ISSN 2329-9835
International Journal of Diseases and Disorders ISSN 2329-9835 Vol. 4 (3), pp. 001-005, March, 2016. © International Scholars Journals
Full Length Research Paper
The vascular endothelial growth factor interacts with Mycobacterium tuberculosis ESAT-6
Yanfen Wang1, Ying Xiao2, Yanhui Li3, Yanhua Feng3, Chunping Li3 and Haichun Ma3*
1Department of Digestive Medicine, the Second Hospital of Jilin University, China.
2The First Hospital of Jilin University, China.
3Department of Anesthesiology, the First Hospital of Jilin University, China.
Accepted 17 October, 2015
Abstract
Mycobacterium tuberculosis continues to be a leading cause of human deaths due to an infectious agent. The ESAT-6 protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) is an important structural and functional protein, which has been known to be involved in the virulence, pathogenesis as well as proliferation of the pathogen, however, little is still known about the host factors that interact with ESAT6. Therefore, a yeast two-hybrid screening of a human lung complementary deoxyribonucleic acid (cDNA) library, using ESAT6 as bait, was performed to identify ESAT-6 interaction with host protein. A vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was found to interact specifically with the ESAT6 protein. Subcellular localization and glutathione S-transferase (GST)-pull down assays were used in an attempt to further confirm the interaction of VEGF and esat-6. All our data suggest that the interaction of VEGF with a structural protein of M. tuberculosis may be important for modulation of virulence of M. tuberculosis.
Key words: ESAT-6 protein, VEGF protein, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Yeast two-hybrid.