Screening a Random HilE Mutant Library to Characterize HilD Regulation in Salmonella

Authors

• Danista Kannah, North Hennepin Community College
• Gracious Donkor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• James M. Slauch, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

Summer 2026

Abstract

Salmonella is a leading cause of gastrointestinal diseases globally. It utilizes a type three secretion system (T3SS) encoded on Salmonella Pathogenicity Island 1 (SPI1) to invade host intestinal epithelial cells during infection.

HilE directly regulates HilD via a direct protein-protein interaction. The Slauch lab identified two HilD variants, A141V and A141T, which are blind to HilE. These variants activate hilA expression even in the presence of HilE, indicating that the binding of HilE to these mutants is compromised.

Hypothesis: Performing random mutagenesis of hilE could lead to changes at the protein level which could compensate for the loss of interaction between the HilE and HilD variants.

Rights

Copyright is owned by the creator of this work.

Recommended Citation

Kannah, Danista; Donkor, Gracious; and Slauch, James M., "Screening a Random HilE Mutant Library to Characterize HilD Regulation in Salmonella" (2026). MICRO-CCS student projects. 23.
https://spark.parkland.edu/micro_ccs_student/23