{"id":4834,"date":"2014-06-03T10:09:54","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T14:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/inbre\/?page_id=4834"},"modified":"2014-06-03T10:09:54","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T14:09:54","slug":"meschwitz","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/riinbre\/research\/ecd\/meschwitz\/","title":{"rendered":"Design of potential quorum-sensing inhibitors of bacterial toxin production"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Investigator:<\/strong>\u00a0Susan Meschwitz, Salve Regina University<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mentor:<\/strong>\u00a0David Rowley, University of Rhode Island<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scientific Theme:<\/strong>\u00a0Molecular Toxicology<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>The misuse and abuse of antibiotics in pharmacotherapy have led to the development of widespread resistance in the target organism. \u00a0This is especially true in the notoriously difficult to treat, often multidrug resistant pathogen, <em>Pseudomonas aeruginosa<\/em>. The failure of existing antibiotics to control infection makes it crucial to find alternatives to currently available drugs, particularly ones that do not impose harsh selective pressure for bacteria to develop resistance. \u00a0Many pathogenic bacteria rely on a communication system knows as quorum sensing (QS) to regulate virulence factors necessary for infection of a host. Quorum sensing is controlled by small molecules called autoinducers to coordinate collective behaviors. \u00a0The reliance of quorum sensing bacteria upon small molecule autoinducers to coordinate collective behaviors.\u00a0The reliance\u00a0of quorum sensing bacteria upon small molecule autoinducers affords the opportunity to investigate and\u00a0inhibit quorum sensing systems at the molecular level and provides a potential route to novel anti-inefective\u00a0therapeutics. Our long- term objective is to design and synthesize molecules capable of modulating quorum\u00a0sensing. Blocking this communication system could potentially prevent bacterial pathogenesis with a lower\u00a0risk of resistance. Using the structure of the native Pseudomonas quinolone signal (PQS) as a template, we\u00a0intend to design and synthesize a library of synthetic analogues in order to investigte the potential of these\u00a0compounds to intercept quorum sensing regulated gene expression in <em>P. aeruginosa<\/em>. The compounds\u00a0synthesized during this project will be evaluated for their biological activity with respect to quorum sensing\u00a0with the collaboration of Dr. David Rowley at the University of Rhode Island and Dr. Michael Givskov at the\u00a0University of Copenhagen. In addition to serving as valuable tools in the study of quorum sensing, the\u00a0synthesized compounds are also anticipated to provide potential new leads in the development of antiinfective\u00a0agents.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Human Health Relevance:<\/strong>\u00a0The increasing use of antibiotics in humans, animals, and agriculture has resulted in many microbes\u00a0developing resistance to these powerful drugs. Future effective treatment will require the use of new\u00a0therapeutic agents with different mechanisms of action. The goal of this proposal is to design and\u00a0synthesize potentially novel therapeutics for the treatment of certain bacterial infections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Investigator:\u00a0Susan Meschwitz, Salve Regina University Mentor:\u00a0David Rowley, University of Rhode Island Scientific Theme:\u00a0Molecular Toxicology Abstract:\u00a0The misuse and abuse of antibiotics in pharmacotherapy have led to the development of widespread resistance in the target organism. \u00a0This is especially true in the notoriously difficult to treat, often multidrug resistant pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The failure of existing antibiotics [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1036,"featured_media":0,"parent":10203,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-twocol.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-4834","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/riinbre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/riinbre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/riinbre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/riinbre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1036"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/riinbre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/riinbre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4834\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/riinbre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/riinbre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}