Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is a pathogenic bacterium that is the causative agent of the disease Tuberculosis (TB). TB kills an estimated 1.8 million people annually and roughly one third of the world's population carries Mtb in a dormant state. Drug resistant Mtb strains are on the rise, thus a new method of combating this disease is paramount. Mtb survival inside of macrophages requires overcoming various stressors such as; iron restriction, reactive oxygen species, and hypoxic conditions. Mtb employs the use of catalases, nitric oxide reductase, superoxide dismutase, and siderophores to aid in survival. These functions have also been found in a novel group of non-heme diiron binding proteins called hemerythrin-like proteins. The gene Rv2633c encodes a protein with the hemerythrin-like domain and has been shown to be upregulated under acidic or nutrient deficient conditions which coincides with Mtb infection of a macrophage. It has also been shown to be regulated by PhoP, Whib3, and DosR. In this work we expressed the wild type protein and several mutants heterologously in E. coli. The purified proteins were studied via UV-visible spectroscopic analysis, native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (native-PAGE) and analyzed for iron content. Our refined expression and purification protocol led to a significant increase in soluble protein with a di-iron cofactor. We found that mutagenesis of 11th amino acid, a histidine, led to the absence of the diiron co-factor. Reduction and autoxidation of protein was also achieved and characterized through UV-visible absorption. Native-PAGE gel analysis indicated only the dimeric form contained iron. This research is the first to produce large quantities of soluble iron laden protein, demonstrate that Rv2663c is capable of both reduction and autoxidation, and show it does not bind oxygen in a functional capacity. This information will enable future studies in protein crystallization, ligand interaction and in vivo studies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-7581 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Creators | Strickland, Kyle |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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