Researchers from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW) in Warsaw, together with scientists from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, USA, have discovered the biochemical mechanism of one of the effector proteins of the bacterium “Legionella pneumophila”, which may contribute to the creation of a drug for legionellosis.

The results of the work were described in the journal Science in the article ‘Bacterial pseudokinase catalyzes protein polyglutamylation to inhibit the SidE-family ubiquitin ligases’. The main author of the publication is Dr Vincent Tagliabracci from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center from Dallas in the USA and his PhD student Miles Black. The Polish co-authors are Dr Krzysztof Pawłowski from the Department of Experimentation and Bioinformatics of the Faculty of Agriculture and Biology at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences and a PhD student Marcin Gradowski.

The discovered mechanism of action of the SidJ effector protein, which regulates (blocks) other effector protein of SidE bacteria, gives hope for the invention of the drug for incurable legionellosis disease.