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Virulence factor rtx in Legionella pneumophila, evidence suggesting it is a modular multifunctional protein

BACKGROUND: The repeats in toxin (Rtx) are an important pathogenicity factor involved in host cells invasion of Legionella pneumophila and other pathogenic bacteria. Its role in escaping the host immune system and cytotoxic activity is well known. Its repeated motives and modularity make Rtx a multi...

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Autores principales: D'Auria, Giuseppe, Jiménez, Núria, Peris-Bondia, Francesc, Pelaz, Carmen, Latorre, Amparo, Moya, Andrés
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2257941/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18194518
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-9-14
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author D'Auria, Giuseppe
Jiménez, Núria
Peris-Bondia, Francesc
Pelaz, Carmen
Latorre, Amparo
Moya, Andrés
author_facet D'Auria, Giuseppe
Jiménez, Núria
Peris-Bondia, Francesc
Pelaz, Carmen
Latorre, Amparo
Moya, Andrés
author_sort D'Auria, Giuseppe
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The repeats in toxin (Rtx) are an important pathogenicity factor involved in host cells invasion of Legionella pneumophila and other pathogenic bacteria. Its role in escaping the host immune system and cytotoxic activity is well known. Its repeated motives and modularity make Rtx a multifunctional factor in pathogenicity. RESULTS: The comparative analysis of rtx gene among 6 strains of L. pneumophila showed modularity in their structures. Among compared genomes, the N-terminal region of the protein presents highly dissimilar repeats with functionally similar domains. On the contrary, the C-terminal region is maintained with a fashionable modular configuration, which gives support to its proposed role in adhesion and pore formation. Despite the variability of rtx among the considered strains, the flanking genes are maintained in synteny and similarity. CONCLUSION: In contrast to the extracellular bacteria Vibrio cholerae, in which the rtx gene is highly conserved and flanking genes have lost synteny and similarity, the gene region coding for the Rtx toxin in the intracellular pathogen L. pneumophila shows a rapid evolution. Changes in the rtx could play a role in pathogenicity. The interplay of the Rtx toxin with host membranes might lead to the evolution of new variants that are able to escape host cell defences.
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spelling pubmed-22579412008-02-28 Virulence factor rtx in Legionella pneumophila, evidence suggesting it is a modular multifunctional protein D'Auria, Giuseppe Jiménez, Núria Peris-Bondia, Francesc Pelaz, Carmen Latorre, Amparo Moya, Andrés BMC Genomics Research Article BACKGROUND: The repeats in toxin (Rtx) are an important pathogenicity factor involved in host cells invasion of Legionella pneumophila and other pathogenic bacteria. Its role in escaping the host immune system and cytotoxic activity is well known. Its repeated motives and modularity make Rtx a multifunctional factor in pathogenicity. RESULTS: The comparative analysis of rtx gene among 6 strains of L. pneumophila showed modularity in their structures. Among compared genomes, the N-terminal region of the protein presents highly dissimilar repeats with functionally similar domains. On the contrary, the C-terminal region is maintained with a fashionable modular configuration, which gives support to its proposed role in adhesion and pore formation. Despite the variability of rtx among the considered strains, the flanking genes are maintained in synteny and similarity. CONCLUSION: In contrast to the extracellular bacteria Vibrio cholerae, in which the rtx gene is highly conserved and flanking genes have lost synteny and similarity, the gene region coding for the Rtx toxin in the intracellular pathogen L. pneumophila shows a rapid evolution. Changes in the rtx could play a role in pathogenicity. The interplay of the Rtx toxin with host membranes might lead to the evolution of new variants that are able to escape host cell defences. BioMed Central 2008-01-14 /pmc/articles/PMC2257941/ /pubmed/18194518 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-9-14 Text en Copyright © 2008 D'Auria et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
D'Auria, Giuseppe
Jiménez, Núria
Peris-Bondia, Francesc
Pelaz, Carmen
Latorre, Amparo
Moya, Andrés
Virulence factor rtx in Legionella pneumophila, evidence suggesting it is a modular multifunctional protein
title Virulence factor rtx in Legionella pneumophila, evidence suggesting it is a modular multifunctional protein
title_full Virulence factor rtx in Legionella pneumophila, evidence suggesting it is a modular multifunctional protein
title_fullStr Virulence factor rtx in Legionella pneumophila, evidence suggesting it is a modular multifunctional protein
title_full_unstemmed Virulence factor rtx in Legionella pneumophila, evidence suggesting it is a modular multifunctional protein
title_short Virulence factor rtx in Legionella pneumophila, evidence suggesting it is a modular multifunctional protein
title_sort virulence factor rtx in legionella pneumophila, evidence suggesting it is a modular multifunctional protein
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2257941/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18194518
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-9-14
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