NEW YORK, Jan 11 – This week’s issue of Nature features the first protein-protein interaction map of a bacterium.
French researchers from proteomics company Hybrigenics and the Pasteur Institut, both based in Paris, have identified and mapped about 1,200 interactions between proteins from Helicobacter pylori , Nature said in a statement.
The interactions connect almost half of the bacteria’s proteome.
Nature said that the team of researchers screened 261 H. pylori “bait” proteins against a much larger collection of “prey” protein fragments. Both bait and prey were
expressed inside yeast, which is modified to grow only if the two molecules
interact.
By analyzing the yeast colonies that were produced, scientists were able to discover which H. pylori proteins combine during urease synthesis, essential for the bug's
pathogenesis, the journal said.