# Structural and functional studies of the Legionella pneumophila dot T4SS

> **NIH NIH F32** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2021 · $65,726

## Abstract

Project Abstract
Bacterial pathogens are a threat to global health and have evolved elaborate strategies to infect their hosts.
One potent bacterial weapon in the war between host and pathogen is the Type IV secretion system (T4SS),
found in a wide variety of bacterial species, including those that cause human disease, such as Legionella
pneumophila, Helicobacter pylori, Bordetella pertussis, Brucella, Bartonella, and Coxiella. The L. pneumophila,
T4SS translocates 100s of effector proteins into the host cell and is essential for pathogenesis. T4SSs are
challenging complexes to work with because they span the inner and outer membranes of Gram-negative
bacteria and contain a minimum of 12 proteins. Studies in prototype systems, such as E. coli plasmids and A.
tumefaciens show that T4SSs are generally organized into an outer membrane core complex (OMCC), an
inner membrane complex (IMC), and in some species an extracellular pilus. While there are no published high-
resolution (sub-3.5 Å) structures of an entire T4SS; there are sub-3.5 Å structures of OMCCs from both the
Xanthomonas citri and conjugation system that translocate DNA. In contrast to the DNA-translocating T4SSs,
the L. pneumophila T4SS is composed of ~26 components and low resolution (~30 Å) cryo-electron
tomography studies show that this T4SS has an enlarged OMCC and contains periplasmic densities not seen
in the structures of minimized E. coli and X. citri T4SSs. The lack of detailed structural information limits our
mechanistic understanding of how the L. pneumophila T4SS functions and contributes to pathogenesis. The
focus of this proposal is to use a combination of structural and genetic approaches to construct the first
detailed molecular map of the organization of the L. pneumophila T4SS. These high resolution models will be
used to address fundamental questions such as whether there are conserved structural components shared
among T4SSs that can be exploited for new anti-bacterial treatment strategies, how T4SSs are tuned to export
proteins versus nucleic acids, and how export of effectors is regulated.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10084702
- **Project number:** 5F32AI150027-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Clarissa Lynn Durie
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $65,726
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-01-01 → 2021-12-12

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10084702

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10084702, Structural and functional studies of the Legionella pneumophila dot T4SS (5F32AI150027-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10084702. Licensed CC0.

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