Team:Warsaw/Glossary

Apoptosis is a natural process of programmed cell death. Apoptosis can be induced by many factors and its function is to remove damaged and unnecessary cells from the organism. In our project we want to induce apoptosis of tumor cells, using p53 or bax proteins, both involved in control of this process

Bcl-2–associated X protein (bax) is a pro-apoptotic protein. Although it's found mainly in the cytosol, upon initiation of apoptosis it's shifted to organellar membranes. It's believed that bax is responsible for opening special channels in the mitochondrial outer membrane, causing release of pro-apoptotic factors like cytochrome c.

Invasin is one of proteins crucial for pathogenic features of enteropathogenic bacteria like Yersinia sp. or Salmonella sp. Invasin interacts with integrins, receptors occuring on the surface of eukariotic cell membrane, what triggers signalling cascade leading to endocytosis of whole pathogenic bacteria.

This is one of the Salmonella typhimurium PhoP-dependent promoters. MgtC gene is a virulence factor in Salmonella typhimurium that is required for growth at low-Mg2+ concentrations and intramacrophage survival

p53 is a protein well-known for people interested in cancer. p53 is a tumor suppressor and main factor involved in control of cell-cycle, mutated in more than half of tumors. Some data shows that presence of p53 in mitochondria is able to induce apoptosis.

PhoP/PhoQ is a two-component regulatory system which controls the virulence of Salmonella typhimurium. Under conditions of low pH and/or low metal ions concentration PhoP activates promoters responsible for virulence and sirvival of Salmonella within macrophages, like the promoter of mgtc gene. Whole system will be used to control bacteria escape from endosome