Elodie Malherbe
Pronouns:
Research Mentor(s): J Fenno
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Biologic and Materials Sciences / Dentistry
Program:
Authors: Elodie Mahlerbe, M. Paula Goetting-Minesky, J. Christopher Fenno
Session: Session 2: 10:00 am – 10:50 am
Poster: 61
Abstract
T. denticola is an oral spirochete that plays a role in periodontal disease. Expression of the T. denticola dentilisin protease operon is controlled by a bi-directional promoter (P-prcB / P-yvrC). The PrcB promoter drives expression of the dentilisin protease operon and the YvrC promoter drives expression an iron uptake system. Since these promoters overlap, we are interested in seeing how expression of these genes change under different conditions. To investigate these two promoters, we used plasmids that contained either PrcB or YvrC promoter driving expression of the Bs2 fluorescent protein. We transformed T. denticola 35405 and protease mutant P0760 with the plasmids. We plan to assay the transformed strains in a plate reader to quantify fluorescence. We expect the transformants with the different promoters to have different results in the different host strains. In our transformation process, we found that the PrcB promoter as annotated did not yield Bs2 expression. We designed PrcB promoter plasmids with extended sequences (21 or 30 bp) consistent with alternate PrcB start sites. These new plasmids resulted in successful expression of Bs2 fluorescence, suggesting that the annotation of the PrcB gene and itspromoter need to be updated.
