Research
The role of riboregulators and RNA-binding proteins in regulating adaptive responses in microorganisms.
Figure legend: Left image. S. aureus microscopy image. Second and third image: Biofilms were stained with sypro dye and imaged using a confocal microscope. Last image. Cryo-SEM image of an S. aureus biofilm. Confocal and cryo-SEM images were generated by Mehak Chauhan.
My group is studying the role of riboregulators and RNA binding proteins in regulation of gene expression during adaptive responses. Many microorganisms, in particular human pathogens, have evolved clever mechanisms to be able to very rapidly adapt to stress caused by environmental changes, such as changes in host temperature and nutrient availability. This enables them to efficiently maintain cellular homeostasis even in hostile environments. Our goal is to gain mechanistic insights into regulatory strategies used by these organisms to adapt to stress.
Our research focusses on riboregulators and RNA-binding proteins that play a key role in stress adaptation. In collaboration with Jay Tree (University of Sydney), David Gally (Roslin Institute) and Ross Fitzgerald (Roslin Institute) we are currently working on a number of bacterial pathogens to unravel the role of these factors in the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression (for example, see Tree et al 2014, van Nues et al 2017, Iosub et al 2019 and Chu et al, 2022).
This work is sponsored by generous contributions from:
