Hi there. I have a question in one one of my microbiology courses due
Tuesday and I haven't a clue how to do it. Please mail me directly if
you have any ideas. Any help would be appreciated and thanks in advance.
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You are asked to consult for a pharmaceutical company and they want your
analysis of the pattern gene expression they have noticed in a strain of
Enterococcus faecalis which is resistant to MLS antibiotics other than
erythromycin. They give you the following information:
1) The S.aureus strain can induce resistance in under 30 minutes as
measured by an increase in optical density after lag phase if small
amounts of MLS antibiotics are added to the medium.
2) The addition of rifampicin does not affect this induction period; the
addition of streptomycin does affect the resistance of MLS antibiotics.
3) The induction of drug resistance was sensitive to rifampicin if the
culture was grown in Todd Hewitt broth containing extra glucose.
4) Phosphorylation studies on cytoplasmic membrane proteins revealed
one protein which was labelled with 32P (radioactive) in the presence of
MLS antibiotics.
The company president has been reading Popular Scientist and thinks the
control mechanism involves an antisense RNA. Do you agree with him?
Describe your model. Describe one experiment to test your hypothesis.
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Again thanks for any help.
Azam Kanani
akanani at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca
