Molecular Mechanisms of the Interaction of Interacellular Pathogen Francisella Tularensis and Antigen Presenting Cells

Title of the PhD thesis: The molecular mechanisms of the interaction of Francisella tularensis and antigen presenting cells Abstract: Over the past few decades, reductionist approaches dominated in the study of biological systems and helped to understand many basic principles that underlie host- pathogen interaction. Nevertheless, recent advances in genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics have enabled to design new type of experiments and get thus novel information of all the components of biological systems, as well as to characterize interaction among them. Profiling of proteins, as main carriers of biological activity, is especially of great interest in order to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of infection in space and time. Nowadays, there is a need to develop new antibiotic and anti-viral drugs, extensively investigate the respective infectious agents in regard to pathogen-specific signaling processes or enzymes that do not occur in human cells. However, pathogens have evolved different strategies to avoid the host defense mechanisms. The fact that pathogens exploit many factors of the host cell signaling machinery for finding safe niche for their replication provides the basis for an alternative, host-directed strategy to prevent establishing of infection in a host. This PhD thesis applies..