Inverted pathogenicity useful for prevention or therapy of disease.

2004 AUG 4 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Inverted pathogenicity is finding use for the prevention or therapy of disease.

"The term 'inverted pathogenicity' stands for the exploitation of microbial toxins, virulence factors, and cellular mechanisms for preventive or therapeutic purposes. This mini-review will focus on the major pathogenicity concept of Salmonella and Yersinia and how to use its underlying molecular principle for the development of a novel vaccination strategy. Both bacterial species employ a type III secretion system which mediates secretion and direct delivery (translocation) of antihost factors into the cytosol of eukaryotic cells," scientists in Germany report.

"One of the best studied type III effector proteins is the 25-kDa Yersinia outer protein E (YopE)," said Holger Russmann at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen. "During the interaction of Yersinia with professional phagocytes, YopE translocation disturbs eukaryotic cytoskeleton dynamics and inhibits phagocytosis. YopE is a GTPase-activating protein that is active towards G proteins from the Rho family. Fusion of the N-terminal 138 amino acids of YopE comprising the translocation domain of the type III molecule to listeriolysin O (LLO) or p60 of Listeria monocytogenes results in hybrid proteins that are engaged and translocated by both Yersinia and Salmonella type III secretion systems."

"Oral ...