Orenburg state university

Research of Immunity in OSU Laboratory

Project of Dmitriy Deryabin, Head of OSU Microbiology Department (Faculty of Chemistry and Biology) became a winner of grants competition conducted by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and Administration of Orenburg region.

OSU scientists are working at estimation technology for oxidative metabolism of innate immunity’s cell factor implementing recombinant luminescent bacteria.

Immunity cells (phagocytes) absorb bacteria protecting organism from infections. It is possible to estimate efficiency of phagocytes in real-time mode by using the recombinant luminescent bacteria. Scientists have integrated new genes to that kind of bacteria responsible for luminescence. A special bacteria group is strains that “flame up” under the influence of specific factors, for example, active oxygen forms. This factor allows studying the particularities of phagocyte’s oxidative metabolism what belongs to the most important factors of the cells’ efficiency.

For the moment scientific society already know estimation methods for producing level of oxygen’s active form using of chemical substances (chromogenes and fluorochromes). But in this case it’s impossible to make a conclusion about effective absorbing of metabolites by bacterial cells upon contact with phagocytes.

The aim of scientists’ group under the supervision of Dmitriy Deryabin is to estimate the level of bacteria stress, to uncover the types of oxygen’s metabolites and concentrations of destructive influence. This research allows determining the way of phagocytes’ influence on bacteria and efficiency level of oxygen system for its utilization.