Abstract
In the battle against bacterial infection, the posttranslational modification of proteins with ubiquitin is used to transduce signals required for innate immunity and inflammation. Pathogens, in turn, have developed strategies to evade this host defense mechanism by subverting the ubiquitylation machinery. The aim of this project is to understand how the bacterial effector EspB from enteropathogenic E. coli manipulates ubiquitin conjugation pathways to undermine the innate immune response. The host-pathogen interaction will be characterized using the methodology of different disciplines such as structural biology, physical biochemistry, bacteriology and immunobiology. The findings will contribute to developing novel strategies against antimicrobial resistance.
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