pathogen, N. gonorrhoeae, to cause infection. These virulence factors could be targets for vaccine development or for therapeutic intervention. Gonorrhea, caused by N. gonorrhoeae, is a common infection worldwide with serious sequelae, particularly among women, including infertility, pelvic inflammatory disease and ectopic pregnancy. There is currently no vaccine to prevent gonorrhea and we are quickly running out of antibiotics with which to treat the infection, due to rapidly evolving resistances. Our laboratory focuses primarily on systems that enable the gonococcus to import necessary metals such as iron and zinc. Because these nutrients are absolutely required for growth and replication, if we can identify drugs or develop an immune response to block these processes, we could potentially more effectively treat or even prevent infection. We have thoroughly characterized the gonococcal transporter that enables the pathogen to employ human transferrin as an iron source. By hijacking this human protein as a metal source, the pathogen successfully circumvents a process deployed by the host known as nutritional immunity. Further, the proteins that make up the transferrin receptor system are well conserved among gonococcal strains and therefore are well suited as vaccine antigens or therapeutic targets. We have demonstrated additionally that expression of this system is necessary to initiate the signs and symptoms of urethritis in an experimental human infection model of gonorrhea. Recently, we have identified receptors that also enable the gonococcus to utilize human proteins, whose purpose is to sequester zinc ions in the host. This is another form of nutritional immunity that the gonococcus has successfully been able to deploy defenses against by producing dedicated transport systems. These proteins are also good candidates for therapeutic or immunologic intervention.
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Papers共 66 篇Author StatisticsCo-AuthorSimilar Experts
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MBio (2023)
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology (2023)
mBio (2023)
Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology (2022): 1017348-1017348
Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology (2022): 881392-881392
INFECTION AND IMMUNITYno. 11 (2022): e0041422-e0041422
FRONTIERS IN CELLULAR AND INFECTION MICROBIOLOGY (2022): 909888-909888
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