Abstract
Many bacterial pathogens use a specialized "type III" secretion system to deliver virulence effector proteins into host mammalian cells. In this issue of Cell, Alto et al. (2006) describe a new family of effectors that share a WxxxE sequence motif. These effectors directly stimulate host signaling pathways by mimicking activated Ras-like cellular GTPases.
MeSH terms
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Amino Acid Motifs / physiology
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Bacteria / genetics
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Bacteria / metabolism*
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Bacteria / pathogenicity
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Bacterial Proteins / genetics
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Bacterial Proteins / metabolism
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Bacterial Proteins / physiology*
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Humans
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Molecular Mimicry / physiology*
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Signal Transduction / physiology*
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Virulence / physiology
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ras Proteins / physiology*
Substances
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Bacterial Proteins
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ras Proteins