Research >> Infectious Disease
smitra@bu.edu
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Sangha Mitra, Ph.D. Senior Research Associate, Dept of Molecular and Cell biology Giardia lamblia is an intestinal pathogen that
causes giardiasis, popularly known as beaver fever or backpacker's diarrhea.
Giardia is a flagellate protozoan that inhabits the digestive tract of a wide
variety of domestic and wild animal species, as well as humans. It is a
common cause of gastroenteritis in humans, infecting approximately 200
million people worldwide. My
current laboratory uses molecular biological methods to study the
biochemistry, cell biology, pathogenesis, and evolution of this important
human pathogen. Specifically, I am investigating important enzymes from Giardia and identifying the cellular
pathway involved in activating the best drug, metrinidazole against Giardia infection. The
vast majority of eukaryotes synthesize Asn-linked glycans (Alg) by means of a
lipid-linked precursor dolichol-PP-GlcNAc2Man9Glc3. Knowledge of this pathway
is important because defects in the glycosyltransferases lead to numerous
congenital disorders of glycosylation. Giardia has an unusually small glycan
that does not incorporate mannose, thus providing an excellent model to study
the in vivo synthesis of glycan. My
second goal is to synthesize the complete glycan precursor in Giardia by introducing external genes
in the parasite. Related Publications: 1.
Work,
currently in progress, in 2009. |
