Functional analysis of mycobacterial protein PE_PGRS
2020 Volume 23 Pages 59-63
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2020 Volume 23 Pages 59-63
Tuberculosis (TB) remains an important infectious disease, causing ten million new cases and 1.4 million deaths a year in worldwide. Elucidating pathogenicity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of TB, will contribute to development of new drugs, vaccines and treatments. Proline-glutamic acid (PE) /proline-proline-glutamic acid (PPE) family accounts for approximately 10% of the coding region of M. tuberculosis genome and its functions are largely unknown. PE proteins having polymorphic GC-rich repetitive sequences (PGRS) in carboxyl-terminal are members of PE_PGRS family. PE_PGRS62 and PE_PGRS30 are members of PE_PGRS family and homologues of MAG24, the virulence factor of M. marinum. We are in the process of analyzing the functions of PE_PGRS62 and PE_PGRS30, and have results suggesting that PE_PGRS62 regulates autophagy, whereas PE_PGRS30 induces cell death.
