Patterns in Pathogenesis: Elucidating bacterial host interaction

Samenvatting

This research studies patterns in the interaction between bacterial pathogens and their human and animal host. Among the studied pathogens are the lung pathogens Mycobacterium tuberculosis, various Mycoplasma strains such as the lung pathogen M. pneumoniae, and various Staphylococcus and Streptococcus strains such as the soft tissue infecting bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes. The contributions of this research include a) identifying three M. tuberculosis virulence strategies, their regulation by environmental signals in the host, and the regulatory cascade that controls them, b) identifying properties of metabolism of the human pathogen M. pneumoniae, and c) predicting the ability for various Staphylococcus and Mycoplasma animal infecting strains to infect different tissue and host types and cross over to humans. This research presents a proof of concept on how genome data and data of strain properties can be used to predict bacterial properties.