CHARACTERISATION OF NOVEL BACTERIAL FILAMENT SYSTEMS AND THEIR POTENTIAL AS ANTIBIOTIC TARGETS

Abstract

Bacterial actin-like filament systems (such as ParM and MreB) are needed to carry out essential functions such as cell shape maintenance and plasmid segregation. The aim of the studying bacterial filaments is to understand their biological roles and to assess their potential as novel antibacterial drug targets. First, novel proteins Cb40 ParM and Cb20 ParM were found to assemble into distinct organisations with different sets of structural properties, suggesting that they may have dissimilar mechanisms for DNA segregation. Next, novel MreB-like protein TmMbl was found to be a potential modulator of TmMreB activity in the bacteria T. Maritima and it is likely to assist TmMreB in its cellular functions. Lastly, MreB inhibitors A22 and Mp265 were characterised, they induce MreB depolymerisation by causing conformational changes into its monomeric state. In conclusion, bacterial actin-like proteins (Alp) are great potential targets for a new class of antibiotic, but more work is needed to obtain better Alp perturbing compounds.