Bacteria are either remarkable models for biology or exhibit phenotypic features of great cognitive, health, or biotech values. Most bacteria are constantly exposed to fluctuating environments and what matters is how they sense, react and adapt to get back to homeostasis. The objective of the Pasteur Unit « Stress Adaptation and Metabolism in enterobacteria » is to understand the stress response at the cellular level. The Unit is meant to host 12 scientists, including staff members (Pasteur, CNRS), visitors, engineers and technicians, post docs and students.
We will study how a wide array of basic functional processes are modified, and possibly coordinated, during stress adaptation. Our research will mainly use E. coli as a model but notions and concepts will be tested in pathogens such as Salmonella or Shigella. Study of two wide elementary processes, biogenesis of Fe-S cluster proteins and lipid homeostasis, will allow us to study stress impact on diverse processes such as aerobic and anaerobic respiration, cell envelope dynamic and morphogenesis, membrane stability and biosynthesis. Adaptation to redox, nutrient limitation, high salt, metal, metabolic stresses will be investigated. Additionally, we will explore stress mediated by antibiotics.
Molecular, biochemical and genetic approaches, along with cutting-edge technologies (–omics, imaging, single cell and microfluidic), will aim to reach an integrated and mechanistic view of the bacterial cell. Multiplying and diversifying the ways of looking at a process is highly rewarding, and joined efforts with specialists from other disciplines, including structuralists, chemists, biophysicists, phylogenomists, immunologists and mathematicians have been, and will be favored.
