Designer Quorum Quenching Enzymes for Synthetic Biology and Therapeutics

摘要: We hope to design an enzyme to disrupt MSRA’s quorum sensing system by degrading its autoinducers. While antibodies can bind to autoinducers, they cannot hydrolyze them. Additionally, antibodies are bulky structures, which can pose problems for drug delivery applications. The quorum signaling molecule for MRSA has a thioester linkage created from a bond between a cysteine residue and the terminal carboxyl group. This bond will be the target for the enzyme to hydrolyze the peptide precursor and disrupt the quorum sensing system of the bacteria and its virulent gene expression.