Congratulations to professor Cui Hua Liu and professor Xiao Bo Qiu for publishing a paper on Science

On Oct 15, 2022, professor Cui Hua Liu from CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology and professor Xiao Bo Qiu from China Pharmaceutical University published a paper titled A bacterial phospholipid phosphatase inhibits host pyroptosis by hijacking ubiquitin on Science.

INTRODUCTION: Pyroptosis is a proinflammatory form of programmed cell death characterized by membrane pore formation thatallows the release of intracellular inflammatory mediators, a process that is elicited by the inflammasome-mediated cleavage and activation of gasdermin D (GSDMD). Growing evidence supports a critical role for pyroptosis in the control of infections by mammalian hosts, but how pathogens evade this immune response remains largely unexplored.

RATIONALE: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), an ancient pathogen that causes tuberculosis(TB), has developed numerous intracellular survival strategies to evade host immunity and to drive the occurrence and development of TB. One notable feature evolved by Mtb is a set of eukaryotic-like effectors, but their host targets and regulatory roles in pathogen–host interactions remain largely unclear. In this study, we sought to identify the key pathogenic regulators of inflammasome-pyroptosis pathways from Mtb eukaryotic-like effectors, information that could improve our understanding of TB pathogenesis and provide potential targets for novel anti-TB treatment.

RESULTS: We examined the whole genome of Mtb to predict its secreted eukaryotic-like proteins possessing eukaryotic-like motifs or domains that might target host factors directly.