Research Projects
We perform fundamental research on bacteria. We try to answer questions such as:
-Why some bacteria take hours to divide while others do that in just few minutes?
-How does genome organization influences bacterial growth rate?
-Can we reprogram bacterial growth for biotechnological use?
And more widely:
-How genome structure interplays with its spatial organization and bacterial physiology?
We approach these questions using:
-
Vibro cholerae a fast growing pathogenic agent causing cholera.
-
Badyrhizobium an extremely slow-growing bug with agricultural interest.
These two bugs are extreme examples of growth rate. V. cholerae divides every 15-17 min. while Bradyrhizoba needs 7-20 hs to replicate. We study how some sequence patterns could be involved in this phenotype. For instance, by relocating ribosomal protein genes we were able to tune V. cholerae growth rate.
To approach these research themes, we use techniques ranging from molecular biology, recombineering, microscopy and microbiology . We assay experimentally several observations and correlations coming from bioinformatics.
Bradyrhizobia isolated from the field
V. cholerae is among the fastest growing bacteria. This video shows V. cholerae (green) dividing every 17 minutes overgrowing E. coli (not labelled)
Genome organization of strains in wich the main ribosomal protein locus (S10) was widely relocated. We show the parental, movants, and merodiploid strains. The orange arrow represents S10 according to its genomic position and ploidy. (c) The maximum growth rate (µ, black dots) and the relative S10 dosage (gray squares) and expression (white triangles) with respect to the parental strain were plotted as a function of S10 relocation along the ori-ter axis in the V. cholerae genome. S10 location, dosage, expression, and the µ closely correlate.
