One of the problems associated with cystic fibrosis is the occurrence of bacterial infections, in particular Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections that has a high resistance to normal antibiotic treatments.
It is known that the bacterium adhesion to the lung system is based on pili, where the major component is made up of a protein, PilA, present in numerous copies. A flexible region of this protein, the so-called disulfide loop, has long been diagnosed as antigenic. The researchers propose to build peptide molecules containing the disulfide loop bound to a scaffold composed of a second peptide, called aptide.
Computer simulations will be used to verify the correct folding of the aptides and the loop; their three-dimensional structure will be obtained experimentally using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy. Finally, the selected molecule will be used on mice to verify that it can produce specific antibodies against the loop.
Once the system has been set up using the disulfide loop of specific strains, this can be applied to the disulfide loops of other strains, to arrange a cocktail of peptides hosting diverse loops, able to trigger immune response towards a greater number of strains.