Presenter: Lila Kaye
Faculty Mentor: Karen Guillemin, Annah Rolig
Presentation Type: Poster 71
Primary Research Area: Science
Major: Biology
Bacteria play an important role in the health of their host organism; pathogenic lines signal danger, which induces
a host immune response, while commensal, or resident, bacteria signal to reduce or prevent such an immune response. The ability of a resident organism to communicate with its host to alter immune system function is a burgeoning topic in the molecular biology field, offering a potentially rich source of biotherapeutics to treat illnesses. Researchers in the Guillemin laboratory identified a novel bacterial protein, produced by resident bacteria, which reduces intestinal innate immune responses in zebrafish hosts. Zebrafish are a good model organism for humans because of high replicability, easy gnotobiology, and their translucent larvae allow easily monitoring of host cells. I
aim to carry out a structure-function analysis of this protein. I will determine which domain has the anti-inflammatory activity using systematic deletions of the gene sequence. The protein has one region with homology to a human anti- inflammatory cytokine, a protein that controls neutrophil behavior as part of the immune system. We hypothesize that this domain will be important in the bacterial protein’s function. This would suggest that this bacterial resident mimics a host protein to control the host immune response. This anti-inflammatory protein could be a fresh tool to fight chronic inflammatory diseases in humans, ones often caused by disunion between gut microbes and their host.