Browsing by Author "Nirupama Banerjee"

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Importance of cell wall-associated poly-α-l-glutamine in the biology of pathogenic mycobacteria
(Springer Singapore, 2019) Rajni Garg; Rajesh Mani; Manish Gupta; Deeksha Tripathi; Harish Chandra; Rakesh Bhatnagar; Nirupama Banerjee
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the formidable scourge known to mankind since ancient times, has remained untamed despite vigorous scientific research in the field. In the last several decades, significant advances have been made to study this pathogen; however, a lot more remains in the realm of unknown. The complex and unique cell wall of the bacterium is a major factor contributing to the unrestrained success of the pathogen in infecting millions around the world. Since the discovery of this bacterium, numerous studies have attempted to unravel the complexities of mycobacterial cell envelop to characterize individual constituents and their importance in pathobiology of Mtb. Major components of the cell envelop of mycobacteria such as lipid-linked polysaccharides-lipoarabinomannan (LAM), dimycolyl trehalose (cord factor), sulfolipids, and mycolyl-arabinogalactan-peptidoglycan (mAGP) complex have been investigated extensively. However, a lesser known molecule, poly-α-L-glutamine/glutamate (PLG), that constitutes ~10% of dry weight of cell wall has not attracted as much attention. As early as 1990, Hirschfield et al. isolated PLG as insoluble material and showed its association with the Mtb cell wall. In the last few years, our group has been working to identify enzymes that may play a role in the synthesis/assembly and localization of this polymer in the cell wall of mycobacteria. Our recently published work has shown that PLG by itself is weakly immunogenic in mice, but when combined with protein antigens, it can stimulate different arms of the T helper-mediated responses, demonstrating its potential to act as an adjuvant (Mani et al. 2018). © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019.