A role for tetraspanin proteins in regulating fusion induced by Burkholderia thailandensis.

"Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest"

"This work was supported by PhD scholarships from the Ministry for Higher Education (Libya) and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (Iraq). The authors appreciate the skilled technical assistance provided by the Flow Cytometry Unit (Medical School, University of Sheffield) and expert advice provided by Dr Helen Marriott (infection work) in the Dept Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease. We also thank Drs Marzieh Fanaei, Ibrahim Yaseen, and John Palmer for providing the recombinant EC2 proteins and Jocelyn Pinto for her assistance with work on the CD82 null macrophages (Dept Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Sheffield). We are grateful to Dr. Gabriela Dveksler, Dept. Pathology, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, US for providing us with the CD9 null macrophage cell line and to Professor Jatin Vyas, Division of Infectious Disease, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, US, for the CD82 null macrophage cell line. We would also like to thank Professor Richard Titbull (Dept. Biosciences, University of Exeter, UK) for providing the B. thailandensis strains used."