Description:

Title: Legionella pneumophila – A Master Manipulator of Host Cells.

Speaker: Matthias  P. Machner, PhD,

Matthias Machner, Ph.D. 

Senior Investigator 

Head, Section on Microbial Pathogenesis

Division of Molecular and Cellular Biology

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

National Institutes of Health

Topic:

To create conditions favorable for its intracellular survival and replication, the pathogen Legionella pneumophila translocates a large cohort of virulence proteins, called effectors, into the host cytosol where they manipulate a wide range of signaling and trafficking processes. Small guanosine triphosphatases (GTPases) are among the proteins most commonly targeted by bacterial pathogens. While members from the Rab, Arf, Rho, and Ran subfamily of GTPases are frequently exploited by pathogens, members of the Ras subfamily, which control cell growth and cell division and, if mutated, are oncoproteins found in human cancers, have rarely emerged as microbial targets. I will provide evidence for a sophisticated strategy used by Legionella to exploit the function of Ras GTPases, specifically NRas, during infection, supporting a previously unappreciated link between Ras GTPase signaling and microbial pathogenesis.

Host: Nicholas Cianciotto, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Microbiology-Immunology