Biochemistry Commons^™

A Synthetic Biology Approach To Engineering New Anticancer Agents, Shane Robert Wesener

Theses and Dissertations

Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are becoming increasingly valuable therapeutic agents in treatment of several types of malignancies. FK228 is a depsipeptde anticancer compound produced by Chromobacterium violaceum no. 968 through a nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS)-polyketide synthase (PKS) hybrid assembly line. In the present study, reconstitution of the biosynthetic pathway responsible for the production of FK228 revealed cross-talk between modular PKS and fatty acid synthase. This pathway contains two PKS modules on the DepBC enzymes that lack a functional acyltransferase (AT) domain, and no apparent AT-encoding gene exists within the gene cluster or its vicinity. We reported through heterologous expression of …

Cellular Metabolism And Its Effect On The Type Iii Secretion System Of Dickeya Dadantii 3937, William Cortrell Hutchins

Theses and Dissertations

Nutrition, in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes, is vital to the life and well-being of the species. In organisms such as Escherichia coli, metabolism and its regulation have been well established, whereas in Dickeya dadantii 3937, the metabolic pathways and their effects on other processes have not been elucidated. Little is known is how carbon metabolism is able to regulate virulence and pathogenicity in this organism. In this work, we have investigated how the metabolic network contributes to positively and negatively regulating the pathogenicity of Dickeya dadantii 3937.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the history and virulence processes in …