Lipolysis & Bacterial Pathogenicity Team

Dr. Stéphane Canaan

Team Leader

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We aim at deciphering the physiological role of lipolytic enzymes involved in lipid metabolism in pathogenic mycobacteria (such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, M. abscessus, M. marinum, M. ulcerans), their regulation during the infection process; and to develop specific models to study these enzymes and their inhibitors in order to regulate the spread of the disease.

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We have indeed established that these enzymes are involved in bacterial growth, virulence (reactivation and propagation), dormancy, lipid storage and degradation as well as in cell wall biosynthesis. Moreover, our work leads to the discovery of two new family of lipolytic enzyme inhibitors with strong anti-tuberculous effects, and which are useful probes to study mycobacterial lipid metabolism, thus opening a new way to fight the disease.

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The team expertise range from protein biochemistry (purification, biochemical characterization, expression of recombinant protein using E. coli, M. smegmatis, P. Pastoris or baculovirus expression systems), molecular and cell biology (construction of mutant strains, cell infection), lipid analysis to medicinal chemistry (organic synthesis, in silico docking, enzymology, susceptibility testing...) and cell imaging (fluorescence and electron microscopy).

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