Title: Bacterial Protein glycosylation and secretion　 

Presenter: Hui Wu, Associate Professor

University: Department of Pediatric Dentistry, UAB School of Dentistry, Birmingham, AL

Time: 10:00-11:30, June 25, 2012

Venue: Room A102, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Abstract: We use oral streptococci as a model to probe genes and pathways that mediate protein glycosylation and secretion processes. We focus our studies on a streptococcal serine-rich repeat adhesin Fap1 and use it as a model to illustrate how gram-positive bacteria utilize a gene cluster to make sugar moieties to sugar coat the major bacterial adhesin Fap1 and how some biochemically unknown proteins engage in processing fully glycosylated proteins. As protein glycosylation plays important roles in bacterial colonization and pathogenesis, Fap1-like serine-rich repeat adhesins and genes responsible for synthesizing serine-rich repeat adhesins are highly conserved in gram-positive pathogens, therefore understanding the bacterial protein glycosylation and secretion mechanisms will help us to identify new therapeutics targets preventing and treating bacterial infection.