Discovery of novel protein complexes across human gut bacteria

Division Of Basic Sciences - Nci

Investigators

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Abstract

Pathogenic bacteria are a significant burden on cancer patients with more than 20% of sepsis hospitalizations being cancer-related. More and more of these are caused by multi-antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The bacteria of the human gut have been implicated in many aspects of human health and disease. Many microbiome DNA sequencing studies are conducted but, remarkably, are a large percentage of the protein-coding genes in the human gut bacteria do not yet have a predicted molecular function and structural data is sorely lacking. To address this, I propose to chart the whole cell interactomes of commensal bacteria across the five major phyla of gut commensals using crosslinking mass spectrometry, co-fractionation MS, and protein structure prediction. This will require a substantial portion of technology development to achieve these goals.