• Question: what is a brick laying protein?

    Asked by to Anita, Amy on 24 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Anita Thomas

      Anita Thomas answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      Hi @jimc3cory,

      I’m not quite sure what you mean. But here goes. One of the things I look at is the extracellular matrix – the brick proteins – of arteries and veins. Did you know that they change during disease? Some of these brick-proteins are collagens (there are many different sorts) and some are elastins (and they are more elastic – surprise!). There are many ones with sugars attached to them, and these can also signal (transfer information) to cells.

      Cheers,
      Anita.

    • Photo: Amy Monaghan

      Amy Monaghan answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      Hi Jimc3cory

      Are you referring to this story that was recently in the news?
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27907461

      In this case the brick-laying protein is an important machine that bacterial cells use to build their cell wall. Bacterial cells and human cells are different. Imagine that a human cell is a balloon filled with water. Now imagine that a bacterial cell is also a balloon filled with water, but it is kept inside a cardboard box at all times. This cardboard box is the cell wall, and animal cells don’t have this. The cell wall is what we target with antibiotics which is why they’re so good at killing bacteria but don’t harm us at all.

      Bacterial cell walls are made up of a substance called peptidoglycan, which is basically made from sugar (polysacharide) bricks. The brick laying protein LptDE pulls the sugar bricks that the bacteria makes into place in it’s cell wall.

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