A surprising sweetener from enteropathogenic Escherichia coli

Abstract

Infections with enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) are remarkably devoid of gut inflammation and necrotic damage compared to infections caused by invasive pathogens such as Salmonella and Shigella. Recently, we observed that EPEC blocks cell death using the type III secretion system (T3SS) effector NleB. NleB mediated post-translational modification of death domain containing adaptor proteins by the covalent attachment of N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) to a conserved arginine in the death domain. N-linked glycosylation of arginine has not previously been reported in mammalian cell biology and the precise biochemistry of this modification is not yet defined. Although the addition of a sin..