Disrupting Type IV secretion function to prevent virulence in the pathogenic bacterium Legionella pneumophila

National Center For Advancing Translational Sciences

Investigators

Abstract

During this period, the project team designed a new screening approach that strongly favored identification of compounds that interfere with the process of reporter translocation by directly targeting the bacterial T4SS rather than processes within host cells. Primary screening of tens of thousands of molecules was successfully completed, and hit molecules were cherry-picked and retested for validation. Select hits were further assessed to determine their efficacies in a variety of biological assays that require a functional T4SS, for example in Coxiella Burnetti.