Publications by authors named "Nayla Francis"
Article Synopsis
- Intracellular bacteria like Brucella abortus must manage DNA damage caused by alkylating agents when they infect host cells, particularly in macrophages.
- The study shows that B. abortus relies on specific genes for DNA repair, highlighting the role of both direct and base-excision repair mechanisms during this stress.
- Notably, the gene ogt, essential for DNA repair, is regulated by the transcription factor GcrA, indicating unique features of DNA repair in B. abortus compared to well-studied bacteria like Escherichia coli.
Article Synopsis
- - The study focuses on a class III zoonotic bacterial pathogen that can survive and replicate within host cells, particularly macrophages, by using a detailed transposon sequencing analysis to identify essential genes.
- - Researchers created a comprehensive transposon mutant library and mapped nearly a million insertion sites, revealing 491 essential coding sequences, with chromosome I containing a higher percentage of essential genes than chromosome II.
- - They discovered 48 crucial genes for the bacteria's growth inside macrophages, highlighting the importance of the pyrimidine nucleotide biosynthesis pathway for its proliferation in these immune cells.
Brucella abortus is a pathogen infecting cattle, able to survive, traffic, and proliferate inside host cells. It belongs to the Alphaproteobacteria, a phylogenetic group comprising bacteria with free living, symbiotic, and pathogenic lifestyles. An essential regulator of cell cycle progression named CtrA was described in the model bacterium Caulobacter crescentus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeveral intracellular pathogens, such as Brucella abortus, display a biphasic infection process starting with a non-proliferative stage of unclear nature. Here, we study the cell cycle of B. abortus at the single-cell level, in culture and during infection of HeLa cells and macrophages.
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