Stress adaptation and metabolism in enterobacteria

Bacteria are remarkable models for biology and have phenotypic characteristics of great cognitive, health or biotechnological values. Most bacteria are constantly exposed to fluctuating environments, thus are ideally set to detect, react and adapt to various stress conditions. The Pasteur unit “Adaptation to stress and metabolism of enterobacteria” aims to understand the stress response at the populational, cellular and molecular level. Our unit comprises 12 scientists, including Pasteur and CNRS researchers , engineers and technicians, post-docs and students.
We study how a wide range of basic functional processes are modified, and possibly coordinated, to control cellular homeostasis. Our research mainly uses E. coli as a model, but concepts will be as well tested on pathogens such as Salmonella or Shigella. Focusing on two global cellular processes, Fe-S cluster biogenesis and lipid homeostasis, allows us to study the impact of stress on aerobic and anaerobic metabolism, cell envelope and membrane homeostasis, redox changes, limitation of nutrients, metabolic and antibiotics stresses.
Molecular, biochemical and genetic approaches, as well as cutting-edge technologies (-omics, imaging, single-cell analysis), aim to achieve an integrated and mechanistic vision of the bacterial cell. To multiply and diversify the ways to approach a process is very rewarding, and we collaborate with biochemists, structuralists, chemists, biophysicists, bioinformaticians and phylogeneticists.