Staff profile

Bacteria usually exist in environments under extreme nutrient limitation, but despite the lack of available nutrients they always persist. As the bacteria die, their biomass is released and can be recycled to sustain the living population. However, a lot of the biomass will be locked up in large polymeric molecules such as proteins and DNA which cannot directly be taken up into living cells, raising the question of how is biomass recycled in bacterial populations to allow long-term survival? Does biomass get recycled by living cells or could the catabolism of biomass be done by proteins released from dead cells?

Previous research in our lab has highlighted that recycling of proteins is linked to the genotype of the dead bacteria, rather than the living population. This has highlighted a novel route for nutrient recycling in bacterial populations via the post-mortem actions of proteins from dead bacteria. In particular, they highlighted the role of the Lon Protease and how it generates short peptides which can be more readily taken up by living cells.

My project is primarily focussed on deepening the understanding of how the Lon Protease functions post-mortem, through the identification of mutations which remove its post-mortem function while retaining its private stress response function.