HrpX Transcription Factor - A Potential Common Target for Several Bacterial Diseases from a Synthetic Biology Perspective

Sunitha Kogenaru

doi:10.4172/2155-9597.1000e123

Abstract

Understanding the design principles of bacterial pathogenesis is central to combat several infectious diseases in humans, animals and plants [1]. This includes identification of common bacterial pathogenicity mechanisms employed by a wide variety of bacteria, which infect diverse hosts [2]. Recent studies have identified one such common virulence mechanism: Type III Secretion System (T3SS), employed by several animal and plant pathogenic bacteria [3-6]. Classically, the components of T3SS physically assemble to form a complex needle-like structure that enables the bacteria to inject virulence factors directly into their host cell’s cytoplasm. These factors in turn specifically interfere with their host cellular processes to elicit pathogenicity [7,8]. However, despite the common injection mechanism, each bacterial species injects unique set of species-specific virulence factors that define the host specificity [3,4].

Highlights

Understanding the design principles of bacterial pathogenesis is central to combat several infectious diseases in humans, animals and plants [1]
Recent genome-wide transcriptomic studies have reconfirmed many of these target genes, and identified new ones, which lead to the discovery of a more comprehensive picture of the HrpX regulome [13,24]
The jelly roll like domain is known to bind to a host environment molecule in other pathogenic bacteria [26]