Bacteria Act as Proofreaders and Correct Mistakes: CCMB Researchers

Haydarabad: Researchers in CSIR-CCMB found a bacterial enzyme that acts as a rehealous reader, fixed to keep errors strongly on the cell wall-an insight that could lead to good antibiotics and help to understand immune diseases in humans.

Bacteria are surrounded by protective cell walls of a unique polymer called peptidoglican, which is not found in all other life forms, including humans. Peptidoglican is therefore found in many clinically used antibiotics.

In the center of CSIR for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), a team of scientists led by Dr Manjula Reddy, Hyderabad, discovered a new correction step that provides the power and integrity of this bacterial cell wall. The findings were published in Pnas Magazine.

Cell wall is a polymer sugar and short amino acid chains – building blocks that make up proteins. L-alanin, a specific amino acid, is normally at the beginning of these amino acid chains. The new study shows that when building the cell wall, bacteria can accidentally add structurally similar amino acids such as L-Serin or Glycine, weaken the cell wall and make bacteria more vulnerable to antibiotics.

Dr Redy’s team found that bacteria were PGEF (Peptidoglycan regulation factor), an enzyme that corrected this error. Dr Shambhavi Garden, the first author of the study, said, ız We could see that PGEF has specifically identified and removed the wrong amino acids to protect the composition of the cell wall using a combination of a strong genetic and high -resolution mass spectrometry, ”he said.

This study also opens new research questions. “By examining such safety deficits in the synthesis of the cell wall, new ways to block bacterial growth can be designed. The discovery is that it makes the discovery more interesting, in the vertebrate and defects in the human enzyme known as Lacc1 and the body is closely related to the body’s immune system.

Lacc1’s function has not been clearly understood, and this work opens the possibility of LACC1’s participation in the immune response to bacteria and leads to potential therapeutic strategies in the future.