Organisms Commons^™

The Effects Of Host Physiological Conditions On The Expression Of Icsp In Shigella Flexneri, Karen Levy, Helen Wing

Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)

Shigella flexneri is a gram-negative bacterium capable of causing diarrhea and dysentery known as shigellosis. It is estimated there are 167.4 million shigellosis episodes throughout the world each year causing 1.1 million deaths. Shigella invades cells in the lower intestine through an induced phagocytosis. Once in the cytoplasm, bacteria move from one cell to another using actin-based motility. The Shigella outer membrane protease IcsP regulates actin-based motility and cell-to-cell spread by cleaving the actin assembly protein IcsA from the bacterial cell surface. We hypothesize that IcsP may serve additional functions during infection. By examining which environmental signals trigger icsP expression, …