Structural Immunology - Graham BENTLEY (Unit Closed)
Activities of the Unit
Research themes of the unit centre on the structural and functional characterization of macromolecules with a biomedical interest, with particular emphasis given to antigens from infectious agents that are vaccine candidates or targets for drug design (malaria, shigellosis). Structural studies by X-ray crystallography form the mainstay of our research.
(1) Plasmodium vaccine candidates: PfEMP1, AMA1 (G. Bentley)
(2) Antigenic recognition of LPS from Shigella flexneri (B. Vulliez-Le Normand)
(3) Site-specific recombinases from Plasmodium falciparum and Vibrio cholerae (D. Gopaul)
(4) Neurotoxic and anticoagulant phospholipases A2 from serpents (G. Faure)
The three most significant publications:
1. MacDonald D, Demarre G, Bouvier M, Mazel D, Gopaul DN. (2006) Structural basis for broad DNA-specificity in integron recombination. Nature. 440:1157-62.
2. Vulliez-Le Normand B, Saul FA, Phalipon A, Bélot F, Guerreiro C, Mulard LA, Bentley GA. (2008) Structures of synthetic O-antigen fragments from serotype 2a Shigella flexneri in complex with a protective monoclonal antibody. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.
3. Srivastava A, Gangnard S, Round A, Dechavanne S, Juillerat A, Raynal B, Faure G, Baron B, Ramboarina S, Singh SK, Belrhali H, England P, Lewit-Bentley A, Scherf A, Bentley GA, Gamain B. (2010) Full-length extracellular region of the var2CSA variant of PfEMP1 is required for specific, high-affinity binding to CSA. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 107:4884-9.
(1) Plasmodium vaccine candidates: PfEMP1, AMA1 (G. Bentley)
(2) Antigenic recognition of LPS from Shigella flexneri (B. Vulliez-Le Normand)
(3) Site-specific recombinases from Plasmodium falciparum and Vibrio cholerae (D. Gopaul)
(4) Neurotoxic and anticoagulant phospholipases A2 from serpents (G. Faure)
| P. falciparum Rosette |
PfEMP1 rosetting domain |
|
Integron Integrase/attC DNA,
X-ray 3D structure |
The three most significant publications:
1. MacDonald D, Demarre G, Bouvier M, Mazel D, Gopaul DN. (2006) Structural basis for broad DNA-specificity in integron recombination. Nature. 440:1157-62.
2. Vulliez-Le Normand B, Saul FA, Phalipon A, Bélot F, Guerreiro C, Mulard LA, Bentley GA. (2008) Structures of synthetic O-antigen fragments from serotype 2a Shigella flexneri in complex with a protective monoclonal antibody. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.
3. Srivastava A, Gangnard S, Round A, Dechavanne S, Juillerat A, Raynal B, Faure G, Baron B, Ramboarina S, Singh SK, Belrhali H, England P, Lewit-Bentley A, Scherf A, Bentley GA, Gamain B. (2010) Full-length extracellular region of the var2CSA variant of PfEMP1 is required for specific, high-affinity binding to CSA. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 107:4884-9.